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In the beauty industry, when a product is described as “nude,” it is typically understood to mean a sandy, creme-colored hue. The color may occasionally deviate towards a lighter hue of creme or maybe even a yellow-tinged shade of biscuit, but it ALWAYS remains in the spectrum of beige. The term rarely ever expands to include non-Eurocentric standards and shades of beauty. In the makeup world, nude equals white.
A group of art directors have decided to shed light on this problem by launching Nude Against Nude, a campaign tackling the issue of the casual racism in the beauty world. The campaign features a gallery of men and women of color modeling various products categorized as “nude” on their skin and the images are striking, to say the least. Products ranging from lipsticks to spanx and hosiery portray just how impactful the mislabeling of these products are on people of color.
The campaign’s art director, Jackie Jinse Moran, elaborated on the campaign’s mission and purpose to PopSugar. “We just wanted to get these brands to notice and really understand,” Moran said. “If they’re saying ‘nude’ is this one shade and you don’t match it, you’re kind of being told you’re not part of this. You can’t buy this product. It’s not for you.”
Representation in the beauty industry is crucial, and people of color are rarely taken into consideration when it comes to labeling products and ensuring that all shades are accurately represented. The creators of the project hope that the campaign will inspire people to stop equating nude with white and that industry executives will stop mislabeling beige products as nude.
