Founder
Gloria Ntanzola
Gloria Ntanzola is the founder of Oryl Cosmetics, a Nairobi-based skincare brand making brightening and barrier-repair products for melanin-rich skin. She started Oryl after years of seeing friends and clients across East Africa damage their skin with bleaching creams marketed as brightening — and built the alternative she wanted to use herself.
What Gloria Ntanzola builds at Oryl
Every Oryl formula begins with a concern Gloria hears from customers in Nairobi — hyperpigmentation, post-acne marks, sun damage and dryness — rather than an ingredient trend. Prototypes are tested on deep skin tones first, and active percentages are printed on every label.
Under her direction, nothing leaves the lab with hydroquinone, mercury or steroids. What stays: kojic acid, azelaic acid, alpha arbutin, niacinamide, ceramides and East African shea and argan oils.
Gloria also leads Oryl's customer education work, answering routine questions directly and publishing simple, honest guidance on how brightening actives should be layered on melanin-rich skin.
2019
Oryl founded
Nairobi
Based in Kenya
0
Banned brighteners
In her words
“Even tone should come from a healthy barrier, never from bleaching. That is the whole brief behind Oryl.”
Gloria Ntanzola, Founder