How Fenty revolutionised the beauty industry
Image credits: Getty Images/Courtesy of Fenty Beauty
For too long, makeup counters were inhospitable places for women (and men) of colour, such as myself. Conversations with salespeople were at times alienating, at worst insulting. “We don’t stock your shade,” I recall one person saying unapologetically. “That foundation should probably work if you give it time,” another informed me, rounded off with the parting words of advice, “Send an email to head office, maybe they’ll consider making your tone”.
When Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty line was announced in September 2017, I knew it marked the beginning of a dramatic sea change. With its sexy, traffic-stopping promo video starring Rihanna herself alongside a diverse cast of women – Slick Woods, Duckie Thot, Paloma Elsesser and Halima Aden – it was clear what Fenty stood for: a more inclusive cosmetics industry and representation of beauty.
Social-media users applauded Fenty Beauty and what it was offering so loudly that the beauty industry didn’t know what to do with itself. Almost all of the other brands rushed out new shades (read, darker) following the unveiling of the range of 40 that Fenty Beauty included. Makeup artist Ammy Drammeh, whose aesthetic is “real – more than natural”, uses the products on herself and her clients. She tells me that she feels inspired. “They are versatile and I use them in different ways, like highlighter and lipstick as eyeshadow.” When I ask Drammeh about the cultural shift that Fenty Beauty caused, she notes that “after Fenty launched its wide range of foundation everyone went crazy, I remember seeing the queues at Harvey Nichols. Shortly after that other brands did the same.”
Scarred by my previous encounters, my first foray into Fenty Beauty was ordering a lipstick (Stunna Lip Paint in Uncensored) and a highlighter (Killawatt) online, bypassing the hundreds of people queuing for their personal sessions outside Harvey Nichols, London’s department store that stocks the brand exclusively. When I eventually visit the Fenty counter, struck by how many black and brown women are having comfortable and open conversations with salespeople who know what they need and the audience they are catering for, I am convinced to buy a foundation. When I get home, I try it on and feel… normal. For a makeup brand to do that to someone at the age of 28 is a very big deal.
A few months later, I go to the launch of a friend’s zine. Arriving alone, and very shy, I plan to read the zine in a corner and keep myself to myself. I arrive, marvel at the beautiful black and brown people in the room, feel suitably intimidated and take to my corner. I look up and a girl is staring at me from across the room. “Is that Fenty on your face?” she shouts excitedly – and after telling her yes, getting my highlighter and brush out and doing my best makeup artist impression on her, I now have a friend for life. One makeup brand has taken me, and many women like me, from feeling unseen by the beauty industry to feeling important and catered to, through 40 shades of foundation and 50 of concealer.
Fenty Beauty is a brand constantly evolving. At the beginning of May, a new range of products was revealed, then a week later, it was announced that Fenty Beauty will be stocked in Boots. What was once an exclusive range of products, only available in one of the most upmarket department stores in London, will soon be on the high street – furthering the Fenty Beauty mission statement that “women everywhere would be included”. Inevitably, social-media users were once again thrown into an excited frenzy, such is the “Fenty effect”, amazed at how a popstar can change the makeup game.
Fenty Beauty isn’t just about makeup, nor is it about Rihanna simply expanding her empire beyond music, underwear, or her recently announced fashion label, under luxury conglomerate LVMH. It’s a social movement, and has made other – and much more established – brands do better. In 2018, magazine named Fenty Beauty one of the most genius companies, noting that, “in only a year, Fenty Beauty has pulled off a makeover of the makeup industry”. When we think about the impact that beauty has on our society, there isn’t a word big enough to encompass that impact. It’s taken one young black woman, who cut her teeth in music, to bring inclusivity to the beauty industry, and to make a whole set of people feel seen in doing so.
Queenie