In case you didn’t know, Tarte cosmetics is Cancelled, sis.
Earlier this week the well-known makeup brand, Tarte Cosmetics, which is sold in both Sephora and Ulta, tried everyone’s patience with the launch of their almost exclusively white Shape Tape foundation. The Shape Tape concealer, the predecessor to the foundation, has been raved about since it hit the scene in 2016. With its popularity, the complimenting foundations have been highly anticipated by Tarte fans for quite some time. But even though people of all shapes, sizes, genders, and colors were waiting with baited breath for these foundations, Tarte had the nerve and the idiocy to ignore the new normal in the makeup world. They released a line of foundations with 15 shades… 3 of which were for women of color. Yes girl, THREE.
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| Tarte Shape Tape Foundation shade range |
This sent the internet a blaze, of course! When the promotional photos were released on Tarte’s Instagram page they had to disable to comments because they were so bad! The major brand, which was founded in 1999, released a statement via Popsugar saying that they know they need to do better and they plan on releasing 10 new shades to expand the collection by summer. This will give the line a total of 25 matte and moisturizing finish foundation shades. Which is an improvement but I’m sorry, still trash.
Although their lack of inclusion has set the YouTube beauty community in a frenzy, with both black and white beauty influencers taking them to task, there are still some die-hard (white) Tarte fans who are defending the brand, using the promise of an additional 10 shades as an excuse. But YouTube guru Makeup Shayla quickly shut that down. During her review she had this to say on how foundation launches usually go:
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| Fenty Beauty shade range on the first try! |
“[Brands]’ll release a bunch of shades and then later fill in the gaps. They typically wouldn’t release 15 then add 10 more. It would be more like what Rihanna did… 40 then adding 5 or 6 more in-between depending on the demand.”
But as I stated earlier, adding 10 shades won’t land Tarte anywhere near Fenty Beauty’s 40, which is honestly the standard now. Some won’t understand the fuss we are all making but that is only because their privilege won’t allow them to. Women of color shouldn’t be an after-thought or made to wait until the lighter or whiter women have had their products for months until we are serviced. As if our buying power isn’t just as important.
If Rihanna can launch a fully inclusive line of complexion products on her first try but Tarte Cosmetics can’t and they’ve been doing this for almost 20 years they should just throw in the towel now.
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| What inclusion looks like. Tarte, take notes! |
I haven’t been a makeup fanatic for long but I have been black my entire life and I’m fed up. Luckily, we have a growing selection of black-owned and inclusive brands to shop with now. Let’s show the world how powerful we are by taking away our dollars from companies who treat us like second rate citizens and reward those who care about us. #BlackGirlsWearMakeupToo #TarteSoWhite
I plan to return my Tarte palette and use that money to support a company that values its melanin-rich customers!
Bustle.com has curated a list of 32 Black-owned makeup brands that have a shade for you RIGHT NOW
1. Fashion Fair
2. Black Opal
3. Shea Moisture
4. Ka’Oir Cosmetics
5. Black Up cosmetics
Click here to see the rest of the list.
