The beauty industry has changed drastically since YouTube birthed beauty gurus. Before YouTube, beauty brands would send products to beauty magazine editors to review their products and write their thoughts in a magazines column. Beauty editors were the OG beauty influencers. Now, anyone who loves makeup can grow a following on social media and influence their following to like or dislike beauty products. When beauty brands started to see a spike in sells for specific products that were mentioned by certain influencers, they started to do a collaborative project with influencers. Many of these influencers who were able to take their career to the next level by these collaborations with major makeup brands were often always white beauty influencers. Sponsorships and collaborations are how beauty influencers make a living. Receiving free makeup in PR is nice, however, these brands receive thousands sometimes millions of dollars in sales just by these influencers doing a positive review on them, while the influencer receives no money in exchange for their post. I noticed the influx of beauty influencer collaborations and wondered why many black beauty influencers weren’t getting these same opportunities.

It wasn’t until 2014 that I was able to purchase a black beauty influencers collaboration product. Missy Lynn created an eyeshadow palette with BH Cosmetics and it was a big deal for me. It was still very hard to find eyeshadows pigmented enough and deep enough for my complexion at the time. I knew that the colors in this eyeshadow palette would look good on my skin unlike many of the other beauty influencer collaboration products. After this purchase I have seen a couple of other brand collaborations like MakeupShayla x Maybelline released a mascara and eyeshadow palette, Makeup Shayla x BH Cosmetics released two makeup collections, ItsMyRayeRaye x BH Cosmetics released two collections, and before Jackie Aina’s bigger collaborations, she did an eyeshadow with E.L.F Cosmetics. These collaborations with black beauty influencers were few and far in between and the one thing that had in common was the fact that these collaborations were with major affordable beauty brands. They would rarely get luxury brands to do collaborations with them.

This goes back to this common misconception at the time that black consumers wouldn’t spend top dollar for beauty products. Black consumers were often ignored when it came to creating products. Many black beauty influencers that were popular since the rise of YouTube; would often feature affordable beauty products in their videos because they were the only brands that created products for their shades. As you can see, this had nothing to do with what black consumers could and couldn’t afford, it had to do with what products were available for them to use.

Now Jackie Aina, in particular, is a YouTube O.G, she started her channel in 2008 and has grown her following over the years. What makes her particular unique is not only does she do makeup and review products but she speaks up about a lot of the injustices against women of color in the beauty industry. She has no filter and is so honest about things that most huge beauty influencers are scared to talk about because they don’t want to lose their following. This is what makes her so important to the beauty industry.

She had her first brand collaboration with E.L.F back in 2016, it was sold only on their website. Her second collab with Artist Couture initially it was only sold on Artist Couture’s website but when the brand expanded to Sephora; it was sold on Sephora’s website and in Sephora’s store. This was a major deal. This not only showed that black women (specifically a dark skin black woman) could be marketable on a national scale but also a global scale. Jackie Aina’s following was getting bigger, she was starting to be recognized by brands In 2018 Too Faced collaborated with Jackie Aina (who was once a professional makeup artist) to expand their shades of the “Born This Way” foundation. This was already Too Faced best selling product and the collaboration was a success. Fast forward to 2019, Jackie Aina has collaborated with the biggest makeup brand to date; Anastasia Beverly Hills. This eyeshadow palette is sold on ABH’s website, Sephora , Ulta , Macy’s, Nordstrom in-store and online and that’s just to name a few. ABH is known for its superb quality and pigmentation. This palette was such a success that it has sold out online on almost all of the retailers in which it is sold. This ABH palette is my 4th ABH palette purchase. This speaks to the high quality of their eyeshadows and many people were not only purchasing because they are fans of Jackie Aina but also because they trust that the palette will perform.

Her impact in the beauty industry was major and unlike other black beauty influencers, her last few collaborations were being sold in luxury beauty stores. This showed the power of the black consumer. If beauty brands pay attention, they will notice that although Jackie Aina’s supporters will spend their money to buy any product that she creates but also that her target audience which is black women will also support any brand that creates great quality products that work on with their skin complexion regardless of the price.

I also wanted to address the lack of support that she received from other beauty influencers on YouTube. I watched a video by NappyHeadedJojoba on YouTube that influenced me to write about this topic on my website. I know that ABH has a huge PR list and we see a flood of YouTube reviews every time they release an eyeshadow palette, however, I saw almost no major beauty influencers review this palette or show support to this huge collaboration. Many micro-influencers did the majority of YouTube product reviews and tutorials. I’ve also seen Jackie Aina throughout the years, supporting many of her fellow beauty influencers products regardless of the brand or the relationship she has to person. The lack of support that she got on this palette made me question a lot of people in the beauty industry. The reality is that whenever women of color, specifically a dark skin black women become successful in any industry people find reasons to justify why they don’t deserve the success. As a huge supporter of Jackie Aina, I can’t think of anyone in the beauty industry that isn’t more deserving of this success.

Black consumers are extremely powerful in any market, especially in the beauty industry. We can make a statement with how we spend our money. Once we all supported Fenty Beauty’s full shade range of foundations, other brands created deeper shades for us. Hopefully, brands will see the power of black beauty influencers and give them the same opportunities that their non-black counterparts receive.

You can watch my first impression & review on the Jackie Aina eyeshadow palette below. Thank you so much for reading, I hope it makes you think a little deeper on who you support when you buy beauty products. Also make sure to subscribe, like and share my video. Also, feel free to share your thoughts about this post below. Stay tuned for my next post where I will get into detail about eyeshadow brush must-haves. Talk to you in my next post!