A South Sudanese model named Nykhor Paul, raised the issue she struggles with in an instagram post in 2015 with the comment reading ”Why do I have to bring my own makeup to a professional show when all the white girls don’t have to do anything but show up!” The struggle for women of color is way too big in the beauty industries. Society forgets that even though slavery was abolished, men and women of color still feel judged and unequal. Sadly this isn’t a new thing either, I will describe what really goes on from the companies to the standard these women face.

Firstly any makeup company that wants to create a new foundation or makeup line starts with research. For foundations they look for what ethnicity is around the areas that will supply their products. This is how they know whether to make more light shades or dark shades. Even if there is a lot of different skin tones they can’t produce and sell everyone, or else they would have around fifty shades! Companies then start to whittle down through similar skin tones putting together about 10-17 shades. It’s not just skin tones considered, it’s also complections. If the foundation formula is matte or dewy looking, liquid foundation or stick foundation, and whether it’s for oily, dry, or combination skin. In an interview of participants for a study by Iowa State University in 2013, the women of color favored the brand M.A.C for makeup products because they have oil free foundations with rich pigment and extensive colors to choose from. This gives companies a look at what some women prefer in foundations, helping more with how to formulate desired products. After these brands have figured out what kind of makeup or foundation line they should produce, the actual creation of shades starts.

The basic colors used in any foundation is: red, yellow, white, and black, says the Cosmopolitan in the article “Why Are Women of Color Still Having Trouble Finding Foundation?” on December 26, 2015. Using these colors just in my head I can think of them being able to make nice pink undertones or yellow ones for light skin, but one of the most common undertones for darker women doesn’t seem easy to make. The olive skin tones on many women of color is one of the hardest to find on shelves or to create. If too much white pigment is added to the foundation it looks ashy, too much orange and it looks like a bad tan.  Makeup companies get slammed on social media for this like Tarte did in their release of the “Shape Tape” foundations. People have wondered why there are fewer darker shades on shelves and there could be a few reasons. One could be because it’s not easy to make colors to truly match anyone and two it could be too much to make. I can now say that they are both not valid. In the article “Not Fair: Are Darker Foundation Shades Harder and More Costly to Make?” by Get the Gloss in May of 2016, they revealed while working with the company No7 “...creating foundations for darker skin tones was neither hard nor more expensive to do….” This means companies need to get on the larger shade range productions with more dark tones that actually match darker women without them mixing three different colors of foundation from different brands.

This brings me to how women of color have probably had at least one terrible shopping experience in there life based in the cosmetic aisle. I personally know how difficult it is to find the right foundation. I have five different shades from just one foundation line. The one thing that is worse than not finding the right shade is having limited or no options. It can really hurt a person's confidence and sense of belonging when they are stuck looking at the two shades that are around there skin tone in the line of foundation when there are probably 14 shades for caucasians. Lilly Singh, a canadian youtuber, actress, and author, voices her struggle with hate saying, “The last time someone made me feel bad about my skin would be every single comment I get about my face makeup not matching my neck...maybe if more foundations matched my skin tone, haters would slow their roll.”  It’s impossible to find the right shade alone, but with the help of professionals at beauty counters or even some makeup loving friends it will make the experience easier and less stressful. If a professional is there to help it would be typically at Sephora or Ulta where foundations will be around $40 for one bottle. This makes it a whole lot less affordable, which isn’t great for what women of color’s standards are.

Women all have standards no matter what their skin says but they are all too high. We see magazines with perfect models on the covers, but they have makeup artists and professionals to make them look a certain way that sometimes isn’t possible without computer editing. Women have grown up not even noticing how bad it has gotten. The european standards are a huge effect on women of color and is their most common beauty standard. They want to fit to the slimmer, red lips, pink cheeks, smooth skin, and blue eyes of europeans. To do this bleaching has been a big thing for years to obtain lighter skin. There was a test done by Kenneth and Marie Clark in 1947 called “The Doll Test”. Children of color were showed a white doll and a doll painted black, they didn’t produce black dolls yet, then asked which they prefered. The test showed that the children prefered the white doll actually helping the case Brown vs Board of Education. The case dealt with segregation in schools. The Doll Test won the case for brown causing desegregation in American schools.

Over the last years, women of color have finally started voicing the complaints that need to be heard like Nykhor Paul’s. These women should not have to stay quiet about the unfair differences. The humiliation at a store or when their face doesn’t match their neck needs to stop. The breakthrough needs to come, whether it’s a new color added in foundations or more foundation shades. The beauty industry will not succeed if women of color aren’t equally represented, so I hope the change to come about is truly a new movement.