To the Indian makeup industry: We are 50 shades more than ‘Wheatish’

All the photos used as marketing collateral for various brands on Nykaa’s website. These are photos from the landing page of the makeup section.

What I hate about the online makeup shopping culture is the lack of inclusivity for dark-skinned people.

I remember shopping for makeup in India, to look ‘lighter’— after years of nagging from friends and family.

Lakme’s souffle in a dark shade left an orange tint on my 15-year-old face. Growing up in Kerala with my skin tone (M.A.C — NC 45) was a death sentence.

Fairness cream ads showed brown-skinned people as worthless beings, society did the same too.

So I painted my face orange, applied a copious amount of black kohl and slathered on lip gloss to finish the look. I could get by unnoticed because I wasn’t ‘black’ anymore.

Fast forward to some years later, when I shifted out of India, I discovered foreign brands that cost as much as a gram of gold — but it came in colors that didn’t make my face orange.

It only covered the dark spots, and did not change my original skin tone. So I started buying from M.A.C, Stila, Too Faced, Kat Von Dee because I could get a non-ashy lipstick or a compact only from these brands. They catered to my shade of brown, Lakme didn’t.

Obviously, in 2020, times have changed? I presumed.

I jumped and shrieked when I saw Nykaa launch, just to be disappointed by colorism again. Funny thing is, it’s mostly always Indian brands that disappoint me.

Tell me, Nykaa, where is the representation?

One look at Nykaa’s or Lakme’s product swatches and I have no idea how those colors are going to look on me.

But another newcomer who provides swatches for light, medium and dark skin tones in a truer sense than the others, is the brand ‘Sugar’. And for that — THANK YOU.

Over the next couple of stories, I’m going to break down elements (products, product swatches of Indian brands) and how it fails to cater to dark-skinned customers.

PS: Decided to release this today because consumer giants like HUL knows they have no way out but to embrace change (I mean, apart from the fact that it took them four freaking decades to realize dark skin was okay to have). Today they said “fair” is going to be dropped from “Fair and Lovely” brand communication.

PS 2: I’m not bashing the company or calling out people on that photo for having lighter skin tones. I just think it’s 2020 - long time coming for Indian brands to know and showcase that there’s more than one shade falling under “Wheatish” — an umbrella term for brown color often used to describe Bipasha Basu in Vogue or Cosmo back in 2012, and now used to describe Radhika Apte. But if you continue to make lipsticks for the skin tones of these celebrities who are at the lighter end of the spectrum of brown, what will we buy, the people who are 5 shades or 10 shades darker than them?