It’s a pretty open secret within the beauty community that the makeup industry doesn’t care about Black women. With popular makeup brands like Tarte and It Cosmetics making foundation lines fit for 50 shades of beige and Benefit Cosmetics producing products in light and extra light, it’s not hard to see how companies are willfully leaving Black women out. So whenever brands like Fenty Beauty and Beauty Bakerie step up to the plate to create products that cater to Black women, it’s usually a thing to celebrate. But for some, like Kristen Leanne, that’s not the case.
On their Instagram, popular makeup news account TrendMood posted pictures of a new highlighter palette Huda Beauty is releasing in March of this year. The palette comes in four varying shades of gold all of which look stunning on darker skin. Huda Beauty herself in a Snapchat video said that she made the palette with dark skin in mind. Many were understandably pumped for this, with people commenting their excitement under the post. But for White Beauty guru Kristen Leanne, it was problematic.
“Hmmm those ‘highlights’ aren’t even close to being light enough for the top arm swatches. What the heck,” she commented on the Instagram post. Despite being called out in the comments, the YouTuber moved to Twitter where she continued to complain about the palette being for darker skin and not light skin tweeting, “Literally the top 3 people (arm swatches) couldn’t use any of these shades as a highlight.”Later she tweeted, “It IS helpful. But you’d hope with that many pans they’d make one light enough for lighter skin tones.”
Fortunately for Leanne, some people were able to take time out of their eye-rolling to point out that, had she taken time out of her whining, she would have noticed how there are already three other palettes in Huda’s line suitable for light skin. Or literally any other highlighter from any other brand for that matter.
https://twitter.com/MADBLACKTHOT/status/962208973981126656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/uruguayanreina/status/962209092247871489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Doesn’t Huda have like … 2 or 3 other palettes like this with shades for lighter skin tones? It’s literally like Kim K where she had contour kits for diff skin tones. Only diff is she released hers at the same time.
— 🤭 (@yagirltoomuch) February 10, 2018
Leanne even created her own highlighter palette in collaboration with Urban Decay which was–surprise, surprise– only suitable for light skin.
https://twitter.com/sabreigha/status/962212746707292161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It’s always amazing how for so many white people, diversity’s only a problem when Black women get their share. When the tables are turned just an inch and Black women and dark skin tones are finally being catered to, suddenly white MUAs want to talk about diversity and inclusion despite shelling out coins and posting glowing reviews for brands that rarely make anything for shades past pasty.
What’s even weirder is that in her Tarte Shape Tape review, Leanne addressed the lack of shade range in the line saying “It’s 20–freakin’–18, y’all. Why are there just–still a bunch of shades for lighter skin. It’s not ok.” But based on her tweets and comments, all that sympathy was just for show.
Having had enough of her edges being dragged, Kristen Leanne, deleted all of her tweets and then tweeted, “Being misunderstood is a bummer. It would be cool if everyone knew everyone else’s heart. Goodnight.”
Don’t worry Leanne, we all heard you loud and clear the first time.
https://twitter.com/amyria_smith/status/962226209416499200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/alissa_ashleyy/status/962216627331784704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
