Recently, Hampton University had its annual freshman ball. As the day approached my friends and I had a lot of last minute errands to do to prepare for this night. We had to buy our dresses, shoes, and lastly makeup. Buying the makeup we needed to get ready for the night was probably the hardest part. One of my friends had to go to tons of stores just to find a concealer her shade. Women of color tend to have a difficult time finding makeup because companies don't make a lot of darker shades.
It seems as though women of color love makeup, but the makeup companies don't love us back. I purchased something from Sephora, and for every purchase you receive three samples. When my package came, I excitedly opened it only to find that I received a sample from Nars that contained four pasty white concealers. Even if makeup companies do cater to women of color, they only have shades available for lighter, or fair skinned women.
If we really want makeup that covers the full spectrum of all shades we have to do it ourselves. That's where companies such as Milani, Iman, Shea Moisture, and other black makeup companies come in. Unfortunately, these products are only sold in select stores. Yes, other companies like MAC have shades dark enough for black women, but their products are a bit pricey.
Another problem women of color have is finding shades that look nice on our skin tones. For example, nude lipsticks look different on everyone. There is an app called "Cocoa Swatches" that have black women trying on different makeup products. This allows us to see what products would look like on someone with a similar skintone, before we buy.
Black women are extremely under-represented in the makeup industry. When will we have makeup that suits every range of skin tones. Yes, we have made progress on this issue, but we still have a very long way to go.
