The British Beauty Council has criticised what it calls “apartheid” in the beauty industry, saying more needs to be done to cater to people of colour.
The council says that, although the market for multi-ethnic consumers has expanded in the past 20 years, those with deeper skin tones are still vastly under-represented.
Dr Ateh Jewel, a spokesperson for the council, told Sky News that caucasian people benefit from a greater selection of products for their hair and skin.
Dr Jewel, who has two decades of experience in the beauty and diversity sector, said the issue is a legacy of colonialism.
“We are living with the hangover of empire.
“What I’m really interested in is power, and measuring that by beauty standards and how we see ourselves.”
Beauty “apartheid”, she said, is when brands limit themselves to a few shades “tagged on to the end” – a “tokenistic” approach to diversity, which fails to appreciate the richness and complexities of those with deeper skin tones – who often mix colours to find the ‘right’ shade.
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The beauty consultant told Sky News that most manufacturers start with white tones as their foundation bases – and that those working for the “big players” are told to make colours that look “good on the shelf”.
The mental health impact for people of colour not feeling “seen” is devastating, she said.
“It seems trivial, but it’s not.
“You’re not worth being marketed to, it is very painful and hurtful.
“Walking into a beauty hall was pleasure and pain, all wrapped up into one.
“Not seeing yourself reflected in advertising or diverse colours can also be really damaging to your sense of self…. to your self esteem… and taking your rightful place in the world, and in the centre.
“So for me, being seen, loving, honouring and celebrating – rather than tolerating – my skin tone is very political.”
According to the Black Pound Report 2022, the diverse consumer makes up 16% of the population, with a disposable income of £3.7bn a year.
But, despite this, almost 39%of black shoppers say they struggle to find products suitable for their face and many use specialist shops.
At least £2.7bn from this audience is untapped, and the report’s author, Lydia Amoah, said deep-seated unconscious bias could be at play.
She told Sky News: “It could be human nature – people want to feel safe, and they feel safe with the people that look like them, sound like them or come from the same background as them.’
“Research shows us 97% of chief executives are white. So if you imagine across all industries (…) they’re looking at their own image, they’re creating in their own image and not looking at the wider community.”
Entrepreneur Huda Kattan started her cosmetics line Huda Beauty in 2013 and it caters to diverse consumers.
In 2018, the company was valued by Forbes at more than $1bn (£820m).
Ms Kattan, the daughter of Iraqi immigrants who settled in the US, said brands were not – and are not – doing enough for non-white women.
She told Sky News: “Being inclusive is hard. It takes so much work.
“When I used to go to the factories and I’d say I need a deep or richer shade of foundation… they’d sometimes put black pigment in the formula. I kid you not. That’s why a lot of richer skin tones look grey.”
“It’s harder to serve a community who doesn’t have a skin tone that hasn’t been worked on so much.
“This isn’t ‘I really care about inclusivity’. This is ‘I need to care about inclusivity because people will get mad’.
“There’s still not enough care and consideration taken when they’re creating the products.
“I mean, you can use people of many different ethnicities in a campaign – but that’s just not enough.
“It’s a good start, but it’s so far beyond where we should be in this day and time. So I would say absolutely, it’s still failing all people of colour right now.”
