The Business of Beauty: Be the change you want to see

Diversity is something that many industries have been forced to address in recent months. In the beauty industry, there is evidence that a concerted effort is being made to become more inclusive but Hannah-Curlita Dennis, founder of Winnie Beau London, believes there is still a long way to go. 

Adding to this important conversation, Hannah shares her experience as a Black woman on a journey to find make-up that suits her skin and explains why she decided to launch her own beauty brand to address the inequality she felt.

I couldn’t buy my first foundation until 2009 because I had to travel 30 miles into a city just to find one for black skin tones. Until I was eighteen, I couldn’t find any make-up in my hometown and could really only buy mascara and basic lip-gloss.

Even when shopping for make up in the city I felt like an add-on or an after-thought, as the make-up available was limited. Not feeling important enough to have make-up that matches your skin can have a significant impact on how you feel about yourself. This experience, so early on in life, made me starkly aware that the colour of my skin colour made me ‘different’. That supported by the reminder from family that “you’re black, you’re not going to have it as easy as your school friends or find things as accessible.” That is confusing to hear and even harder to challenge. 

Something that seems so trivial in life, “it’s just makeup”, had a huge effect on my self-confidence from a young age. It felt as if my beauty, or desire to feel beautiful just wasn’t important. The Eurocentric ideologies of beauty, such as straight hair and pale skin, were present everywhere.

Despite all of this, I was intrigued by make-up. When I started my beauty training, I fell in love with the concept of using make-up to help people to feel better about themselves. I think my own experience with make-up had a lot to do with this. I wanted to show people that with the right products and application, make-up can be a form of expression that helps to build confidence and self-esteem.

When I opened my salon in 2015, I started offering make-up appointments and lessons. Lots of customers would ask for advice and recommendations about products. In a small town where choice is limited, I realised that there were many women just like me who needed access to the right products without traveling miles to find them. I started to form the foundations of my beauty business – diversity and accessibility. 

I launched Winnie Beau London in 2017 as an affordable, inclusive and cruelty free beauty range that provides long lasting and highly pigmented lipsticks and lip glosses. I currently have 12 shades and there are two main components, base tones, that will fit most skin tones so that they can work across all skin colours. This is called Colour Theory. I wanted to create ‘nudes’ for everyone, not just black or white women. A nude for me will be very different to a nude for a fair skinned person and so on. I am driven by providing accessibility to normal women, busy women, mums, gym goers, anyone who doesn’t have the time to travel thirty miles to get makeup that’s right for them. I don’t want the experiences I had growing up to be like that for young girls anymore. 

Generally, high end brands and even some high street brands are now much better at catering for black women, but there’s still a huge lack of varying tonal foundations outside the boundaries of big cities. In Stafford, I still can’t shop for makeup suitable for black women anywhere, even in Boots. Ok, so there is ‘one tone' for a black woman available now, but this just highlights the problem – our skin is not one size fits all, as opposed to the multiple shades available for paler skin. 

Makeup is a huge, global business, why should we as black women, not be included? With Winnie Beau I wanted to create products that everyone could use.

The growing awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement has seen more beauty brands jump into the black marketplace in recent months. This is great but I want to see action not just words. In the past couple of years MAC have started offering more tonal options but up until this point, there were no in-between shades for black women. I used to have to buy two different shades of foundation, paying double, and mix them. Now I can find my shade with just one bottle so there has been progression. 

I also love Chanel but feel frustrated by the lack of diversity in the brand’s advertising. Unfortunately, it’s become completely normal for me to expect zero or poor representation from many brands that I enjoy. I strongly believe that advertising should only serve to replicate the work that the brand is doing behind the scenes. Ensuring black people are around the table is hugely important if brands are truly looking to address diversity. We need representation in the PR and marketing teams to make sure advertising is inclusive and meaningful, black photographers to work with black models to capture and represent black skin correctly, black members of staff in the buying department, black board members and senior members of staff making decisions, right down to more black people on the makeup counters.

I’m not here to bash brands and there are plenty that are doing it right. Juvia’s Place is brilliant. It has a broad range of eyeshadow palettes, concealer and foundation for black and brown skin tones. Similarly, Fenty has a heavy representation of black women in its advertising which feels hugely empowering. Iman Cosmetics is also wonderful. I see and feel Iman’s experiences as a black woman come through in her products and marketing, it’s very inspirational. I believe that brands that are ran by black women will always have a better understanding of what we need, but that’s not to say that all brands can’t gain that understanding too. 

Diversity in make-up is incredibly important to me. From the beginning, my plans haven’t changed. I’ve always naturally and authentically been inclusive in my product choices and marketing. This is just a normal thought process of mine. My upbringing with friends and family of all races has shaped my business completely and I’ve always instinctively catered for every woman. Moving forward, I will continue to keep that inclusivity across my product development, advertising, models and influencers. I can be the change I want to see.