Beauty mogul Huda Kattan has spoken out on one of the industry’s biggest failures: representation.
In an interview with Sky News, the Huda Beauty founder discussed how the industry has a long way to go in terms of inclusivity.
The UK-based news outlet’s feature comes after the British Beauty Council criticised the beauty industry for not catering to people of colour and minorities, referring to it as “apartheid” in the space.
According to Kattan, she says, “The beauty industry is absolutely still failing people of colour.”
“Being inclusive is hard. It takes so much work,” she explained, adding that this has been down to a history of severe underrepresentation.
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In fact, when the beauty mogul has previously visited factories explaining she’d need a “deep or richer shade of foundation”, some of them would “put black pigment in the formula”.
“It’s actually harder to serve a community who doesn’t have a skin tone that has been worked on so much,” she added.
In the past, people of colour have been widely underrepresented in the industry when it comes to shade options and there’s clearly still a long way to go.
Having launched her beauty brand in 2013, an extension of her popular blog at the time, Kattan has always ensured inclusivity is at the forefront.
Huda Beauty launched its first-ever foundation, the Faux Filter Foundation, back in 2017 and it featured a total of 30 shades catering to a plethora of skin tones. Just recently, the brand unveiled its sister product to the foundation, the Faux Filter Concealer, which features 29 shades.
However, the mogul says there’s still a long way to go.
“There’s still not enough care and consideration taken when they’re creating the products,” she told Sky News. “I mean, you can use people of many different ethnicities in a campaign – but that’s just not enough.
“It’s a good start, but it’s so far beyond where we should be in this day and time. So I would say absolutely, it’s still failing all people of colour right now.”
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Images: Huda Beauty Instagram
