Black-Up Cosmetics Analysis

Improved Essays
In researching Black|Up cosmetics, I began with a different approach. When I researched this company within any database, I found little to no information. At first, I assumed that the lack of information was because Black|Up is a foreign company. Its base location is in Paris, France. The majority of their stores and products are in countries outside of the United States. Searching several internet sources, I discovered that Black|Up is expanding. It is now breaking into the American market. This explains the recent popularity of this brand. I didn’t realize this brand existed until a few months ago. To find these products, you must visit select stores. The first time I discovered this make-up brand was in the Sephora store in New York. Therefore, …show more content…
The brand understands the makeup needs for women with darker skin tones. They offer “an assortment of primers that target oily and combination skin — crucial for women of color, who often need more mattifying and skin-tone-evening products to help with pigmentation” (Peoples and Weatherford). All products are oil, paraben and fragrance-free and are never tested on animals. The beauty industry failed to create products that cater to women with darker complexions. This is partly due to the “perception that women of color spend less on makeup than Caucasian women” (Segran). Most beauty products carry a limited range of products that ignore darker skin tones. For most cosmetic companies, spending money on research and development to create products for a new market segment is expensive. With the added perception that women of color spend less on makeup, most cosmetics brands didn’t see the need to create products for women of color. This lack of variety created an untapped and neglected need. Recognizing this need, Black|Up designed products for this market. Major makeup brands formulate darker and lighter shades the same (Peoples and Weatherford). This often gives more variety to women with lighter shades. Black Up created over “30 foundation shades tailor-made for women of color, with luminous undertones of red-copper, orange, and yellow-gold to give you radiance without ashiness” (Peoples and Weatherford). The inception …show more content…
It is sold through multi-brand French beauty retailers like Sephora and Marionnaud. It now operates in more than 200 retail outlets in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. In 2011, Black|Up partnered with distributor Phillipe Gerad Enterprises to expand into the Caribbean market (Silva). This served as part of Black|Up’s strategy to meet their target market. The launch featured events held by international makeup artists from Black|Up cosmetics, who conducted makeovers and workshops (Silva). In 2015, when the brand began to expand to the US it applied a similar strategy. According to Valerie Saint-Amand, this expansion is due to the growing demand of customers. The success of their US site reflected the growing demand for Black|Up by US customers. The brand opened its products in ten Sephora locations nationwide on September 15, 2015 (Brown). Their products are also online on their main US site and on Sephora.com. They continue to be consistent and on message as they break into the US market. The models on their US website are women with darker skin tones. The first message displayed on the site is “for women of color” (Black|Up). In addition, they launched beauty events to introduce their products. At Sephora’s Center City in Philadelphia, Black|Up held a three day event, where Sephora shoppers received on-site makeup consultations and samples from Black|Up’s talent makeup artist and US Sales Director Valerie Saint Amand

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    In the 1900s, cosmetic products, like the Sweet Georgia Brown Cleansing Lotion, were introduced to American culture and slowly began to replace the process of creating beauty products at home. The Sweet Georgia Brown Cleansing Lotion, made by Valmor Products Co., is an example of one of the new beauty products introduced at the end of the early 1900s. This product was specialized for African-American women, which can be understood from the image of the African-American woman featured on the bottle. The cleansing lotion was intended to cleanse, and arguably whiten, an African-American woman’s skin, which can also be understood from the image of the African-American women on the bottle since she is visibly wearing products that give the appearance…

    • 1557 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    L’Oreal, Shiseido, Unilever, and Emami all share a common thread. They each, like many other make-up companies, make a profit off of colorism – prejudice against individuals with a dark skin tone – through the manufacture and sell of skin lighteners. The skin lightening industry is worth millions of dollars and is still growing in many countries around the world. The industry is booming for many reasons, such as: perceived benefits of light skin, the type of advertisements companies use, and a lack of governmental intervention despite the known consequences of using skin lighteners.…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Today, the ever-growing cosmetic industry continues to feeds the hungry human preoccupation of looking good, along with our desire to express and represent ourselves through make-up. But it also continues to help millions of people who have suffered facial disfigurements, by creating products to help them put their best face…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Eurocentric Standards

    • 1515 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Even though we live in a world that always changes and advances, the media continues glorifying Eurocentric standards and ideals unto us in our everyday lives. Although the media is beginning to be more culturally and racially diverse, physical features and characteristics remain the same. Fair skin, light eyes, straight hair, thin bodies and thin noses are mostly seen in media, even though it’s “racially diverse”. Children growing up in this culture are learning that Eurocentric ideals are preferred and seen as more “beautiful”. People of darker skin are seen as lesser than and are pressured to follow these ideals.…

    • 1515 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Madam C.J.Walker, was born Sarah Breedlove, she created hair products for African American hair and was one of the first American women to become a self made millionaire. Madam Walker made her money by inventing hair products that straightens kinky hair,. Madam Walker was a phenomenal woman, she built her community and women self esteem. Sarah Breedlove was born in the late 1867. Sarah also was born on a cotton plantation, also she was the first of her family to be born free.…

    • 433 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    When the two talk about the ways race, class, and gender “inform preferences for lighter skin” (Kenway and Bullen 281), it is now understood to mean that they are meant to be smaller pieces of a bigger puzzle that affect how beauty and identity intermingle. Within the context of the beauty industry, this new understanding provides new insight as to how those who fall within similar communities—in terms of race, class, and gender—are differently targeted by companies. These communities can be singled out as separate and generalized entities, or can be combined and interwoven to create more complex and specific…

    • 898 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    1. Clayton and Stalling. 2000. Black Women in Congress: Sticking The Balance. Journal of Black Studies. Summary: These black scholars see to explain the challenges black women face every day, they also suggest strategies that will help black women overcome these issues, so that the ending result is a position in office.…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Company Overview ULTA Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance, Inc. (ULTA Beauty) is the largest beauty retailer in the United States. Since opening its first store in 1990, ULTA Beauty has grown to become the top beauty destination for cosmetics, fragrance, skin, hair care, and salon services. With 797 stores across the United States, the company strives to be “All Things Beauty, All in One Place,” offering more than 20,000 products from over 500 brands, including its own private line. The company’s mission is to provide a one-stop shopping experience to its customers, offering product diversity, value, convenience, and experience (Annual Report, 2015). Company Strategy…

    • 267 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lularoe Case

    • 1422 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Unique prints, all sizes, soft as butter, dresses to leggings LuLaRoe is a company that has made its way in to the homes of many customers. This is a clothing line that started in 2014 by a women named DeAnne Stidham. You will not find any of these clothes in a store front or online. To get your hands on this brand one must purchase it from a LuLaRoe independent consultant which means you may have a hard time finding items you want. According to an article in Forbes the company had an average growth rate of 25% per month for the past 24 months.…

    • 1422 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The trends surrounding African American women’s hair have been ongoing since times of slavery. Since then there has also been much controversy over style, appropriation and what is and is not appropriate in the work place. As many women can understand and relate, your hair is a part of your identity. The same goes for black women but it’s even much more than that. As a black woman, our hair is also a large part of our culture and throughout time we have seen many changes in regards to it.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Self-Care Website for African-American Women For black women who are looking for a website that will help them take charge of their life and improve their overall wellness, we recommend you bookmark the site Noire Care. This website was the baby of tech consultant and graphic designer, Tina Shoulders. Noire Care has all the essentials a black woman need to give her the right tools to adopt and practice self-care.…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Your Toxic Beauty Regime Kiara Ventura’s “Your Toxic Beauty Regime” gives us insight on the beauty industry and the products that they sell are harmful. These beauty industries are putting harmful chemicals in the products to sell to the masses and doesnt care if it kills them. So, we as consumers need to be aware of indgredients used in our beauty routine to protect ourselves. Ventura ’s…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    TGIN’s past and current situation Chris-Tia Donaldson, CEO of TGIN – Thank God It’s Natural, discovered a new opportunity to improve the lives of many women similar to herself. As an African-American woman, Chris-Tia has been blessed with beautiful, kinky, curly, and wavy textured hair. There was a problem, however. This hair of hers was not viewed as beautiful by everyone.…

    • 1692 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To achieve this Marissa concentrated the ingredients of the cocoa brown colour of the tan. She also focused on the smell of the tan and the packaging. One of Marissas biggest challenges was competing against well established big brands that also had larger budgets than her and had larger advertising and PR budgets than her so to overcome this massive challenge she decided to do her own PR by reaching out to beauty bloggers of Ireland and send them her very first product from her own Irish company. It was a major success and the response was sensational. Numerous beauty bloggers were presenting many positive reviews and they were coming in thick and…

    • 1042 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They suggest ridiculous ideas such as bleaching your skin lighter. According to Scherker, skin-lightening grew popular among American black women. A 1944 ad promoting Nadinola Bleaching Cream is shown in her article, featuring a black woman with lighter skin thanks to the skin-lightening product. It is selling beauty and demonstrating how having light skin is “lovelier.” Having lighter skin was acceptable, as “it was a symbolic way to progress in a prejudiced society, where lighter-skinned black people encountered comparatively better treatment” (Scherker).…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics