Fenty Beauty. Fenty Beauty. Fenty Beauty.
Rihanna. Rihanna. Rihanna. Not just another pretty face.
I can take, or leave her music but I will definitely take her makeup. Definitely. RiRi's launch into the beauty biz showed wannabes like the Kardashians how it should be done. Kim, having 4 contouring kits is nothing. Kylie, Kendall or whatever K you are in the family, your announcement of the addition of something called "Brown Sugar" (conspicuously after the Fenty Beauty launch) to your makeup line was feeble at best. Anemic at worst. It's a tacky, lame attempt to appear "inclusive" in the beauty game. A game who you, and all large, mainstream cosmetic companies, LOST on September 8th, 2017 when Fenty Beauty debuted.
That large section of makeup wearers with very dark skin, or very pale skin. The ones with all that MONEY to spend but had nearly nowhere to spend it, found a place that Friday night. Through your big-company-willful-ignorance, through your business model that touts "medium" as the only shade that matters, you lost out. Oh, yeah, you might have gotten off your lazy duff to make two crappy foundation shades for ALL black or brown women, without acknowledgement of their differing undertones and the fact that we all come in varied shades! Those two shades were supposed to be enough for over half the world. How big of you. And just as bad is your poor representation of deadly pale skin with one shade of "fair" no matter the wearer's undertone.
I will admit a few major brands - MAC, NARS, Lancome, even Clinique - tried. But it wasn't because they cared. It was for the money. They understood business. Not to say that there are no Black-owned beauty companies, or companies that do not have cosmetics for Black skin. There were/are several small Black-owned beauty brands. I left a list below. But we all know how they get treated. Scant shelf space in stores. Low visibility even if they get space in a store. Just to get the endeavor off the ground is a miracle. "White beauty companies get funded on POTENTIAL; Black beauty companies get funded on PROOF!" A quote from Youtube beauty blogger Jackie Aina. Meaning: A White idea gets the moolah without question. A Black idea gets scrutinized out the wazoo, schematics are needed and SALES! Where dey do dat at? How the Hell are you gonna have a sales track record PRIOR to the effin thing being produced?
No thing. Fenty Beauty is here to take all you big boys to school and to tell you that it has it covered. This is not a flash-in-the-pan effort. This is a major effort to rival the biggies in the field. I believe Fenty Beauty is here to stay a while.
40 shades of gloriously different foundation. FORTY! Not 50 permutations of medium beige.
At least 7 of which serve the darkest skin with all its possible undertones. And don't fret pale girls. On the other end of the spectrum, there are at least 5 shades of Wednesday Addams' complexion and the undertones to go around. And if you are anywhere in-between, you've got it made and will get giddy from the selection.
So while all you big beauty giants scratch your asses and wonder how you missed that YUGE boat and how RiRi didn't, do let me hear the clack of those stilettoes running to whip up the products you SHOULD have been making for years. I know you are in a rush but take your time to make a quality product, okay? Otherwise, you'll have to revisit square one and will have missed the boat TWICE.
Ah! I do love the smell of regret and checked bigotry in the morning!
My personal favs are: the primer, the foundation and the blotter for shine.
PS Here are some small Black-owned beauty brands that have been in the trenches for a bit:
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