People don’t fit neatly into the description of light, medium or dark when it comes to skin tone. There should be more than just three options of foundation shades in every makeup brand’s range.
California Lutheran University senior Aliyah Wimbish said she has had a passion for makeup since she was young and believes that everyone should be able to find their perfect shade.
“It is important for popular brands to have more foundation shades available because more people are getting into makeup and no one should have to settle for foundation that doesn’t match their skin,” Wimbish said.
Wimbish said when she first got into makeup, she struggled to find an affordable foundation that actually matched her skin tone.
Thankfully beauty brands are starting to expand their foundation variety to meet the needs of their diverse consumers.
Rihanna has been one of the influential people in advocating for inclusivity in foundation shade ranges. She launched Fenty Beauty in 2017 with 40 shades. The makeup range sold $72 million worth of product in just one month. To further prove the point that these diverse shades were what makeup-lovers had been waiting for, some of the darkest shades were the first to sell out.
Jasmine Montoya is a makeup artist at Ulta in Thousand Oaks who has seen darker skin tones being excluded from makeup for years.
“For a lot of tanner to deeper skin tones, it’s really hard to find their shades in more of the drugstore brands, so it’s nice that the prestige brands are starting to carry a lot more so that way they can test them out,” Montoya said.
Montoya said darker tones are not the only ones that are hard to match. Fair people have an equally difficult time. Having a larger variety is important for people everywhere on the shade spectrum.
Rihanna said on the Fenty Beauty website, “[Makeup] should never feel like pressure. It should never feel like a uniform. Feel free to take chances, and take risks, and dare to do something new or different.”
It is necessary that more and more makeup brands expand their variety of foundation shades so all makeup lovers can take risks and express themselves.
Luisa Virgen
Reporter