I remember the day I decided I wanted to buy makeup for the first time. I was about fifteen years old, and I begged my dad to drive me to the drugstore close to our house on a school night. He stayed in the car as I ventured into the makeup section for the first time. I remember being overwhelmed by the numerous brands, formulations, and shades, but I knew I wouldn’t have a problem finding something to match my fair complexion. After about an hour of deliberation, I bought a concealer to cover my blemishes and a powder to set the concealer. I remember feeling beyond excited to have made my first makeup purchase. In years since, I have never walked into a store to buy makeup and not had a multitude of options that would match my skin tone. That is one of the many factors of having white privilege.
Some of the best selling drugstore cosmetic brands include L’Oreal, Maybelline, and Cover Girl. L’Oreal tends to have the best shade range with their “True Match” line, offering 32 shades of foundation to choose from. The only catch with L’Oreal is that their products are typically the most expensive at the drugstore. Maybelline offers around 20 shades of their best selling “Fit Me” foundation. Cover Girl generally offers about 12 shades of their various foundations, but Cover Girl is the only drugstore makeup company that has created a second line for people of color, Cover Girl Queen. The Queen collection consists of 21 products from Cover Girl’s main line, but everything is created to better suit darker skin colors. The interesting thing about that is the fact that there are several overlap shades between the main line and the Queen collection. This begs the question of why create an entire second line in the first place if there are multiple shades that overlap? Why not just add the darker shades to the main line? Plus, I’ve found that the Queen collection is either unavailable or poorly stocked at every drugstore I’ve been to. Of course, that may be due to region. But why even bother creating a separate line for people of color if it’s not going to be stocked everywhere? Thoughts?
Another aspect of white privilege when examined through the lens of the beauty industry is representation. I can turn on the TV, open a magazine, or watch a YouTube video and immediately find people who look like me. As I mentioned in a previous post, I love watching videos about makeup and beauty on YouTube. The beauty community on YouTube is massive, and many beauty content creators have millions of subscribers. While I personally subscribe to more diverse YouTubers, the majority of the most popular beauty “gurus” are white and meet European beauty standards. Representation matters. Black models like Naomi Campbell and Nykhor Paul have called out the fashion and beauty industries for being ill-equipped to do models of color’s hair and makeup. Campbell, alongside model Iman and fashion activist Bethann Hardison, has been working as a part of the campaign “Balance Diversity,” which notes how many models of color were used in every runway show that occurs. On Instagram, Paul posted:
“Dear white people in the fashion world! Please don’t take this the wrong way but it’s time you people get your shit right when it comes to our complexion! Why do I have to bring my own makeup to a professional show when all the other white girls don’t have to do anything but show up wtf! Don’t try to make me feel bad because I am blue black its 2015 go to Mac, Bobbi Brown, Makeup forever, Iman cosmetic, black opal, even Lancôme and Clinique carried them plus so much more. there’s so much options our there for dark skin tones today. A good makeup artist would come prepare and do there research before coming to work because often time you know what to expect especially at a show! Stop apologizing it’s insulting and disrespectful to me and my race it doesn’t help, seriously! Make an effort at least! That goes for NYC, London, Milan, Paris and Cape Town plus everywhere else that have issues with black skin tones. Just because you only book a few of us doesn’t mean you have the right to make us look ratchet. I’m tired of complaining about not getting book as a black model and I’m definitely super tired of apologizing for my blackness!!!! Fashion is art, art is never racist it should be inclusive of all not only white people, shit we started fashion in Africa and you modernize and copy it! Why can’t we be part of fashion fully and equally?”
Another part of white privilege in the world of beauty that I wanted to touch on in this post is accessibility. As a white woman, not only can I easily find my foundation shade, but I also know exactly where to find it: the beauty department. Makes logical sense, right? Well, this isn’t always the case for people of color. Hair and makeup products for people of color typically aren’t located in the beauty department. Instead, they are in a separate “ethnic” section. What are the implications of this? To me, this implies that whiteness is prioritized and normalized, whereas anything other than white doesn’t have a place in beauty. Shea Moisture, a brand that used to only be available in the “ethnic” section, has recently mandated that their products are to be displayed in the beauty section. Here’s the ad about the brand’s #BREAKTHEWALLS movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2RVWTGAevE
