Inclusion & Diversity For Cosmetic Brands [Full Guide]
Diversity and inclusion are more important for cosmetic brands than ever.
Consumers want reassurance that your inclusivity efforts are not just part of a short-term marketing gimmick. Instead, they need proof that it’s a real core value of your brand. How can you weave inclusivity into your brand from start to finish?
Our guide below provides a comprehensive guide for makeup and skincare brands to adopt an authentic inclusive approach - starting with formulating your products and also including the branding and marketing stage.
Creating Base Products To Suit A Diverse Customer Base
Survey data from Mitel showed that 47% of beauty consumers shop from brands that prioritize diversity or inclusivity. Let’s talk about how you can formulate cosmetics with diversity and inclusion in mind.
For cosmetics brands, creating makeup that is as inclusive as possible starts with your base products.
6 shades just won’t cut it anymore.
It’s time to formulate foundations, concealers, powders, and contour shades that appeal to all of your market’s demographics. Brands like Fenty Beauty are changing the meaning of ‘inclusive shade ranges’ by offering a total of 50 foundation shades - with options to suit both the fairest and the deepest tones.
But working on your shade range isn’t enough - the perfect foundation match is a combination of the right formula, shade, undertone, and finish. For true inclusivity, you need to formulate your base products with different undertones in mind. For example, MAC offers variations on their shades for warm, neutral warm, neutral cool, and cool undertones.
Select A Beauty Lab That Prioritizes Diversity & Inclusion
Getting clear about your inclusiveness strategy is key in the early stages of your business - even when it comes to the manufacturer selection process.
Collaborate with beauty labs that hold diversity as a core value and understand the importance of creating products that cater to a wider variety of the cosmetics market.
Working with diverse chemists representing a broad range of skin tones is crucial.
At Genie Supply, our diverse chemist team includes 4/6 of the skin tone types on the Fitzpatrick Scale. Diversity is at the heart of our beauty manufacturing business. Over 30% of our team identify as LGBTQIA while over 67% of our team is BIPOC.
Always communicate with your manufacturer that diversity is important to your brand and ensure they have the capabilities to formulate a broad shade range or expand the shade range of your current selection of products.
If you are sourcing your base makeup products on a bulk or private label basis, ensure that the supplier offers a diverse range of shades.
Formulating Color Cosmetics With Inclusion In Mind
Building a diverse makeup business spans beyond just your base products. To create a truly inclusive brand, consider how you can make your color cosmetics suitable for a more diverse audience.
When selecting your blush, bronzer, and eyeshadow shades, it’s important to remember that not all shades flatter all skin tones. Becoming more inclusive is sometimes as simple as adjusting your color selections.
Try adding a purple blush for deeper skin shades to your collection or include a selection of ‘nude’ lip product shades to flatter different skin tones.
At Genie Supply, we aim to offer inclusive shades across our color cosmetics range. Our bulk and private label preformulated products include our Matte Liquid Lipstick which is available in a total of 48 shades.
How To Incorporate Inclusivity Into Your Skin Care Line
Understanding the benefits of diversity and inclusivity is also key for skincare brands. Instilling inclusivity as a core value of your brand results in products that appeal to a wider audience. Capturing a broader consumer base can increase your chances of success.
Setting up your skin care brand with inclusivity in mind is a three-step process:
Research and understand all of the main skin types - dry, combination, and oily
Recognize each skin type’s most common issues
Cater your products to solve their problems
Select a skincare lab that offers a wide array of preformulated private label products for each different skin type. If you plan to custom formulate your range instead, choose a supplier with the equipment and capabilities to create unique skin care lines to suit every skin type and tackle multiple different skin care needs.
There are some nuances to keep in mind for the skincare market - a more exclusive or highly targeted strategy can make more sense for skin care businesses. If your brand is targeted specifically and exclusively to the dry skin niche, people with oily skin won’t expect your brand to formulate for their skin type.
At Genie Supply, we offer over 60 private label skin care products to suit a variety of different skin types. We also provide custom product creation and custom formulation services to make your inclusive skin care range as unique as you require.
Creating Skin Care For A Broad Range Of Age Groups
Beyond targeting each skin type, there are additional strategies to make your skin care brand more inclusive.
A survey by Mitel found that 86% of beauty consumers search for realistic signs of aging in commercials and advertisements.
Focusing on age diversity will set your skin care brand apart from the rest.
Understanding that different age groups tend to have distinct skin care concerns is key:
Address the blemish-clearing and anti-acne needs of the teenage market
Focus on preventative products for those in their 20s and beyond
Formulate rejuvenating skin care for the mature demographic
At Genie Supply, our preformulated range includes a variety of products to suit different age groups. For example, to target blemishes and acne concerns, we offer a bacne spray. Our luxury vitamin C serum is ideal as a preventative skin care step. For the mature market, consider our skin cell turnover resurfacing mask.
Taking A Diverse & Inclusive Approach To Marketing
Once you have selected and formulated an inclusive cosmetics range, it’s time to think about your branding and marketing strategy going forward.
According to Mitel’s research, 82% of beauty consumers search for racial diversity in advertising, while 79% look for gender and identity diversity.
To reflect the inclusiveness of your makeup and skin care products, feature a diverse range of ethnic groups, age groups, and gender identities throughout your marketing campaigns.
Including a broad range of people from different ethnic backgrounds in your product images is the best way to illustrate to potential customers how your cosmetic products look on each skin tone.
When it comes to inclusivity, it’s important to listen to feedback from your audience. Take note when your followers and customers ask to expand your shade ranges or when they highlight other specific areas where your brand could improve.
Uplifting your customers’ voices and listening to feedback is important to build a truly inclusive cosmetics brand going forward.
In sum, the key to building an inclusive cosmetics brand from 2024 onward includes:
Selecting a diverse and inclusive range of base product shades and undertones to suit different skin colors
Carefully choose your color cosmetics shades to flatter a range of different skin tones
Understanding the differences between the main skin types and formulating skin care targeted toward each skin type
Formulating effective and targeted skin care for each age demographic
Incorporating diversity across your promotional images and social media accounts
Ready to create your own inclusive skin care or color cosmetics line? Genie Supply would love to help! Don’t hesitate to get in touch via email: customerservice@geniesupply.com or call: (812) 329 1105
