There are some great makeup groups on Facebook. I mean groups with actual working artists. Two that I'm a part of are Kevin James Bennet's In My Kit, and Sonia Roselli's Glossible- love that these two artist and many others are not afraid to speak up. The past couple of days there have been some interesting topics brought up. Namely Colourpop's fail with naming the deeper shades offensive names such as Yikes and Typo. I linked to the article that was shared yesterday. It's definitely worth checking out. In addition to Colourpop recently coming under fire, Milk Cosmetics had a little controversy with their lack of shade range in their new launches. They had a bunch of lame excuses as to why they have such a limited range. And last but surely not least, Sephora Pantone released a palette with insensitive names such as Thrush, Rawhide, and Potting soil to describe darker skin-tone colors.
Dark skinned women were historically excluded, which created the need for companies like Fashion Fair, Flori Roberts, and later on brands like Iman and Black Opal in the 90's. Before that, many brands excluded black women completely. Forget about finding any foundation in your shade at all in earlier decades!
It's 2016 and these companies need to do better. Still, many companies will release a million shades of Ivory and Beige, and have ONE shade (toffee color) for black women. It's shameful. Even now you hear stories about makeup artists that work in Fashion Shows and don't have darker shades. That or they have no idea how to match us.
So I thought I would compile a list of companies that are diverse and try to cater to a range of ethnicities. They aren't necessarily black owned (although some are!)
1. Fashion Fair- Fashion Fair is one of the largest black owned makeup companies. They have excellent lipsticks, lip liners, glosses, and ultra pigmented eyeshadows. I also sampled a powder one time and was amazed how great it looked on me. Fashion Fair is my mom's brand. It was the brand she always had when I was growing up. I still have an older lipstick in their pink packaging that I will keep forever! Fashion Fair was one of the first to make colors for brown skin and I hope they will be around forever! It's a little outdated now (they should do an eyeshadow palette and just refresh), but in my opinion the products are still great and worth supporting!
2. Black Opal- I've wanted to try their stick foundation for a few years now. Will try, and try soon!
3. Iman- She has an excellent range of stuff. It's become more widely available in more recent years. I haven't tried anything yet, but it's on my list!
4. Black Radiance- Owned by the same company as Wet N Wild- you can tell by the packaging. I love their lip glosses!And they are very budget friendly.
5. Shea Moisture- I haven't had the best luck with some of their bath and body/hair products. But I've heard great things about their makeup!
6. MAC Cosmetics- When I first heard about MAC, I didn't get the obsession some people had with it. I think it's because MAC includes EVERYONE, men and women, and they use a lot of diversity in their marketing. MAC has a great range of foundation for deeper skin tones- although they do have a problem trying to match EVERYONE that comes into their store to NW45. Not every brown girl is NW45!
7. NARS- I love NARS. They use a diverse group of models and they have an excellent range of foundations. This picture is currently on their homepage and it's gorgeous. I have 'fro envy! Also they use a diverse group of models in their tutorials.
8. Black Up- I heard some suspect stuff about how the company was started which is worth reading up on. I haven't tried it out, but some of the stuff looks pretty nice.
9. Bobbi Brown- Always included women of color in her range and still seems to be expanding it.
10. Covergirl Queen- Covergirl was getting it wrong for years. They had light brown shades with grey, pink, and green undertones. I'm not even kidding. But they got it right with Covergirl Queen. I've only tried a foundation and bronzer from the line, but it was good stuff. And they have a great range of shades, it's just hard to find!
11. Make Up Forever- Excellent range of pigmented products. It is geared more towards pros, so I'm not surprised with the range!
12. AJ Crimson- I've heard such great things about his foundation! And his lipsticks looks pretty great too!
In addition to these brands, most pro brands have a great range of colors. AJ Crimson, Kryolan, Graftobian, etc. I'm sure I left out some brands. If there are any you love, please let me know in the comments. I'll probably update as I find more.
Brands that are OK (just OK though)- Urban Decay, Lancome, Bare Minerals (they're original colors have a decent range).
Brands that need to do better: Benefit, Too Faced, Stila, It Cosmetics, The Balm, Almay, Physicians Formula, Revlon, Almay, Loreal, New York Color, Milani , NYX, MILK, Colourpop, Smashbox and everyone else basically.
I left out Indie brands. But Coloured Raine and Juvia's Place seem to be very popular at the moment.
And this is random but don't ya'll hate when a brand markets to darker skin tones but doesn't carry anything deeper than tan in their foundation line? What the heck are they even putting on the models?Or when you hear something raved and raved about (L'oreal Cushion Foundation) and they only carry two shades for brown women?
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