The brand has been teasing four new shimmery Fix+ finishing sprays that add even more glow to a beat face, and its fans are super excited.
People will have shimmer and finishing spray all in ONE bottle — it’s a genius idea.
There’s just one big problem with these sprays: They’ve already been invented.
A Black makeup artist and founder of Omglo Cosmetics Joelle Phillips, went viral for this same DIY idea over a year ago, and her fans are not here for MAC Cosmetics’ “new” sprays.
Follow me down this timeline, peeps. The ride is interesting to fairly say the least.
She used MAC Fix+ finishing spray and MAC pigments that would work for deeper skin tones to create the liquid magic.
“I assumed everyone was doing that anyway. I felt like this was something everybody did, so I didn’t really feel like this was something that new — but apparently I was wrong.”
The photo went viral instantly and acquired 25,000 likes in about two days, according to Phillips. She probably wasn’t the first person to DIY shimmery finishing spray EVER, but she was certainly the first to go viral doing it — and was definitely the first to create shimmer setting sprays especially for dark skin tones.
A post shared by TRENDMOOD (@trendmood1) on Mar 11, 2018 at 5:49pm PDT
Second, the massive brand seems to have lifted the initial idea from Phillips’ original viral idea and small business.
Finally, instead of working with Joelle — who seems to have had the idea first — MAC is collaborating with an entirely different makeup artist.
“Let the record show that @omglowcosmetics came out with this Illuminating glow mist first,” one fan shared beneath Trendmood’s post of the new MAC sprays.
“MAC can imitate her work all they want but they can’t touch Joelle’s hard work, shade inclusiveness, AMAZING customer service and entrepreneurship. #ShopSmall #GLOWDIVAS #OMGLO.”
“We’re always an afterthought. It would have been nice to have been reached out to by MAC. I would have gladly taken up the opportunity because I really feel like black women, especially in the beauty community, are always the last to be heard.”
“They were never going to make something for everyone, anyway. Now, my products are for everyone but I have shades specifically for women of color. I created them for us. The shades I’ve seen aren’t going to fit anybody past J.Lo. I would never be offended by that.”
To her credit, shimmery shades (like foundation) do often come way too ashy for dark skin. Nyma Tang had to use the smallest amount of the Amrezy highlighter because it was too light for her skin tone.
As a dark-skinned woman, there have been plenty of highlighters I tried because of how gold they looked in the pan, only to watch them turn into gray ashes on my face. Yuck.
The short version, so you know what it takes when you do it alone, is this:
She had to find hunt down a lab, find a vendor for the mixing pigments, seek out a college friend for a bottle design, spend two months tracking down bottles that would properly dispense the liquid and the pigment, and more.
This is also the part where I reiterate that Phillips still mixes her pigment and spray formula by hand in her own home for each bottle.
I’m exhausted just thinking about this, but that’s why Phillips is an entrepreneur and I’m not.
MAC Cosmetics, a brand with the Estée Lauder machine behind it, has a huge international team making sure it runs daily like a well-oiled machine.
It’s unfortunate that the brand overlooked Phillips and missed an opportunity to not only include a another Black woman on its business end, but also to serve products that will flatter people with dark skin.
But then again, that’s why we have Omglo Cosmetics — a Black-owned brand serving Black people and Black skin the first time around. No ash and no afterthoughts.
Sign up to get more of the content you love from CafeMom straight to your inbox.
