In my years as a beauty editor, I have seen the face of beauty shift and evolve. A couple of years ago, the lack of diversity in the beauty industry was a huge global problem, with Black women not being able to find products for our skin tones. Black was not always beautiful, and nothing was made for us — not foundation shades, not eyeshadow pigments, not sunscreen formulas, not lipstick shades, not haircare products. It almost seemed too much to ask that Black skin be treated with the same respect shown for Western beauty standards.
Only when Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty in 2017 and, with it, the first 40 shades of foundation that we’d seen in our generation, did the status quo start to change. Now a diverse beauty offering is the standard and any brand still operating in the limiting “light, medium, dark” shade spectrum is quickly finding its market share diminishing.
Of course, one could argue that we still have a long way to go in the diversity conversation. It’s no wonder that, for a long time, as Black women, we struggled to fully accept all the incredible features and attributes that make us beautiful. The mirror that has been held up to us has always been a Western one, reflecting back all the things that were wrong or “other” about us.
Even the acceptance of blue-undertoned dark skin has taken time, not only from a global perspective but within Black culture too. Colourism within our own communities has fuelled the exclusivity of the cosmetic industry and given the world permission to not see the full extent of our melanin, hence not providing beauty for all — until we demanded it for ourselves, because all faces of Black beauty deserved a place, platform, and representation in the global beauty narrative.
