When Rihanna's beauty line, Fenty Beauty, launched last week, the excitement was almost palpable. The superstar took over the Sephora in Times Square to show the world what she'd created — and drove home the point that makeup needs to be for everyone.
"In every product, I was like, 'There needs to be something for a dark-skinned girl! There needs to be something for a really pale girl! There needs to be [something for] someone in between!," she told reporters at the event, according to MTV. "There's so many different shades ... You want people to appreciate the product, and not feel like, 'Oh, that looks cute — but it only looks good on her.'"
And thanks to that, it's selling out in droves, reports Glamour.
As social media posts have revealed, it's the deep shades in Rihanna's new line that are proving to be the most popular, showing that the beauty industry has been missing out on a massive audience for way too long.
A light blue line = sold out. Half of the deep shades are sold out on #FentyBeauty. Cater to dark skin beauties & they'll buy your products pic.twitter.com/og3VPFLF7S
— Ida (@_idarima) September 10, 2017
In a direct message that supposedly came from Rihanna herself, the "Umbrella" singer confirmed there were 40 tones in her foundation line, saying "Gotta represent for my girls and we come in all shades! Especially my brown sisters ... been left out too many times in the makeup world!"
While other companies have definitely tried to cater to dark skin tones — we've written about some of them in the past — this feels like the first time a major beauty line put out this many tones as an initial offering. No adding on, no "whoops, we forgot about a huge segment of the population." Just straight up giving people the colours that work with their skin.
And the rave reviews just keep rolling in.
There's even some murmurings that other beauty lines, like KKW Beauty belonging to Kim Kardashian West, are trying to grab a bit of the spotlight on dark shades for themselves by choosing this moment to promote their deeper toned wares.
But to that we say, the more options there are for makeup-lovers of every skin tone, the merrier. And if Rihanna's trendsetting past is any indication, we're sure there will be plenty of followers where that came from.
Fenty Beauty is available at Sephora.
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