In March, we kicked off our mentoring program with Ulta Beauty, Girls United: Beautiful Possibilities, designed to help young women tap into their creativity and passion for beauty as they build a special makeup collection.

Get to know the first set of our girls a little better, starting with Kristian Hardy, Marieme Drame and Asha Yearwood—three of the six chosen from hundreds of applicants to be part of this special opportunity.

Watch the video to see why they applied, and what they looked forward to as they got ready to head to the Ulta Beauty headquarters in Chicago for the program kick-off.

Click here to get to know the other girls in the squad. And stay tuned for more videos that follow their journey as they built heir product collection and learned from ESSENCE and Ulta Beauty mentors, as well as other special guests!