Who Makes Up Makeup?

The start-ups of beauty-- celebrity led makeup companies-- have been eating into the profits of larger, established cosmetic firms, like Revlon, Estee Lauder, and L’Oreal. Harvey Nichols’ beauty buying director, Jo Osborne, believes a major driver of their success is women of color, who have been underserved by the beauty industry for decades.

Fenty Beauty, Rhianna’s makeup line, sells 40 different foundations, twice the range of older, bigger companies with many choices in deeper shades. Fenty’s foundation was sold out for weeks with lines snaking out of major makeup stores for her products. Now others are following suit; Revlon released a 40-shade foundation line after Fenty’s success.

While Fenty wasn’t the first to include a 40-shade foundation, they were one of the first brands to provide the dynamite effect of inclusive beauty and celebrity.