Natasha Denona is catching major side-eyes from makeup lovers after beauty YouTuber Shanygne Maurice, better known as Too Much Mouth, called out the brand for photoshopping swatches on a darker model's arm. This isn't the first time we've heard of beauty brands like ColourPop and Stila Cosmetics editing photos to make their products appear more inclusive or to change the skin tone of a model completely.
Now that fans are accusing the Natasha Denona brand of committing a similar atrocity, the real question we should be asking is why this keeps happening?
The Natasha Denona product in question is the Mini Bronze & Glow Cheek Duo ($19, Sephora).
When the brand debuted the product and swatches, people immediately began to question why a single shade shows up the same way on three drastically different skin tones. That's not how makeup really works. The same highlighter can look lighter or darker on the skin depending on your complexion. Most of the time, a product will not look exactly the same on two different skin tones. Maurice decided to find out the real tea about the product by purchasing it and trying it in real life on her YouTube channel.
First, she showed how the product looks in person.
"What I couldn’t understand is, is this a bronzer or a blush? It’s kind of being advertised as both," she explained. "I feel like we’re trying to beat around the bush here since some people might question it since it’s only one shade I feel like we’re kind of trying to beat around the bush here and say it could be bronzer or it could be a blush… I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t be either for me."
Then, the YouTuber swatched the bronzer from the duo-palette along with two other bronzers she has used to note the difference in pigments.
From left to right, the shades on her hand are the Prime Beauty Brownzer ($21, Sephora) in the shade Bronzeville, Fenty Beauty Sun Stalk'r Bronzer ($30, Sephora) in the shade Mocha Mami, and the bronzing blush from Natasha Denona mini-compact. The Natasha Denona bronzing blush is barely there. On Maurice's deep complexion, it looks like an ashy white streak.
Still, Maurice opted to give the pigment a chance and attempted to bronze her face with the Natasha Denona shade.
After brushing a bit of the bronzer on her forehead, it basically blended into nothing. There was no bronzing effect whatsoever. If she were to try using it as a blush, a similar effect would have happened. You simply cannot see the product.
So what happened to this super pigmented bronzer blush we see in the original swatch photos?
It's also worth it to note that Maurice is right about the brand keeping its description of the product pretty vague. In the photo, it is labeled as a blush but the overall product is called the Bronze & Glow Palette. The product description says that this is "a duo of Natasha’s iconic Glow Extreme from the Diamond & Blush palette and her classic blush in a brand-new bronze shade."
So are we bronzing or are we blushing? What makeup look should we really be expecting from this product? It's uncertain and so are the swatches.
Maurice wasn't alone in her concerns about the swatch photos in comparison to the real look of the product.
"I HIGHLY doubt those swatches are even remotely accurate," one skeptic wrote on Instagram. "We're supposed to believe it shows up with that much intensity on a deeper skin tone? The worst any brand can do is try to cover up a non-existent shade range with Photoshop."
Welp!
Some fans want to know why she only released one shade in the first place.
"What are we going to do with one shade," one person shared.
This is an important question. After all, not all highlighters, blushes, or bronzers are created equal. Different shades work for different skin tones which should be obvious to anyone in the beauty industry by now. Why release a product meant to deepen the skin tone or give it a more flushed look if you're only going to cater to one skin tone?
One fan is just glad that the typically inclusive Fenty Beauty already has bronzers that work for dark skin.
"Why couldn’t they just come out with a darker bronzer option?!?! Oh, that’s right…. they could’ve but just didn’t care too….. welp! And now I don’t care to spend my money …… @fentybeauty bronzers here I come," a critic wrote.
To be fair, Fenty Beauty bronzers are not a guaranteed match for all skin tones but the brand at least released eight shades ranging from fair to deep to ensure that more people have access to bronzing products. It's also pretty safe to expect that the eight will expand over time.
Another fan who watched Maurice's review now believes the Natasha Denona swatches are a straight-up lie.
"Check out @yagirltoomuch review on in this. The lies this picture tells. Either make deeper shades or don’t bother with the Photoshop. Smh @natashadenona, we’re not stupid."
Fans have even been flooding the Natasha Denona Instagram page with comments about the issue.
"A couple things I don’t appreciate," one fan wrote. "One [is] you releasing one shade of bronzer and [two], you photoshopping that same one shade of bronzer on dark skin so that it looks exactly like the swatch on light skin. Please don’t be a fraud. You know good and well that bronzer won’t show up on deep skin tones. Pitiful."
Yikes. Let's hope Natasha Denona settles this issue quickly because these swatches absolutely look suspicious. The real blend of the product looks obviously different from the brand photos and if they were edited, it's pretty foolish and very, very messy.
