Ladies, Beware of The Color Complex

I work at a well-known cosmetic store as a color consultant and I do consultations with women of all colors. One day in specific I was helping an African woman pick a foundation. I found a great color that matched the rest of her skin very well but, to my surprise, she responded “It’s too dark, make me a little lighter.” I must admit I was a bit shocked, but as always you must sell what the customer wants. We did a second consultation with the lighter color and she loved it! She loved it even though it didn’t quite match the rest of her body. Really? That was the first time I witnessed a woman of color longing to be a lighter skin tone.

I asked a group of men if they prefer one over the other and over 80% of them stated that they like all types of women. “You never know what a woman has to offer.” they said. They also said “I think women are so insecure about skin tone because the media only shows two types of women; the light skinned vixen or the tanned out white woman.” This statement holds true in music videos, TV shows, etc., but I still didn’t understand why women wanted to be a lighter color?

I saw an episode of The Tyra Banks Show a while back and the subject was “Black Women Who Bleach Their Skin”. Sounds dangerous right? Funny thing is these products can be found at your local beauty supply store. These women go through countless measures just to have a lighter face. “I feel more accepted” one of the girls on the show said, but do you think this is really true? Are light skinned women more acceptable in society than dark skinned women?

So, I asked a group of African-American women “If you could change your skin color would you go lighter, darker, or stay the same? Of course 100% of them said they are happy with themselves, but I know different.

I took a trip to my local drug store and I noticed most of the brands did not cater to deep skin tones. If you are Naomi Campbell’s color’ the drug store is not your friend. However, I did notice that the prestige brands are trying to expand their colors and hopefully soon mass produced brands will follow suit.

I also work with tons of Caucasian women and I noticed that 70% of fair skinned women came to replace, or look for new bronzer. Bronzer is what adds a little color to your skin to give you a warmer complexion. But, why wear bronzer? “I feel so white some times, I need something to make me tan”

Ladies, this world is made up of all types of people and that’s what makes it more interesting.

Of all the things we could be insecure about, we find something that we can’t change. Sure you can lose weight, have fake nails, hair and such, but you cannot change the color of your skin. Feeling confident is already very hard for many of us and I don’t believe we need another category of insecurities to be created. I hear lots of women complain about their skin tones being uneven, too oily and so on, but what they don’t realize is most women of color have the same problem, we should just embrace our differences.

I took a trip to my local drug store and I noticed most of the brands did not cater to deep skin tones. If you are Naomi Campbell’s color the drug store is not your friend. However, I did notice that the prestige brands are trying to expand their colors and hopefully soon mass produced brands will follow suit.