Makeup For Women Of Color – Is Skin Lightening A Good Idea?
In the celebrity makeup world there are countless products, treatments, and procedures. They vary from moisturizers, skin creams, and makeup color palettes to botox injections, skin lightening, and full blown surgery.
We recently were speaking with a very passionate professional makeup artist named Promise Gebreyohannes. She is an artist with a celebrity background having worked with clients such as Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child, Meagan Good, Jessi M’Bengue(model), Stacy Dash, and many other up and coming models and actresses. She knows the Hollywood beauty scene.
But lately she has had more of a passion educating every day women on how to appreciate and accentuate their own natural beauty. Here is a post she wrote for us regarding a rather extreme beauty treatment that many women of color have been turning to for quite some time.
I was recently asked about makeup for women of color and I have to vent about an issue that has plagued us for years. I am an Ethiopian woman who migrated to Canada, and in more recent years to the United States of America. I have had the privilege as a make-up artist to enhance and bring out the natural beauty in women.
With that being said, when applying makeup for women of color, I have noticed a consistent request from most (not all) of these women to apply a shade of foundation that is lighter than their own skin tone/complexion. In some cases, but not often, the reverse has also been requested. “Could you give me a shade of foundation that is darker than my skin please?”
Over the last 10 years of doing make-up I can not tell you how often I have had to convince one woman of color after another that she is beautiful in the shade God created her, to encourage her to embrace that beauty, and more importantly, to own that beauty.
There are three keys to achieving a flawless everyday look using make-up – unless of course it is for theatrical or high fashion purposes.
1. Take great care of your skin. It is the foundation that will allow make-up to sit beautifully and naturally.
2. Choose a foundation that matches your own skin tone. This is so important! Anything lighter or darker will make it look obvious that you are wearing makeup and will appear completely unnatural. Makeup for women of color should work with our natural shade, not try to alter it.
3. See yourself as already beautiful. Only use make-up to enhance your already GORGEOUS features! Less is more!
Society and the beauty industry have contributed to the insecurities of colored women and minority women as a whole. They continuously suggest that lighter is better, thinner is better, straighter is better, etc.
If we let it, this leaves women of color trying to fit into a stereotype of beauty that in all honesty does not even really exist in the industry that is promoting it! Can we say airbrushed, PhotoShopped, and a ton of makeup?!
Seriously, just in case you either didn’t know or may have forgotten, the images that we see in the media are always enhanced by graphic designers with very complex computer programs. These images are not of real women in their natural state. They are of women who have been digitally enhanced and altered beyond what is humanly possible.
And the women that we see on the runway are prepped on site by professionals with high grade product that is designed for specific lighting and cameras. That is not reality either.
That being said, my message to women of color is: Put down the bleaching creams, the lightening serums, the obviously too light or too dark foundation, and embrace YOU!
And for those women who have a hard time finding an exact match to their skin complexion I have a suggestion. While I do not usually promote products this time I will in order to help you get on track and make your journey to embracing “YOU” easier.
That being said, some fantastic makeup for women of color to try is Makeup Forever High Definition Foundation. They have an amazing range of shades and undertones and can be found at Sephora or online at Amazon.
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Tags: celebrity beauty, Celebrity Makeup, hollywood makeup, makeup for women of color
