Rihanna released her long awaited makeup line Fenty Beauty this weekend. Social media was buzzing with anticipation for months, even doing countdowns. Aside from the fact that this is a Rihanna release, people were excited to hear that there would be 40 foundation shades — something so unheard of! Black women and people of color are so use to having only about 2 shades to pick from, so we were so excited! Rihanna proclaiming she has many options for woman of color set social media a blaze
Just last month, Yves Saint Laurant released their solution to the lack of foundation shades for woman of color.
Their solution was having just 2-4 shades for women of color. They proudly debuted this collection and thought they were doing something historic. This is far too common in the beauty industry. They assume that black women aren’t buying makeup or foundation, so they don’t create more inclusive colors.
Well Fenty Beauty is changing that notion, as of today many of the darker colors in the collection have sold out in store and online world wide. So what does that say about black women as consumers? Well it says that black women are buying makeup, especially foundations but we can just never find our shade!
The buying power of African-Americans is $1 trillion. Black women alone spend an estimated $7.5 billion annually on beauty products! They actually send 80% more on beauty products than non-black people. Yet, black women are still underrepresented in the beauty world and usually an afterthought when new makeup is formulated.
Fenty Beauty released only Friday night and most of the dark shades are already sold out world-wide. I thought I could go to my local Sephora to get a match today, but I was shocked to find out my color was already sold out, even on the Fenty Beauty website.
What Rihanna is doing with Fenty Beauty is so monumental for many reasons, finally a variety of colors for women, and lastly her brand is black owned (not fully though because it is in partnership with Kendo). Rihanna is setting a precedent for makeup brands to be inclusive of women of color. The demand is there, black women want more colors! Sweetie, black women have the coins and makeup brands are missing out!
