Hi Lovelies,
So last week Swedish Television SVT2 contacted me and asked if I would be interested to be a part of the Talkshow held by Parisa Amiri on primetime tv. The show was going to be about ”the power of Makeup” where the lack of products for darker skinniness would be discussed as well as the effects of makeup on peoples self confidence. I was to sit on the panel together with well known feminist beauty blogger Kakan Hermansson and it would be my first time meeting them all.
I had my doubts since It is a subject I am very passionate about but I also knew it was an opportunity to represent my Forum Black Vogue and also hopefully spread some knowledge about why its so important to have an all inclusive society, where all colours, sexes, creed, religion, sexual orientation are all represented. I wouldn’t want to live in a society that only catered to certain individuals of society when we can work together to include more people…that is my utopia.
The programme was in Swedish and i will try and do a rough translate of my most important points i made during the show.
In the clip below from my youtube channel i translate as follows:
Translation to English:
I grew up on west Africa and I was the norm. My person was validated by the strong black women around me.
When I returned to Sweden I felt suffocated by the whiteness norm all around me from the airport.and there was nothing available to me by way of makeup products as if we are invisible and do not count.
The makeup industry has denied us blacks and continues to do so and with the rise of youtube finally women like me can find others of the same squinting that they can identify with and think ”if she can create a look so i can” and that strengthens peoples sense of self.
Beauty has been something denied to black women and is still being denied. It’s fantastic for black women to be able to tune into YouTube and see other women in their skin tone they can identify with and see that we can create the same great looks as any other women.
The beauty industry tries to make us invisible by denying us products in our colours…but we have had enough and we will no longer accept it! ✊?