Beauty Brands Are Changing Their Packaging For An Important Cause

Conversations about diversity and inclusion in the beauty industry have been ongoing for years with little measurable change — until very recently. We've slowly but surely seen an uptick in complexion offerings, and campaigns have become more diverse bit by bit. However, June 2020 marked a huge turning point in the industry (not to mention the world). The height of political unrest and the Black Lives Matter movement prompted Uoma Beauty founder Sharon Chuter to address the root of racial inequality in America, which largely stems from systemic racism. In record time, she launched the Pull Up For Change initiative, which challenged brands to release the number of Black people they employ at the executive and corporate levels.

When Chuter put the lens on her beauty colleagues in the early stages of Pull Up For Change, it became clear that many brands had serious room for improvement beyond the shelves. In the time since, brands across industries have shared their own internal employment stats and have made pledges to change. Now, Pull Up For Change is continuing its momentum with a powerful campaign to empower Black entrepreneurs, and some of your favourite beauty brands are on board. Today, the organisation launches the Make It BLACK initiative to shift perceptions about what it means to be Black. 

"The Make It BLACK campaign calls for history to be re-written by reclaiming the word black and making consumers understand that black is nothing but beautiful," the press release states. "The Dictionary is the singular source of truth when it comes to defining language, and it has cast into language the vilification of all things black and set our collective consciousness to equate black as bad." For the campaign, a petition has been created to urge Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam Webster to update the word's definitions. "Language plays a critical role in how we perceive the world," Chuter says. "Language should be neutral, unbiased, and reflective of our current realities."

Pull Up For Change has also partnered with nine notable beauty brands including Briogeo, Maybelline, Morphe, NYX Professional Makeup, PUR, and Uoma Beauty to repackage their top-selling products in black. All products released as part of the initiative will be available to purchase through the month of February online at each brand's respective website.

The campaign doesn't stop at picking up a pretty new product in limited-edition packaging: Brands are putting their money where their mouths are, with 100% of gross profits from the releases going to Pull Up For Change's Impact Fund, which will then be distributed as grants to emerging Black business founders via live pitch contests. The fund will also be opened up to the public for additional donations. Chuter's goal for the Impact Fund is to give a financial jumpstart to innovative, passionate Black brand founders, who may not have been afforded those opportunities otherwise.

So, before you go shopping for your February beauty-routine re-up, we suggest first signing Pull Up For Change's new petition, then adding the items on this list to your shopping cart to support the Make It BLACK campaign: