Exclusion in Beauty for WOC

Last month, popular high-end makeup brand Tarte released their new Rainforest of the Sea collection. The collection includes a highlighting palette, color-correcting palette, eye-shadow palette, 12 matte lipsticks and a Water Foundation that is offered in 12 different shades. While searching through the shade range, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of diversity for darker skin tones. As an African-American woman, as well as frequent makeup buyer, this did not come as a surprise to me. Many high- end and low-end makeup brands tend to focus more on lighter skin complexions. Out of all 12 shades, there was only one shade that could be meant for AA women.

Since around my pre-teen years, I have had an interest in makeup. I remember when I received my first computer and started watching Youtube videos. I went from aisle to aisle, looking for all of drugstore makeup brands that my favorite makeup guru’s used.Even at such a young age, I was able to easily catch on to the fact that many makeup brands catered to every skin tone but mine.

 

About seven or eight years later, the amount of discrimination from makeup companies toward African American women is still very prevalent. Even now, most of the biggest drugstore makeup brands (Covergirl, Maybelline, Revlon) only have about 3-5 shades available for black women.  Rimmel London, one of the world’s top makeup brands, has  zero.  

 Above ( Milani Coneal+ Perfect 2-in-1 Foundation + Concelear)

Although not yet fully diverse , higher end makeup brands usually have a larger shade range than drugstore brands. Nars, a popular US makeup brand,   has done a good job making an effort for inclusion.

My proposed solution to this would be for us AA women to stop supporting businesses that do not want our support. Essence’s 2009 Smart Beauty research study found that African-American women spend $7.5 billion annually on beauty products and spent 80 percent more on cosmetics and skin-care products than the general market. There are plenty of cosmetic lines available to us that understand black has more than two shades.

Below is a compiled list of my favorite black-owned makeup brands for WOC:

BlackUp

Black Radiance

Iman

Black Opal

Fashion Fair

#MelaninPoppin

Several times I have been asked questions like…
“Why are you constantly advocating for black women?”

“Why do you read so many black feminist books and articles?”

The answer to both of those questions is very simple.

 

 

 

From as long as I can remember, all I can recall hearing while growing up was negative portrayals of black women. “Black women are loud”

“Black women are gold diggers”

“Black women are always angry”

Yet, I think the most common phrase that shaped the majority of my mindset during my pre-teen and adolescent years was “black women are ugly.”

Being an African American girl with a darker skin tone, I was quickly exposed to the amount of internalized racism within the African American community. The “lighter skinned vs darker skinned” debate is a concept too familiar to me.

 Even now in the year 2016, it is still very evident in the black community. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been told that I was “pretty for a dark-skinned girl”, I would be rich.

Just recently while scrolling on the popular social networking site Twitter, I came across a few tweets that triggered very emotional responses from me.

I want to say that I was surprised by the  fact that these ignorant comments came from men who are African American themselves, but I was not. A lot of the disrespect towards black women comes from other black women or black men.

The only time that I can truly say that I see black women being praised is when it is either sexual or comes with stipulations.

By stipulations, I’m referring to the fact that a lot of the time that black women are called Queens it is because they fit a specific description that appeals to the male population.  I almost never see women who aren’t necessarily societies idea of “conservative” or “traditional” being referred to as queens.

Black women are constantly degraded and belittled to nothing more than sexual objects. I’ve heard “black girls have the fattest asses” way more than I’ve heard “black women are intelligent.” This ideology dates back to Saartjie Baartman. (refer below)

Video vixens like Miracle Watts and Lira Galore often are praised and disrespected in the same breath. One might try to argue and say that they are “hoes with nice bodies” but more often than not, black women from all backgrounds are constantly disrespected.

When pro-black feminism movements like “melanin popping” and “black girl magic” became prevalent, several people responded in a negative way.

When black women finally start to accept and love themselves in their natural state, they are persecuted and looked down upon.

  
Why is it that people feel so threaten when black women finally exhibit confidence in a society where they are otherwise deemed ugly?

The bottom line is that there is so much internalized racism and self-hatred within the black community. Even with all of the progress we have made as a race, there is still much to be made.