TikTok is rife with intense criticism for makeup brand Youthforia, after it dropped its latest shade of its Date Night Skin Tint Serum Foundation.
In 2023, two years after the brand launched, it became caught up in its first controversy after releasing just 15 shades of the foundation, which beauty influencers said were not inclusive to all skin tones.
In response to this, Youthforia added additional shades – but the move has backfired with the introduction of its darkest shade: 600.
The makeup brand is now facing backlash because shade 600 is so dark it is simply ‘jet black’.
Leading makeup influencer Golloria, who swatches beauty brands’ darkest makeup shades on TikTok, put the Date Night foundation shade to the test, and labelled it ‘tar in a bottle.’
In the video, she paints one side of her face with black face paint, and the other with the foundation shade, revealing that the two are virtually the same.
The video has gone on to receive 17.9 million views and 1.3 million likes, as she called out the brand for being disrespectful to Black people.
Golloria said in her video: ‘When we say that we want you guys to make shades for us, we don’t mean go to the lab and ask for “minstrel show black”.
‘What we mean is take the browns you have made and create undertones… so it’s a darker shade of brown.
‘Not only in 2024 is this so disgusting and disrespectful, but this needs to be pulled off the shelves.’
She also tested the second-darkest shade in the range, 590, which is a much warmer and lighter shade than 600.
The Date Night Skin Tint Serum Foundation has a large array of shades for white and lighter skin tones, but still a very limited range for brown and darker skin tones.
In October, Golloria tried Youthforia’s darkest foundation shade at the time, 495, which was not a match. She had called the brand out then, too, for the shade looking darker on the website than on her skin.
In an interview with TIME, the influencer said: ‘Last year, the shade wasn’t dark enough. Not only do you miss the mark once, you go back and miss the mark again. That just says a lot about the ethos of the brand. It rubbed me the wrong way, and I thought, “This is really hurtful.”‘
She isn’t the only offended influencer on TikTok – others were left unimpressed with the product too.
TikToker Wumi said: ”Black people are not black, we come in shades of brown… The darkest person that you know, has an undertone.
‘That’s black face paint.’
TikToker Javon Ford, an LA-based cosmetic chemist, called the brand out for only using ‘pure black pigment’, and compared the shade to lighter shades which had three different pigments to make the shade.
The brand has disabled all comments under its TikTok posts, which is no surprise after the brand’s founder Fiona Co Chan had claimed in a now-deleted video that the limited shade range was to see if it would be successful.
She called this ‘proof of concept’ before a full shade range launch, but beauty influencer Jackie Aina said in a TikTok: ‘I understand why this woman gave this response, but here’s why I’m going to tell you it’s also bull***t.
‘You’re basically saying that anybody who is lighter than a tan is going to be the case study for this product. They’re going to test it first, they’re going to see if they like it, if they approve… what you’re saying is that anyone who isn’t dark skinned is the default.’
Inclusivity when it comes to shade ranges for makeup brands is not difficult to achieve.
The Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation has been praised for its 40 shades, while it’s Pro Filt’r Hydrating Longwear Foundation has 50 shades.
Anastasia Beverly Hills’ Luminous Foundation also has 50 shades to choose from – this is all compared to the just 25 shades included in the Youthforia range.
Metro.co.uk has reached out to Youthforia for comment.
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