It’s 2020. Beauty Brands, It’s Time To Do Better For Dark Skinned Women
After reading the latest edition of brownbeautytalk’s email newsletter, a particular topic came to my attention.
Ateh Jewel’s recent experience at a London beauty hall
Here’s the gist of it. Ateh Jewel is a beauty journalist who recently documented her poor service received at a beauty counter on her Instagram account. After walking into a Nars store in London, she wanted to know where the darker shades of the new highlighters were. She was informed that there were no spaces for darker shades, even though Ateh noticed two empty spaces. She’d also been told that the darker shades weren’t available because of delays in deliveries as a result of the New Year period.
As she was about to leave the store, Ateh asked for three samples of foundation but was told that she could only have two because they’d run out. After expressing her disappointment to a supervisor (a black woman), the supervisor went downstairs to get extra pots, then she opened the sample draw and, lo and behold, it was full of pots. The supervisor then explained that there’s a ‘two-sample rule’ but Ateh didn’t believe that. Clearly, the experience was upsetting and frustrating.
Dark-skinned women as beauty consumers
As a black woman who loves beauty and enjoys exploring beauty halls and trying different products, it’s disappointing to hear that despite entering 2020 and a new decade, the same old story continues. Even though Black women are some of the biggest spenders in the beauty space, the service we sometimes receive is not always up to par and we’re still treated as though we don’t exist as consumers. It’s kind of alienating.
Quite frankly, it is absolutely unacceptable and like Ateh said, it’s time to call this out. In my opinion there’s no reason why a big brand can’t make the space to cater to dark-skinned women. It’s not hard. It’s disgraceful that a black woman can walk into a beauty store, see empty spaces for darker shades, ask for sample pots and yet receive a range of excuses when the whole time, the shades were available but hidden away!
It also seems as though there’s a lack of initiative. I’ve worked in retail in the past and one of the things I learned to do was to literally go out of my way to help my customers. These days, brands cannot afford to alienate their consumers and miss out on money. Make an effort to provide the products in the first instance, not because a customer asked you to.
I noticed another post by Ateh where she called out Laura Mercier for providing ‘a sea of beige shades,’ once again proving that some of these brands seem to conveniently forget that people like us exist. Where are the brown shades?
As a consumer it’s not my job to prove to a brand that people like me exist. Wake up and stop alienating us. I know a lot of these collections offer darker shades, yet if I were to walk into a store in central London right now I’d struggle to find them, which totally ruins the beauty experience. Beauty should be fun and joyous, not a battlefield. It’s ridiculous. It’s time for things to change - pronto.
Beauty brands, stop making excuses and do better. Please.