Black and Beautiful: A Content Analysis and Study of Colorism and Strides toward Inclusivity in the Cosmetic Industry

Abstract

The purpose of this research is twofold: 1) to explore colorism in the cosmetic industry in light of multiple marketing venues such as social media, online, and retail stores and 2) to provide a snapshot of improvement (or lack of) in shades and foundation colors offered in the beauty industry. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test conducted indicates that the total shades of foundation found in a sample of 49 cosmetic beauty brands do not follow a normal distribution, D(49) = .360, p = .0000. In addition, a Chi-Square goodness-of-fit test conducted also shows that the variety in foundation shades is also not equally distributed (χ2 = 68.7, df, 47, p < .0001), suggesting that significant differences exist between the total number of foundation shades offered by cosmetic brands with higher numbers of shades found in the “light to medium” skin tones. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of directions for the need for darker shades and images that show that black is beautiful along with suggestions for future research on colorism, beauty, and American standards and biases towards beauty.