Makeup Industry Neglects the Caramel Shades Between Light and Dark
Back in the day,
makeup brands offered abysmal selections for people of color where the deepest shade in a line would not match dark chocolate or even milk chocolate complexions. Some of them would stop around peanut, walnut, or caramel. In recent years, after a lot of advocacy from Black women in particular, brands finally started to get the memo and began adding more shades. What they once called “deep” or “dark” was now 5-15 shades from the current deepest darkest shade in a line with 40 or more choices. While this is great progress over all, those shades that were previously known as “deep” got pushed further inward and often forgotten about - with much more attention to the shades now at either end of the range.
Though we all celebrate the expansions not only in shade offerings, but society’s attitudes and marketing’s glossy ads and insta-feeds, for the medium-deep range it can feel like we have never had our moment. We were never fair or light, so we were not en vogue when that’s all you saw on print and screen and now that deeper shades have finally gotten more representation, we don’t quite fit the criteria when fashion and cosmetics brands want to highlight modelesque rich ebony skin tones either. In beauty, our brands have been pushed inward toward a middle area we never inhabited before - neither light, nor dark, or even medium. We fall into the void between medium and deep leaving many of us feeling unseen or worse: un-included. This presents a unique set of issues for people in this “medium-deep” shade range.
1. PICTURES: We are almost never represented in promo photos that show what a swatched shade will look like on the arm or lips. It is very hard to figure out how colors will look on us based on only fair, light, light-medium, and deep/dark arms and faces. We fall right into the gap when most brands only use 2-3 models. This makes picking lipsticks and bronzers online very difficult and completely distorts the color of foundations and concealers if it is swatched on darker models (see Tom Ford). Some show swatches of the same shade that look like two completely different colors when swatched on a model versus a white background (see Tom Ford again). Some brands even photoshop the swatches onto photoshopped models which also makes the actual color hard to determine (suspicious of, but not directly accusing, Tom Ford). Fenty is one of the only brands who consistently shows all products swatched on four different skin tones including one representing medium-deep, which is called “tan” in many brands. (One of the perks of having the brand’s founder and namesake in your shade range #RepresentationMatters in the photos and in the boardrooms).
These three models are all supposedly wearing the shade Moorea (4y11) in different NARS brand foundations but these look quite different in depth and undertone in the photos NARS used.
According to Supergoop the swatch to the left and the one on the model’s cheek to the right are the same color in their new CC cream.
If you believe Tom Ford, the shade on the right (which appeared on a white card) and the shade on the left (which was swatched on a deep dark model) are the same color.
Here, Patrick Ta used only three models for his lip crayon campaign, making it hard to determine if this shade will match a caramel complexion or not.
2. SAMPLES AND MINIS: Medium-deep/tan shades are not included in most pre-packaged foundation samples. These packs include between 3-8 tester shades, but frequently land on 4. Like the swatches, samples usually go Fair, Light (or sometimes Light-medium), [A BIG JUMP WHERE OUR SHADES SHOULD BE], and then Dark (or sometimes Deep-Dark). All of the shades are usually unusable for someone in the tan/medium-deep shade range that I like to call “Caramel.” Aside from the samples, many brands sell mini versions of their products often bundeling 2-4 minis into one value pack. These are often done with fair sha
des in mind, neglecting deeper tones, thereby removing this money-saving option as we are forced to either bit the more expensive full-sized options or just forego the products. Our only option should not be to pay more based on having more melanin. (Doesn’t that feel wrong, especially in this era of racial awakening?)
Sample packs like these from Bounce, Givenchy, and Tom Ford offer almost no options for caramel complexions.
3. SEPHORA COLOR IQ: As of September of 2020, Sephora removed their Color IQ finder feature from their app after removing it from their website about a year ago. Because of the aforementioned issues, I (and many others) relied on the Color IQ finder for clarity in picking foundations and concealers online. The color IQ gave an alpha-numeric description of a skin color’s depth and undertone. This code could then be used to find similar shades of complexion products across brands, in spite of each company’s unique naming system. So while a shade might be called “23” in one brand and “Moorea” in another, they both would share the color IQ 4y11. Understanding the code would also allow you to make educated choices. If a brand does not have your exact color IQ, you could select a shade in their line with a similar depth and undertone. For example, 1y11 and 2y11 both are 11 out of 15 deep on this scale and are both on the golden/warm side of the scale represented by the “y” for “yellow” in their codes (“r” is used for “red”/cool undertones). So if a brand does not have your Color IQ of 4y11, you might choose a 4y10 or a 2y11 as close substitutions for your match. Rather than removing the Color IQ, Sephora should have done the opposite and expanded it. (See next point).
4. BRONZERS & CONTOUR: Sephora’s Color IQ was an invaluable tool for matching foundations and concealers to one’s skin tone. It did not, however, include bronzers or contouring products. In the medium-deep shade range, we are the same color as most of the “default” bronzers used on fair-to-light skin tones. If we prefer a subtle bronze or contour, it is very hard to tell from online pictures if a product will be just deep enough to add that subtle sun-kissed look or just a smidgeon too light to work for us. Even with brands expanding their bronzer shade ranges, the promo pictures often still show models who are lighter or darker than us so it is still difficult to judge the depth of the product. That’s why it would have been great if Sephora added bronzers and contour products to their Color IQ so we could instantly get a number that would tell us if the bronzer was slightly deeper or slightly lighter than the Color IQ we use for our foundations. For example, if I wear a 4y11 in foundation, I could calculate a bronzer that is also a 4y11 will be too light for me and a bronzer that is a 3r15 will be too deep but a 1r12 or 2y13 could be perfect.
Notice in these bronzer swatches from Charlotte Tilbury now it could be difficult for someone between arms 2 and 3 to tell whether they can get away with that second bronzer shade or if they should go for the third. Using a Caramel completed arm could have really added clarity to the huge range between arm two and arm three.
5. TIME & MONEY: All of this serves to negatively impact the time and money of people with medium-deep AKA tan AKA caramel complexions. Since I am often not represented in or cannot trust brand’s promo pictures, I would need to go into a store in person to swatch products and see how they look on my skin tone. This would be inconvenient in regular times when I know that people in other shade ranges can look at accurate photos or receive mailed samples in the comfort of their homes. However, as we are still in a pandemic, swatching is not an option for most folks anymore. This would then mean ordering a product on a wing and a prayer that it will work, potentially adding a lot of time to the process of finding the right shade. Waaait several days for your order to arrive, only to face disappointment when the color doesn’t work and then waaait several more days the company to receive the returned product and then waaait many more days for a replacement shade to be delivered.
It is not fair (pun acknowledged) that makeup shopping is still way more inconvenient for my shade range than other’s, when so many people from all over the country and world are in this shade range. I would like to know why brands do this. Do we buy less makeup? If so, is that because the market isn’t there or because of the difficulties detailed above?
My shade used to be the deepest or next to deepest in most drugstore selections (if they carried brown shades at all). While this was unjust, as it left out many deeper shades, I could at least say I had *some* options. Now that I’m looking for more high-end brands, it seems many shifted their focus to the deep-dark shades and forgot the medium-deep/tan ones still exist. The OG Mac NC45s are still here. If your line doesn’t include representation for NC42 through NC47, both in shades produced and in promotional materials, it has missed the mark.
Beauty brands, stores, influencers, bloggers, and journalists, please take note and feel free to quote:
“The makeup industry needs more #TanRepresentation and more #CaramelSwatches for #MediumDeepSkin.”
- Autumn Bryant
Follow Autumn’s page @Caramel_Swatches on Instagram for photos of makeup on the tan/medium-deep shade range.
