Because You're Worth It: 100 years of make-up

Doing it for herself

Some well-known names have used their star status to promote cosmetics lines of their own. Somali supermodel Iman was so frustrated by the continuing under-representation and 'tokenising' of black women in the make-up industry that, in 1994, she developed her own range. 'Ninety per cent of make-up artists I worked with did not have a clue what make-up to use on my skin. They thought that setting the same products they used on Western models with a darker powder would do,' she recalls. 'I found it insulting as a consumer that I had to buy three foundations just to get the mix right. My cosmetics are suited to women of colour, whether they be Asian, Pakistani, Middle Eastern.'



	Doing it for herself Some well-known names have used their star status to promote cosmetics lines of their own. Somali supermodel Iman was so frustrated by the continuing under-representation and 'tokenising' of black women in the make-up industry that, in 1994, she developed her own range. 'Ninety per cent of make-up artists I worked with did not have a clue what make-up to use on my skin. They thought that setting the same products they used on Western models with a darker powder would do,' she recalls. 'I found it insulting as a consumer that I had to buy three foundations just to get the mix right. My cosmetics are suited to women of colour, whether they be Asian, Pakistani, Middle Eastern.' Celebrity feeding off cosmetics feeding off celebrity... \| Pulp phenomenon \| Role reversal \| A step too far?