Youthforia criticized over new black foundation shade
A makeup brand received criticism online from beauty influencers over its darkest foundation shade as one creator compared the tone to jet-black face paint.
In March, Youthforia rolled out 10 additional shades to its Date Night foundation after the brand faced backlash last year from Black beauty creators who called out the company for not being inclusive when the brand launched its first 15 foundation shades in October.
Golloria George, a Black beauty influencer and creator who boasts 1.5 million followers on TikTok, posted a video this week, as she reviewed the latest foundation shade released by Youthforia which is available for purchase at Ulta Beauty.
In the video, George included part of her past clip that she filmed in which she tried the brand's darkest foundation shade that didn't blend with her skin tone.
Later in the video, George proceeded to review the brand's new darkest shade, "600," which was released after the original backlash.
To make her point, she put on what she described as jet-black face paint on one half of her face and the "600" shade on the other side. In the video, the paint and the shade appeared almost identical to each other.
"When we say that 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 said in the video, which has since accumulated over 20 million views. "What we mean is to take the browns that you have made, create undertones and do what you need to do in the lab 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 added.
Another Black beauty content creator, Ayeyi, who she said is also working as a professional in the beauty industry, posted a video on Tuesday, sharing her take on the review clip by George.
"These brands, they know exactly what they're doing. It's not hard to extend a shade range," she said.
She explained to her viewers about "minimum order quantity," adding that "it costs the brand more money to create and develop and order shades that they know that they're just not gonna sell as many units of and that is just something they're not willing to do."
"This shade that they released is actually asinine," she said. "It is so obvious to me that this brand released this shade begrudgingly as some sort of half-baked consolation prize."
In response to the backlash from Black beauty creators last year, Youthforia's CEO Fiona Co Chan reportedly said in a now-deleted video that the initial launch was a "proof of concept" to see if the product could be successful.
She later posted another video, which has since also been deleted, offering her apology and shared that more shades were being developed.
"When I first started Youthforia two years ago, all I wanted to do was create a safe space where individual beauty could be celebrated. And unfortunately with our latest launch, we just fell short of that mission," she reportedly said at the time.
Launched in 2021, the makeup brand is known for being the makeup that "you can sleep in." Its founder has previously pitched Youthforia while appearing on "Shark Tank."
ABC News has reached out to Youthforia and Ulta Beauty for comment but did not hear back immediately.
