The Fenty Effect Is Real
When Rihanna's Fenty Beauty burst onto the scene with a whopping 40 foundation shades — a huge number by 2017's standards — savvy shoppers began demanding the same from the entire industry. Slowly but surely, the Fenty Effect took hold, pushing drugstore brands and luxury imprints alike to reexamine their offerings for people with melanin-rich skin tones.
A new AI-assisted initiative, the SeeMe Index, knows that inclusivity is now top of mind for much of the beauty industry, as well as its shoppers. Led by former Google executives Asha Shivaji and Jason R. Klein, the project has ranked the 40 most powerful beauty brands by their consumer-facing DEI initiatives.
So, which brand received top scores? MAC, the Canadian makeup giant founded by Frank Toskan and Frank Angelo in 1984.
A bit on the methodology behind the SeeMe Index: Shivaji and Klein determined the industry's top 40 beauty brands using a combination of sales data and industry resources like WWD, Tribe Dynamics, and Spate. With the help of AI, they examined the presence of six "identity dimensions" — skin tone, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, body size, and disability — across each brand's advertisements, product lineup, and public-facing DEI commitments.
Even in the '80s and '90s, MAC offered foundations for the palest of pale and darkest of dark skin tones. Back in the day, its ads proudly displayed the tagline: "All Ages, All Races, All Sexes" (the slogan has since replaced "Sexes" with "Genders"). Given MAC's longstanding commitment to diversity via expansive shade ranges and initiatives like VIVA GLAM, which fundraises for HIV/AIDS programs, it's not entirely surprising that it ranks at number one.
Other brands that rank in the SeeMe Index top 10 are drugstore standby NYX Cosmetics, TikTok favorite E.l.f. Cosmetics, and, of course, Fenty Beauty.
Interestingly, Fenty is the only Black-owned brand in the top 10, which leads us to an important asterisk: The SeeMe Index does not account for brands' internal operations including, for example, how many people of color hold C-suite positions.
"We wanted to focus on the consumer-facing inclusivity efforts and provide a holistic view of how a consumer experiences a brand," a SeeMe representative said over e-mail. "In this same vein, we wanted to leverage public data and resources, and there wasn't a way we could consistently source this data across all brands."
While consumer-facing efforts like ad campaigns and charitable initiatives can indicate a brand's commitment to DEI, they certainly aren't the entire picture. The SeeMe Index is a helpful resource, for sure — but shoppers should do their own research, too.
