Earlier this month, influencer-driven makeup brand Morphe announced its release of a whopping 60-shade foundation line. On the surface, this seemed like one of the most active efforts at racial inclusion the beauty industry had ever seen, on par with the launch of Rihanna's Fenty Beauty.
But upon further inspection, black influencers noticed that several things about the launch were off. For one, the brand had historically failed to feature black influencers and customers on its Instagram page. Second, few black influencers, if any, received the PR package for the product.
Enter Nyma Tang, the YouTuber whose claim to fame is testing the darkest shade of makeup products to showcase how people with deep skin tones have such few options when it comes to makeup. She finally got her hands on Morphe's controversial foundation, and now we have a much better sense of what this brand's all about.
Nyma Tang finally reviewed Morphe's "inclusive" Fluidity Foundation.
Tang, for those of you who aren't aware, is the YouTuber who started "The Darkest Shade" video series, in which she puts beauty brand's deepest makeup shades to the test to see just how inclusive they really are of deep skin tones.
When Morphe revealed the Fluidity campaign, black influencers were quick to point out all its flaws.
Not every makeup launch is perfect, but many felt that 60 shades should've given Morphe plenty of room to offer a wide selection of shades for dark skin tones. Many think the brand still failed to do so.
Many noted how few people of color have been included on Morphe's social platforms and PR lists since it launched.
The brand also hosts plenty of meet and greets with mega-influencers who've been accused of racism, such as Jeffree Star, Kathleen Lights, and (until recently) Laura Lee.
Early reviews and customer feedback of the foundation complained the deepest shades in the range were far too gray, a common problem with deep-toned complexion products.
Enter Nyma Tang's review.
As always, Tang used her deep complexion to showcase the systemic problem in the beauty industry, where the darker your skin is, the fewer makeup options you have.
She swatched the collection's three deepest shades — F5100, F5110, and F5120 — across her jaw and chest before deciding F5120 would be the only semi-suitable option.
You could immediately tell that even the deepest shade in Mophe's artillery was not going to be anywhere near dark enough for Tang, who has a similar skin tone to some of the women in Morphe's campaign materials.
Tang also noted from her own swatches of the entire range that many of the deeper shades had "interesting" undertones.
She said that some of those deep shades wouldn't work for literally anyone.
"I don't know why I thought his would be darker," she said, as she started applying shade F5120 to her face.
There's actually a very good reason she believed she'd be getting a darker foundation than what she got in reality, but I'll get into that in a few minutes.
By the time she finished blending it out, she couldn't help but snicker at just how much lighter she looked.
She didn't hate the foundation itself, however. She said she liked the finish and how full coverage it is, but she felt like she was wearing a mask due to how different it was from her skin tone.
Once she put on concealer and set with powder, Tang had to contour her face just to get back to her actual skin tone.
Tang warns that this foundation is extremely full coverage and even more matte — if neither of those things are your bag, you might want to reconsider buying this foundation.
All good things about this foundation's formula aside, Tang couldn't shake the fact that the darkest shade still should have been ... well, darker.
"The shade, I do think it could have been a little bit deeper," she said. "I feel disappointed in this foundation — only because I do feel like it did make my face look quite a few shades lighter."
She probably felt this way because Morphe's website and promotional materials suggest shade F5120 actually looks like this:
And let's be honest here: This model has a far darker skin tone than what Tang's review of the shade suggests. What foundation is this model wearing? It's not Morphe's F5120.
Her review proves that, at best, there's a major discrepancy between Morphe's public efforts at diversity and how much it actually serves deep-skinned people of color.
It's one thing to claim to love and accept black women and men, but it's another entirely to actually serve them with products that work. It seems that Morphe is doing the former and not the latter right now.
We knew something about this campaign seemed off.
I've been noticing that every time an influencer shares their PR box from Morphe, the darkest shades look a hell of a lot lighter than advertised. Now I can say with confidence that they just are.
