One thing that I’ve always admired about ColourPop Cosmetics was what I believed to be their inclusive marketing strategy. When browsing their social media sites, I’d always see product swatches on multiple skin tones (fair, medium and dark), which to  me meant they valued people of all colors. They even launched product collections with beauty influencers of different races and ethnicities. That’s why I was shocked to learn that they were in the middle of a scandal revolving around the egregious names that were given to the darkest shades in their line of Sculpting Stix.

if you don’t see anything wrong with the names of colourpop’s darker shades, unfollow lol pic.twitter.com/XaS5fQ9iCg

— ✨ (@FFSMADELAINE) September 19, 2016

If you’re wondering why people are upset and consider these names to be offensive, let me give you a very quick lesson.

Yikes– Would you want your skin tone to be referenced in this way? There are brown people lightening their skin and wishing they were lighter because of this kind of negativity swarming around dark complexions. Yikes to this name being approved by the ColourPop team.

Dume– (Slang) According to Urban Dictionary: A very stupid-like human creature, who is also retarded. (No explanation needed. This shouldn’t be used to describe any product. Just no!)

Typo– When you think of a typo, you want to get rid of it or change it because it’s a mistake. It wasn’t intentional or meant to be. It’s bad, right? My dark skin is not a typo. It’s a beautiful badge of honor.

Apparently, this isn’t the first time ColourPop has come under fire for this kind of incident. They were also called out for naming a lipstick Gypsy, which is an offensive term toward Romani people. Le sigh… Also, please miss me with the flawed logic that if lighter colors had these names, no one would make a big fuss about it. I have plenty of fair-skinned friends who I know don’t think their complexions are a typo or should be describes as yikes.

I’m not here to just call out the brand’s obvious fail without a proposed solution.

Here are 3 ways ColourPop Cosmetics can change things so they don’t have to apologize for offensive product names.

1. Hire a racially diverse staff.

This should be common sense, right? ColourPop, if you really want to show that they celebrate people of all colors, you’d fire the people behind the offensive naming of products and diversify your product naming team and audit the review process to avoid the inevitable “My bad” for situations that embracing multicultural employees could easily resolve. I doubt a person of color would give the green light on a name like “Yikes” or “Typo” for the darkest colors in a product line, especially since the beauty industry isn’t touted as the most inclusive when it comes to providing shades for people with darker complexions. It’s kind of a double-edged sword. On one hand, you created deeper shades to accentuate beautiful ebony hues, but you low-key shaded people of color by naming the Sculpting Stix words with negative connotations.

2. Get to know your target audience with cultural appreciation. For real.

There’s nothing worse than supporting a brand only to find out that they may not be as fond of you as you are of them. I’m not saying that ColourPop doesn’t value people of color, but moments like this warrant major side-eye.

ColourPop has partnered with several beauty influencers of color like @Ellarie,@ItsMyRayeRay and @Karrueche, so I don’t think they are blatantly coming from a place of bigotry when creating and marketing products. However, we all know that marketing and brand awareness goes deeper than promoting ads with product swatches that feature people of color. If we feel like you’re not genuinely concerned about our needs, we won’t support you. Diverse branding is a good start, but how about creating focus groups and conducting research about people of color that goes deeper than our purchasing habits. Brands have a responsibility to make an effort to connect with their target audiences in a more sincere way. And not just the fluffy stuff. By taking a stand and really showing that y ou really care about our beauty needs beyond the superficial, you’d have a better understanding of colorism and racism in different cultures. You’d understand that cosmetic companies have historically dismissed creating products that cater to people of color and have only recently attempted to include deeper shades in their collections. ColourPop, brown girls love your products and while you may not have meant any harm (and probably were trying to be more inclusive with these darker Sculpting Stix), you have to do your research and genuinely support and connect with people of color to learn more about their cultures!

3. Stop sugar-coating your apologies and avoiding the true issues at hand.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, a ColourPop spokesperson said: “On behalf of ColourPop, we are sorry and are extremely grateful for our customers’ feedback. We have taken immediate action to change the shade names and review our naming process to ensure this does not happen again.”

ColourPop, we need you all to keep it real and let us know that you’re fostering a genuine trust in your brand. You can start by holding the person(s) who’ve named products offensive names accountable and making it publicly known that this behavior isn’t supported by your brand. Not in a message saying “We value your feedback.” We need a blatant “This-is-unacceptable- and-will-never-happen-again-because-we’ve-cleaned-house,” kind of message! Then, we’ll know they’re really down for us.

ColourPop has changed the names on the Sculpting Stix since being called out by customers, but the real problem is it shouldn’t have gone this far. There shouldn’t have been a reason for people to be in an uproar about offensive product names in the first place.

Old names 

New Names

What are your thoughts on these product names?

Ciao Bellas,