A U.S.-based makeup brand is facing online backlash following its latest drop of foundation shades that feature a dark black complexion that many social media users are calling disrespectful.
Youthforia, which claims to produce “makeup you can sleep in,” revealed an additional 10 shades for its Date Night Skin Tint foundation line in March, including its now darkest shade 600, defined as a deep and neutral shade on its website. Over the past week, several TikTok beauty content creators have reviewed the foundation, many showing disappointment at the lack of effort and inclusivity in the line.
One influencer, Golloria George, asks her audience to tell the difference between black face paint on one side of her face, and the Youthforia foundation on the other.
“You can’t tell,” she says. “Tar in a bottle.”
As an advocate for shade inclusivity, George has a TikTok series where she reviews the darkest shades of popular make-up brands. This was her second time trying a Youthforia foundation that was nowhere near her complexion.
“When we say we want you guys to make shades for us, we don’t mean to go to the lab and ask for minstrel show black,” George says. “Not only in 2024 is this so disgusting and disrespectful, but this needs to be pulled off the shelves.”
A week ago, Youthforia posted a TikTok of the CEO and founder of the company Fiona Co Chan stating how stressed she was to find a model for the darkest shade before the launch. She claimed that she could not find anyone locally and instead flew across the world to find a perfect match for the shade.
In one clip, she swatches shades 600 and the second darkest, shade 590, on a man. She then shows herself blending it in. Social media then called out that the darkest shade is evidently darker than the model in the video and many are also questioning whether there was enough makeup on the sponge she was using.
Javon Ford, a Los Angeles-based cosmetic chemist, noted that the product contains the pigment black iron oxide. When looking at the other foundation shade ingredients which are available on the Youthforia website, he noticed every shade, other than 600, contains at least two other pigments like red and yellow used to simulate different skin undertones.
“This foundation literally only has pure black pigment,” he said via a reel posted to his Instagram feed.
He later corrected himself in his comment section.
“Upon further inspection I see I missed a pigment. There’s a small amount of white added. So grey. They literally made the foundation dark grey,” Ford said.
This is not the first time the brand has faced criticism for its limited shade range. In October 2023, Youthforia was slammed for its initial launch of the foundation line which originally contained 15 shades, the darkest being shade 495, a medium-brown complexion which was unsuitable for dark skin consumers.
At the time, beauty enthusiasts criticised the brand’slack of inclusivity. In response to the backlash, Co Chan reportedly said in a now-deleted video that the 2023 launch was a “proof of concept” to see if the product could be successful and that expansion would be promised. Months later, many say nothing has changed.
“Is this not a hate crime?” Creator Wumi Afuye asks as she shows the stark difference between her dark-brown skin complexion and the literal black foundation colour on her hand. She goes on to highlight how another part of Youthforia’s previous reasoning for not coming out with a shade inclusive line from the beginning was the lengthy development process.
“So according to Youthforia, this is the perfect shade for Black women that they took so long to develop,” Afuye says.
Youthforia has since turned off its comments on TikTok and limited comments on Instagram.
Now Toronto reached out to Youthforia for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication. The makeup brand has also not made a public statement on the backlash the company has received.
