We all love seeing swatches of products before we purchase and in the community of women of color, this can be vital before we purchase a product. More companies are starting to showcase their products on a variety of different skin tones especially via social media. Just recently I discovered two outlets that specify in showcasing makeup on women of color. Some may see this as controversial but when you look at the beauty industry in the last 10 years, it was hard to find a large collection of outlets that covered all shade ranges and actually advertised it. With the growing success of YouTube and Instagram its easier to find women who actually mirror your shade range.
The first Instagram page I came across was Cocoa Swatches. This page not only showcases beauty gurus but also swatches on deeper skin tones. Companies like Anastasia Beverly Hills and ColourPop Cosmetics are showing their new releases on at least three different skin tones. This takes a lot of the trial and error out of shopping for different products because you have an actual reference instead of guessing. With the huge demand for this information, Cocoa Swatches recently released their app to allow easier access to swatches and other information when shopping. Not only can you easily pull up swatches that have been featured on their Instagram page, but you are able to have discussions on different topics and even discover new faces to follow on social media. It’s the first app of its kind that caters specifically to women of color.
Staying in that same family, I stumbled across a website, www.melaninmakeup.com, that also caters to women of color. The website houses a vast variety of articles covering, but not limited to: beauty, entrepreneurial women, and DIY beauty hacks. They also have a popular Instagram page that displays women of color in the beauty community that may not get as much recognition on other platforms.
Why is this important? Well, think about it this way: If you are interested in something that the majority of people are already involved in, how willing are you to try it if you have no one to relate to? How unified is the beauty community if we don’t recognize the beauty and talent of everyone involved? Beauty comes in all shades, shapes, and sizes, and its time for us to start accepting that. The platforms mentioned today didn’t see where they were being appreciated or recognized for their interests and talents so they created on an outlet for it. If that’s not girl power then I don’t know what is! The hope is that larger companies see the impact that women of color have on the industry and actually start catering to our needs as well. There should not be a select handful of companies that carry shades that compliment all women. Women of color are starting to speak up and it’s about time that our voices are heard.
-Keisha Campbell
Credit: http://www.popsugar.com