The new year has already kicked off with numerous massive complexion-product launches from major brands. But with so many brands missing the mark for basic diversity standards in the past, people are leery of certain companies' true intentions. Consumers have to ask: Are "inclusive" product launches truly diverse, or are they just for the sake of saving face?
The latest brand coming into question is the influencer-drive Morphe, which is about to launch 60 foundation shades, beating all other beauty brands in terms of sheer numbers. You'd think beauty influencers would be jumping for joy, but there's one serious issue and it's unacceptable.
When Morphe announced that it would be launching 60 shades of foundation later this month, the response was shockingly very mixed.
And it wasn't because of swatching, like it normally is when it comes to shade range controversies.
That's because Morphe rarely, if ever, represents people of color on its social media platforms, Instagram in particular. It's also been known to rarely send products for black influencers to review.
Arnell Armon couldn't have agreed more and publicly criticized the very few times black women have been featured on Morphe's Instagram.
Some even noted that the handful of people of color who are featured on the brand's page are reposted over and over again.
To market the new foundation line, Morphe also introduced the "Fluidity Five," a group of five beauty influencers the brand says represent the five shade ranges of foundation soon to be available.
But the product's teaser video didn't appear to represent all of those ranges, which led people to think Morphe didn't account for the importance of undertones when creating deeper shades.
And that begs the question of whether or not this massive shade range is less about serving people of color, or if it's just another gimmick for the brand to appear more inclusive and earn points from consumers and the media.
Shalom Blac even claimed that James Charles had to ask the brand to send her PR mailers.
WTF.
In the past few months, Morphe has posted few black men or women in comparison to the number of non-POC influencers. Ultimately, it's a complete contradiction to what real inclusivity is about: serving people of all skin tones equally, whether or not it's convenient or lucrative.
Oh, and by the way, allegedly Laura Lee's discount code still works, even though Morphe claims to have shut it down after her old racist tweets came to the surface last summer.
She might still be making commission from that, just FYI.
And as for the most popular Morphe meet-and-greets ...
Seeing a pattern here?
We'll let you put two and two together on that one.
We're hoping the foundation formula is strong, or else we'll be severely disappointed.
Keep an eye on black beauty Twitter in late January. That's when we'll learn just how inclusive this foundation really is.
