Why Do We Still Have a Shade Inclusivity Problem in 2025?

Vogue

9 hours ago

While wandering my local Sephora recently in search of a new foundation, I was faced with my usual dilemma: As I traveled down the skintone rainbow, there became fewer and fewer options toward the end. My skin skews more chestnut or toasted brown—and for years, I've had to mix and match different shades to make one work.
I cannot begin to depict how many complexion products I have had to pass up on simply because I'm unable to find a shade that fits my skin tone, and I am aware that the issue is exacerbated for those with deeper skin than mine. It's a problem many people of color experience—as evidenced by testimonials from friends and peers, or more prominently, on social media, where TikTok has evolved into the most involved social listening platform—an open line of communications between brands and the consumers they serve. Though these days, it feels like that service ends around a certain complexion.
'I started creating beauty content because I couldn't find myself in the beauty space,' Golloria George, a beloved content creator with 3.2 million followers on TikTok, tells me. Her experience as a dark-skinned South Sudanese woman inspired her influencing journey in the first place. George was tired of trying the 'deepest' shade of a brand's complexion launch only to find it still wasn't deep enough or worse, not included at all. 'Shade inclusivity wasn't a pre-planned mission, it was a lived experience. Speaking up about it was a natural response to being consistently overlooked.'
'Shade inclusivity wasn't a pre-planned mission, it was a lived experience. Speaking up about it was a natural response to being consistently overlooked.' — Golloria George
Makeup artist Danessa Myricks says that consumers really started voicing feedback in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement. In a year where demonstrations in remembrance of George Floyd swept the nation alongside the rise of Black Lives Matter, many brands felt pressured to showcase their inclusivity efforts—via campaigns and social media posts, to the actual products they were launching. Many brands looked to Rihanna's Fenty Beauty, which launched in 2017 with a then-unheard-of 40 shades Pro Filt'r foundation and set a new standard with beauty consumers. 'I don't want women to [say], 'That's cute, but it only looks good on her,' ' Rihanna reportedly said at her cosmetics brand's global launch party that year. 'I wanted things I love that girls of all skin tones could [also] fall in love with.'
At first, brands chose to react—but now they seem to have lost steam. 'I think there was a point where, you know, brands may have felt pressured, but it wasn't really authentic to the conversation that they were having as a brand,' Myricks tells me over Zoom, as the racial reckoning we had a few years ago simmered down, some brands went back to business as usual. 'What becomes clear is the true intention of a brand, and that's what I feel like we're seeing, and that's what I see people reacting to.'
I often find it quite easy to suss out brands that are set on making products for anybody and everybody—and no, I don't mean the dreaded 'universal.' And as a Black woman whose job is to essentially review and consult on the product industry, I've had to employ a keen eye to discern what will and will not work for me—and the people I service through my writing and editing.