Makeup Brand That Sold 'Black Face Paint' Foundation Finally 'Addresses' Controversy. Somewhat.
Poorly! They did it very poorly!
Back in April, in response to criticism over the lack of darker shades in their Date Night foundation line, the makeup company Youthforia finally came out with a shade for darker skin tones. A much, much darker skin tone.
Actually, what they came out with was black face paint. Just straight up black face paint with one single pigment in it — iron oxide. Now, there is a reason that no other makeup company (except perhaps those who once catered to Al Jolson) has ever made the bold move of putting out a pure black foundation before, and that is because there is no human being on earth with pure black skin and no undertones. When foundation is mixed, it’s with varying degrees of red, blue and yellow.
Unsurprisingly, this move did not go over very well! TikToker Golloria went viral with her review of the product, demonstrating how it was indistinguishable from black face paint.
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This video, which racked up over three million views, came out on April 29. Since then, countless other videos have been made criticizing the brand for … whatever the hell this was supposed to be.
And up until last week, the brand said nothing about it. Not one word. As it turns out, that may have been the better move, as the way they did finally address it was actually worse. Instead of mentioning the controversy, they posted a job opening on Instagram.
“We are creating a new position internally dedicated to examining both our current products and those in development so we can best meet your needs,” the post read. The oddly long ad is for one single position, titled Director of Product Developmentm who will be in charge of doing the jobs of approximately 17 people, including director of product development, chief diversity officer, project manager, marketer and whatever you call someone who would be in charge of regulatory compliance.
And, again, there was no apology, acknowledgement of the situation and the product itself is still for sale on the site.
As you can see in the picture above, there are twice as many shades for white skin as there are for Black skin. This is certainly not because white people have a wider range of shades.
While makeup companies have always offered a wider range of shades for light and medium skin, it’s actually only very recently that more are doing the same for darker skin tones. More plainly, a whole lot of makeup companies — aside from MAC and some others — just straight up ignored the existence of Black people or thought they could throw in a few darker shades at the end and call it a day.
In fact, it actually wasn’t until Fenty debuted with a 40 (now 50) shade foundation line in 2017 that more brands started to really offer more inclusive options. Yes, you read that right. 2017. In fact, part of the reason Rihanna started Fenty in the first place was because she had her own issues with shade matching whenever she was getting her makeup done and wanted to be sure everyone felt included. And now, 40 shades or more is the new standard (depending on the formulation, obviously lighter-coverage foundations don’t have to be as wide-ranging). It is no longer acceptable to put out a line of foundations with 15 shades, most of which are light or medium.
It should be very clear to makeup brands by now that if they cannot offer an inclusive line of foundations, then they should not bother releasing one at all. People will not accept it, and they shouldn’t have to.
It should also be clear to companies in general that if they hired a more diverse workforce from the outset, they would be a lot less likely to end up in situations like this and try to make up for it last minute by scrambling to find a product development director who can also DEI them up. Because then, they might have more people to ask “Hey, should we rebrand Shinola shoe polish as a foundation instead of just releasing a normal range of deeper shades?” and could be told “No, not unless you are trying to bring minstrel shows back, which you also should not try to do.”
It’s not that hard.
PREVIOUSLY:
I just want to say that I think it's incredibly, incredibly sad that we can't discuss an incident of racism in the cosmetics industry without people trying to drag it back to some Madonna/Whore nonsense over makeup.
It's fine if you don't wear makeup! I would never judge you for that. But it doesn't make you better, smarter or deeper than those of us who do happen to enjoy it and see it as a mode of creative expression. Or than those who just happen to like the way they look in it!
Also, if you are a cis man who does not wear makeup, your opinion on it is irrelevant from all sides.
It's also fine if you don't like fashion or pop music or reality television or other things that tend to be considered female-coded in our society. But it doesn't make you better, smarter or deeper than those who do like those things (Are you better and smarter than Michelle Obama?).
Don't wear heels? Great! Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I like living in a world where I have that choice and can do whatever the hell I want and enjoy a wide variety of things.
I hate the words involved in the expression "Don't yuck somebody's yum" but it's not a bad attitude to have about people's personal choices and interests, as long as those interests are not "cockfighting and child labor."
"There's no money to be made in cosmetics for people of color"
*Fenty proceeds to make one hundred gazillion dollars selling cosmetics to people of color*