Fenty Beauty revolutionizes the makeup industry
It’s September 7th in NYC. The fashion community is set to kick off the first day of New York Fashion Week. The city has transformed into a real-life runway; fashion connoisseurs are strutting up and down the streets, going from one show to another. However across town, another event is taking place. Singer/songwriter Rihanna is hosting the launch of her first makeup line, Fenty Beauty.
The highly-anticipated line offers a variety of products which include one shade of lip gloss, some highlighters and brushes. In this selection, there is however one product that is receiving most of the acclaim: the foundation. There are 40 shades of foundations with different undertones: cool, red, neutral and warm.
The variety of shades offered to people with darker complexion certainly stands out. Fenty Beauty has 11 shades for deep skin: from shade 380 for tan to deep skin with cool red undertones to shade 490 for very deep skin with cool undertones.
“I think it’s good [and] it’s a change,” says Khya Silas, a young African American woman in support of the new makeup line. Silas who describes herself as not being a makeup fanatic but still wears makeup at times, has high praises for Rihanna and what she was able to accomplish on her first run of releasing a makeup line. She appreciates the fact that the line is inclusive to dark-skinned people.
“It’s super diverse and it’s for everybody… I have light skin so it’s fairly easy for me to find foundation,” she said “[but] I am happy that darker skinned girls can find a foundation that fits them.”
The outpouring support from the African American community is very apparent. Within the first week of release, several of the darker foundations shades were sold out on fentybeauty.com, sephora.com as well as in-stores at Sephora. Black beauty bloggers and vloggers have also shared their excitement for the line.
Nyma Tang, a deep skin complected beauty vlogger was able to find her shade match with the last foundation shade in the line, #490. In her review posted on YouTube, she spoke about the fact that the makeup line included her shade on the first go.
“Fenty Beauty launched with 40 different foundation shades which is pretty awesome … Some companies –even still to this day- I still can’t wear [their] foundations,” said Tang. She compared the foundation with other shades she owns from well-known brands such as Lancôme, Urban Decay, and NYX which also cater to her skin tone.
Following the release, the discussion about diversity in the makeup industry also reignited.
“I believe the industry is evolving. Like everything over time, things get better,” said Sam Gen. Gen is a professional makeup artist and business manager who possesses years of experience in the industry working for well-known brands such as MAC Cosmetics. She also worked at Fashion Week for shows such as Stella McCartney, Taoray Wang and Osklen, just to name a few. With the amount of experience under her belt, she could attest to an evolution in the makeup industry.
“I do think the new cosmetic brands that have popped up in the past few years [as well as] the existing brands have stepped up the game tremendously,” Gen added.
Rihanna is seemingly bringing a revolution to the makeup industry. Fenty Beauty is not only showing upcoming brands the level they should aim for but, it is also pushing existing brands to step up their game.
As Gen said, “Fenty Beauty definitely gave the industry a higher standard to uphold.”
