Within the beauty industry brands are increasingly becoming more aware of racial diversity within their marketing, advertising and products as a whole.
This is particularly seen with cosmetic brand ‘Fenty Beauty’ which celebrates all skin tones with 40 different foundation colours, which has encouraged other makeup brands to expand their colour spectrum of foundations too. (Gassam, 2018) This has raised the question as to why other brands had not created so many inclusive shades in the past, as there’s no excuse that it wasn’t possible.
An article from the New York Times discusses the need for more improvements in the beauty industry, Sam Fine a makeup artist states that the changes for inclusivity need to last rather than be viewed as trends. Stocks need to be supplied of all shades in all stores not just the flagship ones, and makeup artists should be trained to apply makeup to all skin types not just their own. He says ‘It’s not just about putting a black model next to Gigi Hadid.’ This shows that changes must be in depth and long term not just because the campaign one year involves a woman of colour when the next year it may not. (Shapiro, 2018)
Therefore the truth is that a lot of brands are increasing their makeup colour range to suit all skin tones but its not just all about increasing the shades. Ultimately its also about teaching makeup artists how to apply makeup to all ethnicities and to stock these products in every store to make them accessible everywhere.
References:
Gassam, J. (2018) ‘Five Diversity And Inclusion Trends We Can Expect In 2019’ Forbes. (accessed 28th February) https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2018/12/19/5-diversity-and-inclusion-trends-we-can-expect-in-2019/#7b17ec3d6f7b
Shapiro, B. (2018) ‘Beauty is more diverse than ever, but is it diverse enough?’ The New York Times. (accessed 28th February) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/style/beauty-diversity.html
Garcia, C. (2017) ‘Fenty Beauty’s Dark Foundation Shades Are Selling Fast — Here’s Why That Matters’ Popsugar. (accessed 28th February) https://www.popsugar.co.uk/beauty/Fenty-Beauty-Dark-Foundation-Shades-Sold-Out-44015305?utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=US:GB&utm_source=direct (use image)
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