Fenty Beauty Steps Forward for Women of Colour

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Rhianna launched Fenty Beauty on September 8th last year, attracting attention from all over the makeup world. The brand broke precedent within the makeup industry by including, in their first release, a wide spectrum of skin tones. As well as their foundations, Rhianna’s other products, her highlight and contouring sticks in particular, have been praised for being inclusive of a variety of skin tones. Previously, initial brand launches have focused on those with a paler complexion, with a few darker shades potentially being released much later on, if at all. Rhianna has said “ women everywhere would be included” within her brand and many beauty experts and reviewers have agreed that the brand has made huge steps towards including women of colour within the market. One of the darker foundations, 440 was initially sold out in almost every store and online. There is a huge untapped market of people of colour, particularly those with darker skin tones.

Makeup bloggers and vloggers from all over the internet flocked to review the enormous range that Fenty had to offer. Nyama Tang was one, reviewing the Pro Filt’r soft matte foundation in the darkest shade 490. For Nyama the foundation was much better at matching her skin than most other foundations she had tried. The selling point for her however was that during one for the biggest makeup launches of the year “there were girls in there that looked like me” getting matched for similar shades. The beauty vlogger is among POC (People of Colour) women who have found it extremely heart-warming to finally see inclusion within the industry. The brand has also had many positive reviews from non POC women such as from Nikkie from NikkieTutorials, who has nearly 9 million subscribers on YouTube. The beauty guru has also praised the brand for its inclusivity of lighter skin tones, including a variety of different undertones.

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The range is not only inclusive of darker shades, but also has shade 100 specifically catering to people who are albino. The brand is also advertised as cruelty free, and is not sold in China, where animal testing is mandatory within the makeup industry.

As a result of Fenty’s success, other influential brands have also quickly followed suit in trying to make their brand more inclusive, including MAC, L’Oréal and Estee Lauder, who released darker shades after the success of Fenty Beauty. With Fenty’s success, many people have felt that the brand has established a market for minority women and makeup enthusiasts that they hope will continue to release more and more inclusive makeup ranges in the future.