ASOS, a British online fashion and beauty store, came under scrutiny this weekend when Twitter user @peatreebojangle posted these images from their website:
She tweeted the images with the following caption: "'hey! black ppl! u don't need to wear this foundation, but we will use u as a measure of others lightness!'"
ASOS responded to the tweet apologizing for any offense caused and is said to be removing the image. Maybelline New York also responded, assuring that the image was not produced by them and that they do offer darker skin tones. They agreed with the inappropriateness of the swatching.
ASOS is no stranger to criticism, having previously posted an image of a black woman modeling a shirt that had "SLAVE" printed across it. Besides pointing out the often political incorrectness of the online store, the series of tweets also brought light to the issue of beauty companies failing to provide products to people of darker complexions. Drugstore brands typically offer numerous shades for variations of light skin, but provide very few or generic tones for darker skin, making it difficult for people to find certain products to match their tone correctly and then having to spend more on high-end products as they are the only ones to properly cater to deeper tones.
Maybelline had previously been criticized for the absence of deeper tones in the UK when their matte foundations came out. Nadia Gray, a beauty blogger, addressed her disappointment in a blog post from February when she went to try the new foundation. She had noticed an advertisement for the foundation featuring a black model, Jourdan Dunn. However, when looking on the UK website, Gray found the darkest shade was 'Sun Beige.' She wrote the following:
“Even though I am annoyed by this I am not surprised, this is an issue that plagues any woman who is not white. Getting anything to suit your skin tone from global beauty brands is almost impossible.
"I, like so many other black women, have to buy high-end foundations and concealer because billion dollar beauty corporations simply don’t cater for us. They always make the same excuses saying there is no market for the product which is just not true. There is a huge population of black women in the United Kingdom.
"Maybelline, L’oreal, Rimmel, Max Factor and any other drugstore brand: do we not have skin? Don’t we also need makeup? Not everyone can afford to or have to be subjected to spending over £20 on foundation.
"Maybelline has taken a black British woman and used her in their adverts to sell products but Jourdan couldn’t walk into boots or super drug and buy the same product she is advertising.
"It is sad because I buy Maybelline and other drugstore brands regularly. Their mascaras are amazing but they are still not catering to a huge and hungry market and we are still having this discussion in 2016.”
Maybelline has since assured they would make the darker shades available in the UK. While adding foundation shades for people with deeper skin tones is definitely a step in the right direction, it's a step that should not still have to be taken in our age. It's a cycle of a company releasing a makeup line, receiving complaints from darker complected people that they do not have their shades, and then the shades are added after the fact. Too often they are forgotten about when it is being created in the first place.
People should not have to demand billion dollar companies to produce affordable makeup that will match their skin tone. Action should not only be taken due to outrage but because everyone is deserving of affordable and diverse shades of makeup. It is unfortunate that, in 2016, beauty companies still have to use trial and error to fix this issue and that it even exists in the first place.
