I can’t hold my tongue any more.  As a makeup artist and a beauty blogger, I have a duty to speak up.  In the beauty community, we have come a long way.  2017 was a GREAT year in terms of inclusivity and many mainstream brands realizing that brown girls buy makeup too.  Granted, there are brands such as MAC, Makeup Forever, NARS, Loreal, and Maybelline that are not new at all to vast shade ranges and including everyone.  With that said, I’m sure if you are in tune with the latest news in the beauty community, you have heard about Tarte Cosmetics’ latest release.  If you haven’t heard about it, let me fill you in.  Tarte Cosmetics is a major beauty brand and the creator of one of the most popular concealers on the market, Shape Tape.  Since there are so many fans of the concealer, the Shape Tape foundation release was very highly anticipated.  PAUSE.

I just knew Tarte was going to come THROUGH!  As someone who has never tried the Shape Tape concealer, I was eager to see what the foundation was all about.  I had even made plans to buy the foundation and concealer and try them together.  I was especially excited to see that they were releasing two different foundation formulas, hydrating and matte.  I’m an oily girl, so the matte formula is right up my alley!  I even checked the release dates for online and in store.  I WAS READY!  PLAY.

The highly anticipated release FAILED miserably, in my opinion, and in the opinion of several others, brown or not.  The shade range was EXTREMELY limited for a foundation release.  Brown girls have three (count ’em…1, 2, 3) shades to choose from.  THREE TARTE?!!!  REALLY?!!!  All brown girls match those three shades huh?  Oh ok.  I’m not even going to get into undertones.  Meanwhile, there are fifty shades of beige (well not fifty, but you get the point).

Somehow, still, after all the great strides that have been made in recent years, brown girls still get the short end of the stick in the makeup community.  A lot of the larger, mainstream brands STILL leave us out.  Tarte isn’t the only one.  Their release was just so highly anticipated that it received the most criticism.  YSL is another brand that comes to mind.  They have had new foundations and concealers launch recently, with only one or two token brown shades.  It’s literally making me sick!  Did these brands not see the Fenty Beauty release?  That’s how it’s done.  Fenty’s release included every shade from the get go.  The brown shades stayed sold out for months (proof we do buy makeup).  Tarte has gone on record saying that 10 additional shades will be released this summer *rolls eyes*.  Why couldn’t the release be pushed back if they needed more time to include everyone?  It now seems like an afterthought that many brown girls, including myself, want nothing to do with.  It’s funny how they received so much criticism for the launch that they disabled the comments on their Instagram post about the foundation (but they didn’t do anything wrong…hmph).

It honestly seems as though we’ve taken two steps forward, to only take two steps back.  However, I commend all of the influencers of color (and those not of color) for taking a stand and speaking out against these brands.  Let’s all continue to use our voices!  Whether it’s a comment on the brand’s social media, a YouTube video, a blog post, or a Facebook status.

Tarte is CANCELLED!  I guess I will never know if the Shape Tape concealer lived up to the hype.

Take a couple of minutes and read this article (here) for more information on the Tarte release.

Swatches of the new Tape Shape foundation. This photo is from popsugar.com

 

Till next time gorgeous,

Sarah Robyn