Discrimination Against people of color in the makeup industry
I really want to start reviewing cosmetic products that often exclude darker shades or limit the shade range for poc (People of Color).
Finding a foundation was always very hard for me either I could not find my shade, that or my shade of skin was darker.
Me being a woman of color although I'm considered dark in pigment in my own opinion, I'm not really considered "dark" or "rich" in my community, often poc (People of color)are darker than a warm tan are excluded from the shade range or have to settle for a shade either too light or too dark due to the fact that there are no in-between colors.
When you google "Foundation" the number one results are ALWAYS for lighter skintones, and honestly, I feel discriminated by this fact as a person of color.
I really hope opening not only poc but everyone outside my shade range or lighter's eyes too the exclusion will make a difference in the long run
I really hope to open not only people of color's eyes, but everyone outside my shade's range, or lighters eyes too the exclusion will make a difference in the long run for everyone.
Take a look at all of these shades of foundation.
As you can see here, the shades of foundation for lighter shade skin tones out number the foundations for darker skin tones.
This is an issue in the make-up industry, as it happens throughout plenty of brands and make-up types.
I really feel that makeup should be presented and showcased and even created for all skintones, not just heavily skewed towards one type.
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I don't think it's discrimination, it's more statistics.
If we consider the demographics of the United States for example, there are around 230 million white people, and just 39 million black people. [1] Knowing this, it's clear that there is a larger market for those with a white skin tone, and thus the lighter skin tones would sell better, the increased sales of the lighter skin tones allows for more investment into different shades of the white skin tone makeup.
Loreal would be appealing to the "masses", rather than focusing on a more niche area, as this allows them to make more money. If they were to increase the diversity of the darker skin tones, this could impair the income of each individual darker shade.
The increased diversity would result in the profit for each individual shade becoming lower, and this would affect retailers. The retailers wouldn't want to stock 12 different shades of black (with each shade costing them money), if they know that 6 of those shades are barely making money, and taking up shelf space for the lighter shades which are making more money.
Eventually, this would result in Loreal discontinuing those newer shades, as retailers would stop buying them, limiting to the original darker shades which were more popular.
This can be seen in the fast food industry. Once upon a time, McDonalds launched a hot dog. They're pretty much the most popular fast food restaurant in the world, so you'd think they'd have no issue selling hot dogs, right? No, they ended up discontinuing it because not enough people were buying them.
In this case, Loreal is like McDonalds, as much as they could add more items, the demand is not there. By adding the new shades, they would have to convince retailers to add those shades to their stock, but they may believe based on current sales of their existing darker shades, that such items would be low interest and result in not enough demand to continue selling them.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States
No chris it's definitely racism and discrimination. Try googling makeup, and the number 1 result will always be white skin tone.
This is definitely a sensitive topic that should be looked into. I am a black beauty bloggers and can totally relate. Just like the new Tarte Shape tape foundation. I feel like that was absolutely intentional and also disrespectful. Thank you for this post!
I'm very light, but I still have issues finding a shade. I'm sagkeeng ( a Canada first nation band) and have a neural undertone. There are very bands that even make neural undertones. Shade ranges need to grow with how many people are wearing makeup, not get smaller.