Sharing my thoughts on the disaster that was the Youthforia foundation launch, the overall state of beauty culture and diversity in beauty, and makeup for Black people in general…
I am a 54-year-old Black woman who has worked as a makeup artist in some capacity since the late 1990s. I have talked about the need to diversify cosmetics and the consumer experience for years. This Youthforia thing tho? This is a whole new level. To quote the movie A League of their Own…
I have seen enough to know that I have seen too much.
I am totally out of patience, y’all. Why are folks out here making jet black/dark charcoal foundation makeup? And why are folks in the beauty sphere out here trying to defend this nonsense???
By the way – this Blog post actually started as a series of videos I was going to post on Social but it was too long and too reactionary so I pumped my brakes a bit. If you want to see my full video just scroll to the bottom of this post…
Anyway, it took me a while to post this blog because every time I’ve tried to finish it some new foolishness appeared and I became re-annoyed. The foundation wars for people of color has been going on for a long time. My mom’s generation (and older) had to be home mixologists. During my coming of age, I had access to Fashion Fair and Flori Roberts and later Black Opal and Iman Cosmetics, but one thing was clear – the mainstream brands weren’t touching makeup for Black people.
Nowadays any brand who comes out with complexion makeup is expected to be “inclusive” and have a good color range. But as influencers such as Nyma Tang and now Gollora have pointed out, they’re kinda inclusive. I know this from personal experience as I’m at that shade where brands start to get shaky. My shade tends to be the deepest in many mainstream brands, and with Black skin tones that is nowhere near deep enough. PLUS there’s a new tendency amongst brands to make many of the deeper shades neutral in undertone in the hopes that it will cover more people. BUUUUT then it’s often kinda too beige-y/grey-ey and needs to be adjusted. I’m very red so for me too neutral is better than too yellow but still… yeah….
When I wrote my first article about reflecting diversity in the cosmetics industry (click to read), my rant back then was lines introducing an inadequate shade ranges, getting called out, and saying “oh we’ll add the deeper shades “Later“. This is still one of my pet peeves. And needless to say “Later” rarely comes. With this specific controversy, Youthforia invoked the Later defense and then made something even worse!
And then there was the social media…
Youthforia shade #600 was already “If Loud and Wrong Was A Bottle of Foundation”, but then the Social Media League of Defenders took it to a whole new level. Even with everyone from Black content creators who are the people who would wear a deep foundation color, to cosmetic chemists, artists straight up explaining what melanin is and how it works, color scientists, etc. etc. of all races telling folks NO this is NOT a thing, folks were still – for reasons unknown – proclaiming that it could be.
No it Can’t. It cannot be a thing, nor will it ever be a thing.
My concern is a makeup educator is that aspiring and emerging artists understand why this will never be a thing, why these types of controversies are such a wrong turn for the cosmetics industry and most of all, why 90% of Social Media posts should be ignored. Let’s break down a few common points that floated around on the social medias.
The Yes There Are People That Color Liberation Army –
Will the Jet Black/Charcoal Gray/No Undertone people please stand up?
As often as I’ve seen this utilized as a rationalization, I’ve yet to see anyone jump up and say “FINALLY! THIS SHADE IS THE MATCH I’VE BEEN WATING FOR!!!!!”
Nor are we ever going to see that person. There is no living human being this in this world who is one flat color. Would anyone ever expect to see a white person that was literally white, the shade of a piece of paper? No of course not. But all of a sudden when it comes to Black people they’re telling us that there are literally Jet Black people in the world. And the frequency with which people have said this to Black creators…
There are no people who are jet black. In addition to the realities of melanin and how pigmentation works – a fact of which many creators of various races and tones have pointed out – every living human being walking the Earth has blood running through their veins. Skin tones have depth and dimension and variation no matter if you are very fair or very deep. Human beings are human beings, they are not paint chips.
The Just Mix It crowd –
Aside from proving that they know nothing about color theory or the fact that you cannot simply mix other colors with pure black (remember #600 is formulated primarily with pure Black iron oxide pigment), let’s talk business; You’re a brand and you are attempting to woo a specific customer base. Is making said customer base spend more money to get a not as good version of what everyone else gets the way to go? Youthforia foundation retails for $48 a bottle, so fifty bucks. Many people have suggested that darker complexioned people can just buy two or three bottles and mix the correct color. *Sigh*
So what you’re saying then is everyone else gets to spend $50 and get the right color, but users with deep skin tones should have to pay $100-$150 AND have to try to mix some facsimile color themselves? #Nope. For $50 I don’t want a DIY mediocre shade match, I expect a GREAT foundation.
Subsection of this group: The “It’s An Adjuster” crowd. No. It was released as a foundation not as an adjuster but again, if we know our color theory, we know why something damn near jet black would not work as an “adjuster”.
The Well They Tried Their Best contingent –
Did they though? Like I said – and as has been stated many times during this controversy – this is not the first time they have run into color range criticism with this foundation product. It’s a bad look to have to do something twice, it’s a terrible look to do an even worse job the second time around. And this calls into question the methodology with which they went about developing this color. The more I started to see various creators of various types talking about this the more I really did begin to wonder if this is just a publicity stunt. Where was anybody during any part of the development of this product who could step in and say “you know, I think this is a bad idea” ???? I mean seriously, this made it all the way to market. There were just NO cosmetic chemists/makeup artists/consultants of any kind available during the formulation? Just NO other options?? How many people signed off on this product that made it possible for this to get to the point of being on the shelves in stores? What is really going on?!?!?!?!
I wrote in that original Blog post that “diversity is a mindset” and I will absolutely die on that hill. Time and time again we see brands playing in our faces acting like making products for people with deeper complexions is just the worst chore a po chyle ever had, yet other brands seem to be able to do so just fine? And this is not at all to say that there may not be legitimate challenges with making products for deeper complexion versus making products for fairer complexions. This is – once again – a question of the will to do so.
As I was watching the various content on this subject, I realized that I don’t want “inclusion” from a brand if this is their best effort. Any brand who does not prioritize folks like me having the same overall customer experience as everyone else should just forget it.
OR – like Golloria said – maybe just don’t do complexion makeup at all. Cosmetics brands aren’t obligated to carry everything. Youthforia’s primer is excellent, I was on my way to finishing my third tube of it. Just stick to that. Every brand doesn’t have to have 50 skus and all this (in fact many would do better and last longer if they didn’t). Just make a few excellent products that serves consumers well and leave the rest out.
This Youthforia foundation is, of course, an extreme case of a long standing issue within the cosmetics industry. But I really hope this is the last time we have to have this very tired conversation.
Addendum; I was sorry to read that Youthforia is experiencing being dropped some retailers. Apparently both Credo and Revolve have discontinued carrying the line pending further notice. This is what they call “a teachable moment”. I am glad Youthforia has not – that I’m aware of – thrown together some $0.02 “apology” regarding this product release. Times like these are always a good time for a brand – as well as the beauty industry as a whole – to reflect on how they want to serve their customers and the experience they want their customers to have vis-a-vis their products. Youthforia’s own tagline is “Fun, Clean, Sustainable makeup. Makeup is supposed to be fun, not a series of social media posts and think-pieces.
(Second Addendum; After all of this, why did I just see a pro brand come out with a “deep palette” that had 3 or 4 shades of charcoal gray/black?!?!? Please HIRE a Black consultant and test on real Black humans, and come on with this madness!!!)
TL:DR? It’s not exactly the same, but here’s the original video. It’s not all the same points I made in this post, but it covers some of the highlights as well as my overall indignation with this situation…
UPDATE: Youthforia finally issued a statement and while it’s not great, they did state the intention to hire someone to oversea these decisions so something like this doesn’t happen again in the future. Is that really necessary? No. Does this sound like 2-3 jobs mixed into one? Yes. So it’s not a perfect solution by any means but we’ll see what happens.
Read the apology on Instagram here: Youthforia issues a statement…
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