To women of colour, Rihanna’s cosmetics launch is personal
NEW YORK Worokya Duncan is the director of inclusion for a private school in Manhattan, so her embrace of diversity is a no-brainer. She’s also a big makeup person frustrated over the years by cosmetics companies that don’t seem to get how important it is for women of colour like her to be serviced, too.
“No line really had what I considered my shade of foundation,” she said. “There was always like an orange line somewhere. I would have to have my hair down so you couldn’t see where the foundation colour and my actual skin colour separated. Why is it so hard? Because people still find it novel that there's beauty found in black and brown bodies in the first place.”
Enter one doozy of a beauty: Rihanna. She launched her Fenty Beauty line earlier this month to raves from industry media and consumers alike.
The superstar spent two years developing her products, which include 40 shades of matte foundations, from the palest of pale to deep, deep brown with cool undertones.
“We’re all just, like, giddy over here,” said Julee Wilson, the fashion and beauty editor for Essence. “I knew that she was going to be thoughtful. You expect that from a woman of colour coming out with a cosmetics line, but I was honestly shocked at how inclusive the line is.”
The cruelty-free collection has been selling out since Rihanna launched it online and in Sephora and Harvey Nichols stores Sept. 7 across 17 countries. Darker shades of foundation went first, challenging the notion that the consumer market in those colours isn’t worth it to the bottom lines of beauty brands.
Wilson and Cat Quinn, the beauty director for the millennial-focused lifestyle site Refinery29, were in a small group of beauty editors who met with Rihanna before the launch to hear her explain her vision.
“I think the thing that people are connecting to most, and why this is doing so well, is because you can really feel the passion and the purpose behind this line,” Quinn said. “It’s not another celebrity makeup line that sometimes people feel a little disconnected with. For her, she saw a gap in the market. She saw women not being represented.”
Shavonne Fagan, the manager of a New York clothing store, was in the crowd at a midnight launch event featuring Rihanna at a Sephora in Times Square, but Fagan’s foundation shade quickly sold out, so she hit up a different New York store several days later and dropped $150 on Fenty Beauty.
“Before Fenty came out there were only three foundations I could find that matched my skin and only one that got my undertone right,” she said. “It’s terribly frustrating. One girl started to cry in the Sephora when the person put the foundation on her skin and it matched.”
“It shouldn’t be groundbreaking but it is,” Quinn said.
“It shouldn’t be groundbreaking but it is.” – Cat Quinn, beauty director for Refinery29