Chanel Launches Foundation For All Skin Tones

Chanel cosmetics is aiming to reach a broader range of ethnicities with their new foundation line Perfection Lumière launching in mid September, reports WWD.

The new line will include 23 shades, 20 of which will be available in the U.S. The shades are categorized by skin tones ranging from very fair to very dark, and include pink to yellow undertones.

“This foundation was designed to be very universal,” said Christine Dagousset, executive vice president of Fragrance and Beauté for Chanel in the U.S.. “Chanel’s creative director for makeup, Peter Philips, counts perfect skin among the most important features a woman can have and since joining the brand in January 2008, has made it his goal to create a ‘perfect’ foundation: one that adjusts to the skin needs of every ethnicity and stays in place with a flawless finish.”

The company's current leading foundation line Pro Lumiere offers only 6 shades, which is a poor representation of a significant portion of the buying community--minorities.

Mainstream companies such as Chanel, Rimmel London and CoverGirl are starting to take notice of the large amounts of money black women spend on cosmetics. Let's hope this interest extends not only to the expansion of their color choices but also their advertising dollars.

David Alexander of Black Voice News reported that of the $263.7 billion spent annually on advertising within the nation, less than one percent is used to target African American consumers, despite the fact that Black buying power is estimated at around $857 billion, according to the 2010 census.

The campaign for Perfection Luminere will feature Alyssah Ali, an Indian and Spanish model. There is no word on whether a black model will also be represented. Fingers crossed!

Comments

[Phatgurl]

05:17 PM on 08/28/2011

i worked in the cosmetics field (cosmetics counter mgr.) professionally for over 22 years. i shared a bay w/chanel ( so u kno i repped a hi-end line). quite honestly, chanel can kiss my Blacka$$. their products are extremely over-priced for the everyday consumer & perform no better than drugstore products when it comes to their skincare line. they produce great lipsticks, liners & glosses but their foundation iz for the uber-lilly white. if they are just noticing my beautiful Black skin, then i will never purchase any products other than the chanel coco pink lipstick i've worn for years now. i prefer to mix several shades of foundation to create my own colorization that matches ME perfectly. try it my beautiful Black women. create your own foundation...

[thelipstickfemme]

01:36 PM on 08/28/2011

This got me thinking about how hard it is to find the right shade of foundations/pressed powders/mineral powders to match Blk skin which someone pointed out that our skin has various undertones. I looked at Iman's make-up line and Cover Girl's Queen lines. To my surprise none of them have colors in the super chocolate - jet Blk. So, all of these ladies are left out of the foundation options. The Queen Collection colors stop at medium brown tones (toffee and cooper tones) as well as Iman's make-up line. I also took a look at Black Radiance's line and they only go to the mahogany tones. Hmmm, something is amiss here. This reminds me of unspoken issue of "Colorism" (the "brown-bag test" issue within the Black community and also within other various people of color communities (the lighter the better syndrome)).

[maxfax]

01:24 PM on 08/28/2011

It's not like a "foundation, foundation" it's make-up. Of course they're reading the demographics.

[jrx238]

10:55 AM on 08/28/2011

No red/orange undertones...? You can have 500 shades of brown but most companies fail when it comes to undertones. Most Black people have red undertones. You can see an Indian and a Black person with basically the same skin color but with different undertones (yellow vs. red) who therefore require 2 different types of make up. The pink to yellow undertones implies to me that most Black women are still not a factor...which is fine. They can cater to whoever they want, but I'd hate to see women shell money out to buy make up that ends up washing out their natural glow. The only mainstream makeup company I've tried that gets it right is MAC (which is likely what the model in the stock photo has on).

[Trogenhorse]

09:16 AM on 08/28/2011

I don't think fingers have to be crossed. It there are no models which reflect one's skin tones, the consumer has no idea what will or will not work for them. Why would you buy something that looks good on a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes but your needs are for brown eyes and black hair?

Consumers can drive the industry they just have to be smart about their dollars.

[Charlotte Richardson]

05:01 PM on 09/01/2011

True!

[Marsha Black]

01:55 AM on 08/28/2011

I'm insulted by this article, as if we just arrived on a spaceship from Dark Side of Venus or something. I rather spend my money patronizing those who have served my cosmetic needs for many many years, have excellent products and especialIy I'm familar with, rather than with someone who suddenly wants my money now just for CORPORATE GREED

[MaeS]

10:35 PM on 08/27/2011

Well, that's a little late in coming.

[BlackPrincess]

09:56 PM on 08/27/2011

African Americans are blessed with many variations of skin tones.

Thank God for [Ebony, Posner, Black Opal cosmetics] and others who have formulated products EXCLUSIVELY for black skin care for years!

Major cosmetic companies have largely shunned black women because it was easier to formulate makeup for white women than it was for women with more than 20 different skintones.

Finally, because of the "browning" of America, the L'Oreals, Revlons, and now Chanel corporations see the cost effectiveness and monetary advantages of marketing to women of color.


www.blackvisions.org

[t jane20]

05:32 PM on 08/27/2011

I urge black women not to buy Chanel products or any other makeup/beauty line that has ignored the needs of black women in the past. Black women have always been major buyers of beauty and skin care, but still largely ignored by the majors (loreal, revlon, chanel, etc).

support black owned lines or beauty lines who have always considered the needs of darker skin, like black opal, iman and rx for brown skin (created by a black woman) instead

[FLECKENSTEIN44]

07:52 PM on 08/27/2011

You make up 13% of the population.......

[t jane20]

09:38 PM on 08/27/2011

your point being? $565 billion per year in spending power (some say closer to $1 trillion) is nothing to sneeze at for a greedy profit seeking corporation. if you ran a business I doubt you would purposely ignore 13 % of willing buyers for years, that's a silly move to make

[Yankigrl2u]

10:09 AM on 08/27/2011

It is about time a world renowned cosmetics/fashion company like Chanel is targeting women of color. What took them so long? Companies such as Lancome have been making cosmetics for women of color for years and understand that we come in many faceted hues and not just dark and darker. Kudos to companies who recognize this!

[AnaM]

09:57 AM on 08/27/2011

Overpriced.

[Reno Fickler]

12:57 AM on 08/27/2011

In the true world of 'color' they never got it right. Black is the absence of color. White is the combination of all primary colors. The African/American girl SHOULD look at the caucasian and say, "There's a colored girl."

[thelipstickfemme]

08:40 PM on 08/26/2011

I remember when Blk women had the opportunity to support a Blk make-up business. Namoi Sims had her collection is major stores like Macys. I have not seen that line in years and think is has been discontinuted. Also, I would not buy Chanel make-up; the price points are off the charts and way to expensive for what you get. Also, their shades do not go dark enough for the ladies with dark brown/black shin tone. I don't think that they will have shades for Blk women that have blue-black shades. I seldom see make-up for that shade of skin. Further, I have a friend from Africa and their tribe's poeple are almost jet-black and she can't find any type of pressed powder or foudnation that matches her skin. She is lucky that she does not have hyper-discoloration spots (if she does, I don't see them).

[Reno Fickler]

01:23 AM on 08/27/2011

Every once in a while I like to 'broaden my horizons', so me a straight, white guy, reads an article about black women's make-up? Yea, go figure.
Anyway, I can't believe this. I can't believe some greedy, Wall Street-type didn't see this market and with Michele's popularity--jump, big-time. I can't imagine the market existed, unfullfilled in the first place. I just thought it was like lipstick. Ain't no color it don't come in.
I see all these gorgeous black women, and now I have to realize they aren't the color they appear to be, huh? Hmmm. Well, the white girls aren't either, though. Its the make-up.

[chelledc]

10:33 AM on 08/27/2011

We're the color we appear to be, it just hides some of the flaws. If the person does a bad job you can clearly see where the makeup ends and their real skin color begins.

[thelipstickfemme]

10:59 AM on 08/27/2011

What?. . . "they aren't the color they appear to be" . . . . As a man you may not have worn foundation or pressed power therefore you are not understanding what we are talking about. (many men in film and on TV might understand this 'cause they wear make-up for the camera). In my case and many other Blk women and other Women of Color, the foundations and pressed powders are supposed to come in the shade of our nature skin color so that it blends in and covers the face so that is gives an even tone. In some cases like mind, I have hyper-pigmentation (dark spots that occur naturally or when the pimples or bumps heal spots that need to be covered over therefore the rest of the foundation or mineral power has to match my skin tone. White women and other lighter skinned women don't have this problem since the industry caters to lighter skin colors. Even companies like "Max Factor" one of the original makeup companies for the stars back in the day did not have colors for Blk skin. I was hard pressed to find anything for my photo-shoots that matched my skin.

[Trogenhorse]

09:42 AM on 08/28/2011

good for you for pointing out the obvious. I think the first lady did indeed make people wonder "hey how can I make money off that?" after all , she has traveled the world and made quite a splash with her beautiful dark skin.

My guess, she like countless others mixes and matches products to end up with a flawless finish.

I think consumers make up their minds on what works for them. Some are social concious buyers and some are not.

In the end, it will depend on the marketing strategy of Channel. The name by itself will not be enough for a brand extension. There is clearly a hill for her to overcome.

[Catsun]

07:45 PM on 08/26/2011

Black buying power estimated to be 857 billion dollars. How? Don't blacks have the lowest salaries?

[chelledc]

12:03 PM on 08/27/2011

Black people still have to buy things. It's only 8 or 9% of overall purchasing in the US so what are you saying?

[Trogenhorse]

09:45 AM on 08/28/2011

Another red herring. People please stop reacting to nonsense like this. Simple business and economics already answers this question. Perhaps if right understood macroeconomics at all he wouldn't be here with this type of comment.

BTW, this blogger is always taking a far right insulting position against anything related to progressive, color, or the president.

Do I have to say more?

[danusgram]

05:21 PM on 08/26/2011

Good for them as it is puzzling to me that these cosmetic companies only were providing colors in their lines that only ranged from 1 to 3 dark shades. It left a lot of black women out within that three tone range. We are a rainbow of complexion shades and these companies are doing themselves a disservice by not realizing that color range.