How Does One Describe Beauty?

According to the fashion and makeup industries, beauty is white skin, blue eyes, blonde hair, and super skinny. Now, does that describe most of the people you see around you? Of course the answer is no, which is why it seems so strange that these industries show little to no appreciation of the various shades of the world and only display the lightest women possible.

These industries continue to fuel the colorism that exists in society. Women of color often feel ashamed of their brown or dark skin because they are underrepresented in an industry that advertises beauty. Because of this, many women of color are insecure about every aspect of them that doesn’t match the European standards of beauty. They even going so far as to lighten their skin to feel beautiful. Stories of drastic actions such as skin lightening swarm the web, awakening the anti-colorist community and leading to protests against colorism and one standard of beauty.

Big name industries such as IT Cosmetics and Kylie Cosmetics consistently express a lack of concern for skin tone diversity in their advertisements. However, there are others who are fighting this lack of diversity and doing more to increase inclusiveness. One of these people is Robyn Fenty, better known as  Rihanna, whose makeup line, Fenty Beauty, has shattered the idea that all makeup brands exclude dark-skinned women. Her makeup has over 40 shades for people ranging from those with albinism to people with very dark skin. According to The Fashion Law, Fenty sold out within hours of its initial release, and continues to batter the competition, which has forced other makeup brands to create a wider array of shades for women, so they can compete with the success of Fenty Beauty.

There’s an expression that beauty is only skin deep, which is important to understand. What’s also important to understand is that there are many different shades of beauty.  When companies exclude darker- shaded women from makeup products, they’re implying that they don’t matter. Fortunately, companies have stepped in to appreciate them, making every shade beautiful.