#Culture: This Indian–American Youtuber Is Redefining Beauty Standards With Her Inclusive Beauty Brand. We Love This!
I am a sucker for quick beauty hacks that get me going in minutes on rushed mornings. I have spent quite some time researching the best beauty tricks and doing the hit-and-trial to see what works for me. It took me a few years to master them and now I have some tricks up my sleeve that actually work. One of these hacks that I’ve really come to love is using a red or orangish red lipstick before my concealer to hide my dark circles better and faster. It really works like a charm for my skin tone.
If you also use a red lipstick as a colour corrector to cover up your dark circles, you have Deepica Mutyala to thank. Let me tell you why. This vlogger-turned-CEO is the one who introduced a genius beauty trick for Indian skin tones on her channel back in 2015. She used a red lip colour to cancel out the dark tone and mask dark circles around eyes. This colour correcting technique soon became a beauty revolution as the video garnered millions of views.
She went on to make a quick buck out of it (duh!) by creating her own beauty product to do the job and named it Huestick. She went from a beauty influencer to an entrepreneur of a beauty brand Live Tinted. But what’s so special about her brand, you ask? Her product Huestick comes in different shades to cater to skin tones across communities. It is a community-driven brand that is breaking beauty standards regarding skin tone and embracing diverse beauty. All that, with just one product!
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Also Read: Fair And Lovely Is All Set To Get Rebranded To Make It More Inclusive. But It’s Made Money Off People’s Insecurities For Years. This Isn’t Enough
In an interview with InStyle, Deepica talked about her brand’s ideology. She said, “The whole mission of Live Tinted is to dismantle colorism. Diversity and inclusion are part of our brand’s DNA and this should be the case for every brand. I want to lead by example and show that even as a small company, you can do the right thing with the right intent and purpose. We’re still very small, but I’m ok with growing slow and doing it the right way rather than making decisions that potentially neglect the consumer and don’t align with our brand’s mission.”
The drive to break beauty standards and end colourism through beauty goes back to her childhood. She said, “Indian beauty standards are also geared towards fair skin, so I used to hide under an umbrella so I wouldn’t get darker. These memories from when I was a kid have really shaped Live Tinted into what it is today. I wanted to create a brand for people who look like me so we can finally be a part of the beauty narrative.
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It’s 2020 and Indian society is still not over its obsession for fair skin. And, the problem reflects in our beauty brands. While foundation is used to hide imperfections and make skin even toned, in India, it is mistaken for a product to lighten skin by using one shade lighter than actual skin tone. And, that’s the reason, many beauty brands lack the realistic, “Indian” shades or enough skin shades in their foundation line.
Deepica felt something like this while she was a beauty vlogger which prompted her to come up with her own product that catered to all skin types from different communities, not just Indian. She told Forbes, “As a beauty influencer, I was able to interact with a huge variety of beauty brands and their products. I didn’t see a product like the Huestick – not even close – and I really wanted to be able to develop a color corrector + multi-stick with skincare for all skin shades.”
Huestick is a three-in-one beauty product that can be used around eyes as a colour corrector and on lips and cheeks for a gorgeous tint. Through a discussion regarding beauty concerns on her Live Tinted community, “a space for people of colour,” she realised that the number one beauty concern of women of colour was hyperpigmentation, dark circles and dark spots. And since there was no colour corrector for them to magically make them disappear, she decided to bridge the market gap and launched Huestick, her first ever beauty product for all skin types. In no time, it became a bestseller.
Women like Deepica are a living proof that the world is changing for the better. Colourism has been deep-rooted in our society and it is probably going to take years to disrupt these stereotypes, but I think nothing can bring a wave of change like the beauty brands like these which embrace the diversity rather than denigrating certain skin tones and making money out of their insecurities. The trend of rising above these petty beauty standards may take some time but having culturally responsible brands like these is a start, so at least there’s hope.
