Colourpop is a fairly new makeup company founded in 2014. They’re most notable for their affordable lip products and popularity on YouTube. Their sculpting sticks range from the lightest shade “Gummy Bear” to the darkest shade “Typo”.
At any given moment, at any given drugstore I, a dark skinned African American woman, can go in looking for a foundation and have to pick between 2 shades. It’s like all stores never have the darker shades in stock. And, you think I’d be purchasing “Typo”? I know a lot goes into the production and marketing of a product. Not once throughout this process did someone stop to think more deeply about the naming? Where is the typo? What was the idea behind naming these shades? I’d really like to know.
I’m not one to pick fights, but naming the darkest shades “Yikes”, “Dume”, and “Typo” was a poor decision. In an already whitewashed beauty industry where people of color struggle to find shades that match their skin tone and are constantly bombarded by western beauty standards in the media, you think it is okay to name one of the darkest shades “Yikes”? At any given moment, at any given drugstore I, a dark skinned African American woman, can go in looking for a foundation and have to pick between 2 shades. It’s like all stores never have the darker shades in stock. And, you think I’d be purchasing “Typo”? I know a lot goes into the production and marketing of a product. Not once throughout this process did someone stop to think more deeply about the naming? Where is the typo? What was the idea behind naming these shades? I’d really like to know.
As of today, Colourpop has changed the names of those shades to “Bloom, Point Dume, & Platonic” without acknowledgement of this situation. Thank you for changing the names, but if you want to have loyal POC customers, acknowledge your mistakes.