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Highsnobiety
* Beauty
* ORCÉ'S YU-CHEN SHIH IS CLOSING BEAUTY'S ASIAN SHADE GAP
'WE’RE NOT JUST YELLOW': ORCÉ'S YU-CHEN SHIH ON CLOSING THE ASIAN SHADE GAP
1 hour ago in BeautyWords By Alexandra Pauly
Orcé
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I’ll never forget my first time getting shade-matched, a milestone for beauty
enthusiasts like myself. I went to my local Sephora where a sales rep scanned my
skin using a special camera that assigned me a shade ID – a Pantone-esque string
of letters and numbers – and plugged it into a program that spit out fitting
products. Expecting to receive a range of options to choose from, I was given a
single foundation which, begrudgingly, I spent upwards of $40 on (for my high
school self, this was a lot to spend on makeup).
The shade was too yellow, but what other options did I have? Eventually, I
learned that I wasn’t the only one stuck with an ill-fitting foundation. After
consulting with friends and online boards like MakeupAlley, a shared complaint
emerged: The vast majority of foundations and concealers are either too yellow
or too pink for Asian skin tones, which fall on a wide spectrum of hue, depth,
and undertone.
As I was beginning to accept the fact that shopping for foundation and concealer
would always be a struggle, Yu-Chen Shih was developing a solution for other
frustrated, Asian makeup-wearers. Shih, a media planner at the time, was
assigned to work on the account of a well-known Japanese beauty conglomerate.
“As an Asian woman, I was super excited to work on the account,” she recalls.
Shih – who is half-Malaysian and half-Taiwanese – had always struggled to find a
foundation that worked for her skin tone and hoped the company would consider
her feedback on its products. “Let me tell you my difficulties: ‘Why don't you
make products for this type of skin? Why don't you make foundation shades for
those of us who aren't super fair?’ But they are a very old company with
traditions… I wasn't able to get my point across. However, that was when I got
inspired to create something for people like me.”
Orcé' founder Yu-Chen Shih.
Orcé
Shih began developing a range of foundation shades to fill the gap that many
Asian customers grapple with. Quickly, she learned why such a massive gap
exists: Brands often work off of the same, limited playbook when creating their
ranges.
“I had this whole idea in my mind where I'm like, ‘Okay, I'm going to do focus
groups and I'm going to collect skin tones, and I'm going to develop shades
based on real people,’” Shih says. “But when I tried to explain what I wanted to
do to the chemist, I was told, ‘Nobody does that here.’ She handed me a Pantone
skin color book and said, ‘Pick however many you want. Or go to Sephora and pick
the top-selling shades and we will make a range for you. This is how the big
companies do it.’”
Shih quickly pivoted to a different lab that would work with her rather than
against her. After two years of testing shades on focus groups, she was ready to
launch her brainchild: Orcé Cosmetics, a makeup brand specifically formulated
for Asian skin.
Orcé
The lack of understanding of non-white skin tones goes deeper than cost-cutting
production methods. After consulting with her dermatologist, Shih learned that
the problem starts in medical school. “When you’re starting dermatology, you are
taught skin types on the Fitzpatrick scale, one through three. Asian skin is
typically four and deeper,” she explains, adding that this oversight has
affected her own medical care. Before finding her dermatologist, Shih was told
she couldn’t receive certain laser treatments because they would cause
hyperpigmentation. “When I asked [my dermatologist] about this, she said, ‘Funny
enough, it's because we weren't trained to use lasers on Asian skin that is
prone to heat and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation.’ There’s a huge gap in
skin education.”
I ask Shih what the biggest misconception surrounding Asian skin is. Based on my
own experiences with makeup artists, brands, and middle-school bullies, I think
I know what she’ll say. “We’re not just yellow,” Shih replies, confirming my
suspicions. “We're a very, very diverse group of people. Yes, we generally share
a golden undertone, but some of us are neutral. Some of us are olive, some of us
are warm. There are so many subtleties in our undertones that you can't make the
blanket statement, ‘Asians have yellow undertones.’’’
Orcé
Foundation isn’t the only category that tends to exclude Asian customers. “There
are so many, starting from false lashes,” Shih says. “A lot of them are way too
aggressive for our eyes. For those of us who have monolids, very long and thick
lashes are going to look unbalanced.” She also cites concealer (too pink or
orange) and bronzer (too orange or red) as areas for improvement. “That’s
something we hope to offer a solution for,” she hints, adding that color
cosmetics are also in Orcé's future.
Still, complexion is at the brand's core. Orcé will continue to perfect its
foundation range — which, by the way, offers a shockingly good match for my
neutral-yellow undertones with shade 30N. “I'm a Libra. I don't feel comfortable
launching something that I'm not 100% confident about,” Shih says. “12 shades is
still a starting point. We're continuing to learn,” she adds, explaining that
thousands of customer and audience surveys go into developing each new color.
“Slowly but surely we're continuing to grow, and hopefully one day we'll be able
to say that we have a shade for you, no matter how light or how deep your skin
is.”
* makeup
*
*
Alexandra PaulyBeauty Editor
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