A few weeks ago, I ran out of my favorite Lorac concealer, and decided not to repurchase it because:
a) there is such a huge variety of UK drugstore options I had been wanting to try out and…
b) student budget.
When my un-concealed under eye circles and I got to Boots, I headed straight for the Rimmel shelf, as I had heard great things about their Wake Me Up concealer. However, when I started looking for a colour that would match my golden-brown Indian skin, I was faced with a problem: the darkest shade available, Medium, was also the only dark shade, and it wasn’t even dark enough to match my not-really-that-dark skin. To put this into perspective, there were four other shades on the shelf—Ivory, True Ivory, Soft Beige, and Classic Beige—aimed at perfectly matching a wide range of white skin tones.
The day I went concealer shopping, I did end up leaving with a new product. (Collection Lasting Perfection in the shade Dark 4. We’re very happy together.) But the whole thing got me thinking about what I call in my head the Medium Problem.
It sometimes feels like women of color are an afterthought for many makeup lines, which put out shades that encompass a whole gradient of shades for fair skin and then belatedly throw in a Medium and occasionally a Dark. The assumption is that we should just be happy with these vaguely brown shades meant to universally work for any non-white people, and this approach shows a marked disregard for the diversity within women of color—just like white customers, our skin can also be cool- or warm-toned, for example, but this is rarely taken into account.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the non-white population of England and Wales was roughly 14% in 2012, and can only have grown since then. And this isn’t just an England-specific problem—I’d lived in the United States my entire life before I came to Exeter, and had run into similar problems countless times, even though the United States’ 2012 census shows that their non-white population is even higher than the UK’s, at 37%. It makes no sense to me that there is such a limited range of products aimed at satisfying such a large and varied consumer base, and I hope that the makeup industry chooses to embrace this diversity by branching out from the dreaded Medium.
But until it does, for any women of color who are having problems finding makeup that has a chance of matching their skin, here are a few makeup lines I’ve found that have a pretty wide variety of darker shades.
1. The CoverGirl Queen Collection. This is a collection aimed specifically at providing makeup for dark skin, and alongside eye makeup and blushes, it also includes several varieties of liquid and powder foundations for different skin types. My favorite is the Natural Hue Liquid Makeup, as it comes in twelve shades and acts like a sheer but buildable tinted moisturizer. Unfortunately this is a bit hard to find in UK stores, but it can be bought on Amazon.
2. If you’re looking at higher-end products, MAC Cosmetics is a safe bet, as each of their foundations and concealers comes in a wide variety of shades. Their Studio Fix Fluid foundation comes in a whopping 39, and is long-lasting and blends well.
Do you have any other product recommendations for women of color? Let us know in the comments!
Photo Credits: www.amazon.co.uk