For years, most of the beauty and fashion industry’s product releases and marketing campaigns were focused on a very narrow demographic: a slightly tanned woman with straight to wavy hair. However, many women fall outside of that category, and they have some serious buying power. Black women alone spend an annual $7.5 billion on beauty products. Companies have slowly begun taking note of this and are making adjustments, but there is still room for improvement.
Most of the effort to address the needs of women of color in the beauty industry has revolved around adding more diverse makeup shades. Product expansion is important, and companies do need more shades for darker women, but there are other easily overlooked inconveniences women of color experience that need more attention.
Companies also have to make sure their marketing is inclusive to women of color. One of the most common and easily avoidable mistakes makeup companies make is using only one model for swatches when they unveil new products. Shades that may complement one skin tone can look horrible on the next person, which means the swatch photos are useless unless they show a wide variety of skintones. Every swatch advertisement should include enough models to represent the spectrum of skin tones. I find it hard to believe that these billion dollar companies can’t afford two extra models in their photoshoots.
The fashion industry also occasionally forgets about their minority clientele, particularly when releasing nude lines. In many of these so-called nude lines, pink and peach tones dominate, and darker beige and brown shades are noticeably absent. Nude clothing is meant to be fleshtone, and flesh definitely comes in a much wider variety than light tan. Some companies, such as Christian Louboutin and lingerie line Nubian Skin, have done a wonderful job of adding varying shades of brown to all of their nude lines. However, not all companies are doing so well. In 2016, Converse released a holiday nude line with only shades of pink and light tan. Unfortunately, some companies still have a little adjusting to do.
Sometimes government regulations of the beauty industry also fail to consider the unique needs of people from specific ethnic backgrounds. Throughout the country, black women who braid hair for a living have been forced to attend cosmetology school and receive a cosmetology license just to braid hair. Braiders are forced to spend months and spend thousands of dollars taking classes that often either ignore or barely cover hair braiding, or they risk incurring steep fines and penalties. Unlike regular hair stylists, hair braiders use no harmful chemicals and don’t even cut clients’ hair. Their work is safe and has been done privately in homes for years. Many states have finally dropped these unnecessary requirements, but in states such as Rhode Island and Indiana, hair braiders still have to pressure legislators to lift these expensive requirements.
Efforts to make the beauty and fashion industries equal for people of all ethnic backgrounds have to go beyond just adding a few extra colors to a company’s line of foundation. Many of these issues are so easily fixed that it’s incredible companies haven’t already corrected them. Although great progress has been made in recent years, these little oversights can still be very inconvenient for some consumers.
Osie Evans is a 20-year-old English junior from Natchitoches, Louisiana.
