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
K.I.W.K 