BEAUTY BRANDS ARE CHANGING THEIR PACKAGING TO ADDRESS ANTI-BLACK BIAS

Uoma founder Sharon Chuter wants to change the way people think about the word ‘Black’ and she’s enlisted all your favourite beauty brands to help. 

First launched last February, the ‘Make it Black’ campaign aims to shift perceptions around what it means to be Black by rejecting negative connotations and celebrating the beauty of Blackness. To raise awareness and create meaningful conversations, the campaign partners with different beauty brands to create limited edition, all-black packaging for some of the industry’s most well known products. All profits go to the Pull Up for Change Impact Fund, which provides funding to emerging Black founders.

Following a successful first incarnation which raised $400,000, this year the campaign has partnered with brands including MAC Cosmetics, Morphe, Mented, E.l.f. Cosmetics, Uoma, and Flower Beauty. MAC is also contributing an additional $150,000 donation to the Pull Up For Change Impact Fund.

“A lot of people just felt these were always the connotations of ‘Black’: that it’s always been bad, it’s always been evil,” Chuter told WWD. “When it comes to something as fundamental as language, people are less likely to think that something is broken.”

Make it Black is part of Chuter’s wider initiative Pull Up For Change, launched in 2020, which challenges companies to disclose the number of Black employees at the corporate and executive levels with the aim of holding these brands accountable for their social media solidarity posts.