Curvy Model and Humanitarian Philomena Kwao, is using her brains and beauty to call out the embarrassing lack of skin-tone diversity in the beauty industry, because it’s just another issue plaguing the fashion industry that just isn’t talked about enough.
Today, in support of Huffington Post Style‘s campaign Fashion For All, Kwao blogged about her personal struggle within the beauty industry as a darker-skinned beauty.
In her blog entry entitled “Is My Black Not Beautiful?” Kwao speaks on the beauty industry standards, how these standards effect her and many other young women.
On growing up with lack of skin-tone diversity:
“I particularly remember Sugar [Magazine]. And every week they would have make up tutorials…How to do the latest looks… On pale skin, olive skin and dark skin…but the dark skinned women was Alesha Dixon at best. Fast forward 15 years later, and we’re still in the same place….It’s not enough. Magazines don’t go far enough to be inclusive, and have at least one model representing every major skin tone. South Asian? East Asian? Mixed Race? Pale? I don’t know how, but it would be nice to see more diversity all round. The page could easily be divided to fit even ten girls, showcasing how each beauty trend, looks on each skin tone, and right shades to use.”
A photo posted by Philomena Kwao (@philomenakwao) on
Kwao says that Youtube has given bloggers like Jennie Jenkins and Chanel Boating, the opportunity to showcase tutorials of recent beauty trends on darker skin tones. You know, because it’s too much to ask to see a racially diverse, pink lipstick tutorial in a magazine.
For Kwao the problem sparks from a lack of products that are available for a diverse set of skin tones. (It’s difficult to find nude nail polish when the color only resembles one type of nude skin.) Unlike the fashion industry Kwao, argues that the lack of skin-tone diversity isn’t talked about nearly as much as the lack of curvy clothing in the fashion industry.
On how it needs to be spoken about more:
“It isn’t hard to see how the lack of representation affects the self-esteem of many women world wide. And Magazines are so accessible to young women these days that I feel magazines should be particularly aware of their responsibilities when it comes to inclusivity. Much noise has been about size diversity, but not enough about skin tone diversity. It’s time for this to change.”
Nice to see a curvy model speak about other forms of diversity in the fashion industry past size, because body diversity can mean an array of things. All the praise to this beauty with brains who is crushing haters left and right.
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