What if you had dark skin and most of the videos showed lighter-skinned women applying hues that would make you look as if you had a black eye? What if you couldn’t relate to these women, because you couldn’t see yourself in them?
The answer to that is also simple: You make your own YouTube channel.
That is what Jackie Aina, 31, Monica Veloz, 26, and Nyma Tang, 27, did. The three women collectively have nearly four million YouTube subscribers, with Ms. Aina alone having over two million.
The women, all self-taught, turn on their cameras at home, and show us how to put on foundation, apply lashes and highlight our cheekbones, step by step. They teach us what tools to use and which hair products work.
The beauty bloggers provide darker-skinned women with something they may not have a tutorial for: the confidence to wear bold colors, to stand up to haters, and, more important, to choose how they present themselves.
They try different makeup brands to show that they do work on dark skin or, of course, that they don’t. They teach women not to be afraid of color, like red lipstick, bright yellow eye shadow or holographic highlights.
Beauty bloggers have built up a rapport with women who feel that makeup brands have forgotten them. And they feel that it’s their responsibility to introduce these women to brands that see and understand them.
“What fuels me is all the dark-skinned women and girls that message me every day,” Ms. Tang said. “I don’t want anyone to feel like they are not beautiful enough.”
very happy these ladies and this issue got this write-up.
