LUBNA Khalid and Anna Hernandez have done a wonderful job. These enterprising women decided to inspire confidence in the millions of brown-skinned women through a channel most activists ignore. Developing a brand of makeup catering for such women meant rethinking a philosophy that big names such as Revlon, Lancome, YSL and Chanel have long stood by. It meant taking research that indicated a massive pocket of purchasing power of those women and implementing it, despite the fact that the giants have ignored statistics for years.
It took courage and creativity to come up with Real Cosmetics, a company that began as a modest operation on the web, grew into two retail outlets in New York City and is expanding today. The market opportunity is enormous; there are roughly 13.6 million brown-skinned women between 15 and 34 in the United States alone. Annually, they spend $95 million on cosmetics. Why has this market been largely unexploited?
“Because the decision-makers have tunnel vision and do not see these women as a market, let alone a market with buying power. A huge market is being ignored and it is great for us. Our customers include Latina, South Asian, Middle Eastern, Mixed Race, African-American, East Asian and Native American,” says Lubna, the founder of Real Cosmetics.
The idea for Real Cosmetics was born when Lubna, a Pakistani-American model, grew frustrated with the lack of cosmetics for her skin and the absence of positive images of brown women. During her eight years as a model, she found that makeup artists had to blend many foundations to come close to her color, something that most women just don’t have time to do.
Jabu Dayton, director of new business development at Real Cosmetics, says, “We found that foundations are a primary problem for women. Often lines only cater to brown-skinned women by adding colors based on pink. This is not satisfactory for yellow-based skin. Most women have to combine two or more shades every morning, a very time-consuming ritual. They end up applying colors that are lighter than their skin, giving them a mask-like appearance.”
According to Anna Hernandez, “Women with darker skins have been waiting for a line that caters to them. We get validation every day from our customers who thank us for having created our product.”
The recent Latin/Arab/international music boom has created greater awareness of Latin American wants and needs in the United States. Even in skin care, the market is beginning to recognize different skin care needs, tastes and wants, noted Elizabeth Bartolo, founder and chief executive officer, Ella Cosmetics, a company that makes yellow-based foundations, blue-based lipsticks and several green-based foundations to neutralize skin redness.
So the big names are responding? Bartolo answered, “Products are developed by corporate America — a white man who looks at statistics. He sees $3 million in potential sales and a need to fill the market. But he is targeting numbers, not people.”
One problem that big players on the ethnic cosmetic scene are well aware of is the family-centered nature of Arab, Asian and Latin families. The matriarch of the family often influences the family’s buying power. She is often a person who prefers to buy Pond’s Cream because she remembers it from her youth rather than some new cream especially formulated for her skin type. This kind of brand loyalty hits new initiatives hard.
We, the brown-skinned women who are an important buying sector seem unconcerned that YSL’s eye makeup shades are often too light even to show up on our skin tones. The fact that a lipstick looks fabulous on a Caucasian model is a guarantee that it will look demonic on us and yet, all women flock to cosmetic counters to buy the latest product from Chanel. Because these big well-known brands have been marketed so successfully in the Middle East, Pakistan and India, it is easier for women from those areas to identify with them, regardless of how they look on their particular skin type. This is yet another manifestation of our obsession with all things Western.