Showing True Color

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Written by: Neha Suradkar

Embracing Your Skin Tone

Beauty has always been about colors—skin tone, makeup, fashion, or accessories. Ideal beauty standards have always been about light skin tone, dark hair, rosy cheeks, and pink lips—all defined by colors. Since childhood, most girls have grown up with this beauty ideal reinforced by princesses in fairy tales—Snowwhite, Cinderella, and Belle all conform to the ideal pale skin beauty standards.

But there is more to beauty than just the ideal standards. The beauty industry mainly ignored the people who do not fit the ideal standards. For the longest time, there were no foundations for women with colored skin—anything beyond a honey tone. The foundations available were usually ivory, porcelain, sand, and rose beige as if they were the only existing skin tones. Women with skin tones deeper than these were often given foundations from one of these tones, which would make their skin look ashy and dull. The eyeshadows were also mostly in icy-pastel tones, which did not go very well with warmer and deeper tones. The women with ‘colored’ skin (read deep, warm, olive tones) started detesting makeup. They felt that makeup was not meant for them and started avoiding it altogether. But the fact was that it was not about makeup; it was always about colors.

The only beauty products available for deeper skin tones were fairness products or skin lightening products, some of which were very harmful to the skin. As a result, women of deeper color were often looked down upon for their complexion and were advised to use skin lightening products to get that ‘glow’ on the skin. And this still holds for most ‘colored’ women of the world.

In 1973, Johnson Publishing launched Fashion Fair Cosmetics, which was made available in 1500 department stores by 1980. Gradually, most of the professional makeup brands like M.A.C, Bobbi Brown, Lancome, Makeup Forever, Kryolan, and Cinema Secrets had deeper and warmer tones in their repertoire. And they were available to purchase in stores and eventually online. In 2018, Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty with 40 shades of foundation. However, the darkest shades were sold first. This incident reiterates a huge market for deeper and warmer shades of foundation, and the sooner brands realize this, the better.

In the last few years, even drugstore makeup brands have realized the scope of the deep-colored market and started launching their foundations and concealers in deeper tones. Brands like Maybelline, L’Oreal Paris, NYX, CoverGirl, etc. have come up with foundations across the range of the skin tone spectrum. Not only foundation but a more comprehensive range of colors are now covered for lipsticks, eyeshadows, and blush as well. The understanding that “Nude” color does not always mean the pale color (meant for lighter skin); it is the original color of your skin and lips that has led to the development of deep and intense nude colors.

All these developments in the beauty industry have led to the acceptance of makeup by a broader population. However, there is still a lack of awareness and fascination for lighter skin tones. Skin lightening products are still the rage in 2022. The need of the hour is to spread awareness about skin tone and colors and inform consumers about the availability of cosmetics for colored skin. In addition, consumers need to be educated about the harmful effects of skin lightening products and the fact that they cause more damage than good.

Along with the beauty industry, the media has also started accepting colored skin tones. Quite a few top models, singers, and actors belong to multiple ethnicities that do not have pale skin tones. Even Disney has long since started giving us Princesses of Color—non-white princesses with a non-European heritage. Jasmine, Pocahontas, Tiana, and Moana have all been widely accepted and have given hope to young girls to be more confident about their color and not run after the “ideal pale skin tone.” Wearing the right colors for makeup, accessories, and outfits can lift your look immensely, and a good coach can help people achieve that. Beauty professionals like makeup artists, stylists, grooming consultants, and others have to come together and start a new wave about skin tone acceptance and should help people embrace their skin tone and color.

TrooRa Magazine

Written by

Neha Suradkar

Mumbai, India

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