This is the beautiful Nyma Tang, a South Sudanese Youtuber, who has a channel with over 200,000 subscribers. As you can see she is a beautiful, dark skinned woman with skin to die for. Her inner melanin is filled with glow and sparkle and I am really enjoying her posts on her channel of recent. She is mostly famous for her series #Thedarkestshade where she reviews foundations, concealers and other products in the darkest shade to suit her complexion. This series gained fame as it pinpointed the major problem with makeup brands these days, especially affordable drugstore brands, in getting their shades right to suit all complexions from light to dark. I came across this video from NowThisEntertainment about how she explained her troubles of going to drugstore brands and finding that they don’t appeal to her complexion and often she had to go to higher end brands, which could be quite expensive at times in the US and even here in the UK

Upon watching this video above, I started to realise that for me in particular it wasn’t so much a problem, but for darker skin tones it was a major problem for them finding foundations that were either ashy looking on them or did not match their proper complexion properly. I realised it as I thought whenever I will visit a local Superdrug near me, looking at the brands of Rimmel London, or Maybelline, they would have a range of colours for lighter skin but only have 2-3 shades for darker skin girls. Therefore, leaving them to drift towards higher end brands like Lancôme or Nars who offer great alternatives, however can come at an expensive price.

So I guess the question exactly is, why don’t makeup brands cater towards darker skinned women? I can admit her skin shade would not be something you come across on an everyday basis, it’s unique in itself. However it doesn’t mean popular makeup brands should simply stop catering for their skin shades. Even looking at it from the other way round, most of the light shades still do have a tint of a tan look in them, forgetting that there are paler skin people and that not everyone prefers that tanned look even though it is what is in fashion right now.

Except for black owned brands such as Black Opal Beauty or Fashion Fair who focus on black skin mostly, many brands that are mainly advertised as being affordable for women and easily accessible should take a rise on expanding their colour ranges to suit each skin type. Especially with the rise of popular woman from Nyma herself to other youtbers such as Nikki Perkins or even actors such as Lupita Nyong’o who are gaining prominence in the spotlight.

My hope for the future is that makeup brands will continue to expand on their colour ranges, not only for foundations but other products such as blushers, highlighters and lipsticks (especially lipsticks, we need to stop looking like we have just eaten a powdered doughnut!) so that women will not have to resort to expensive brands all the time, even thought they are of very good quality

I’m no beauty expert myself, but I would really like to know why there isn’t a full range of colours suitable for all women of colour !