Sleek makeup has been around for nearly two decades. It started off as a brand that catered to non white women. It was mostly sold in Afro hair shops and was a budget brand. The brand then launched in Superdrug. It got a lot of online fame with its pallettes which lead to it rebranding itself to be for "everyone" whilst discontinuing many shades of lipstick and foundation that suited darker skins.
They began to change their advertising to include this new demographic of "everyone" aka white, by using more and more "ambiguous" models and catering to beauty bloggers and collaborating and certain events.
Was I becoming bitter then? To be honest it left a sour taste in my mouth, but its something that has happened is happening now and will continue to happen. The only British brand to cater to dark skins became "mainstream" which often means us darker skinned people get in a word shafted. Whatever. It happens. Its business. I see many non white women buy from the likes of Rimmel, Bourjois and Max factor etc and they neither advertise with anyone with skin darker than white and certainly do not create any products for us! But i suppose their reasoning is white women will not buy from a brand that heavily features ethnic minorities.
I had already said see ya to Sleek after their ridiculous "natural collection" where the blush did not even show up on my skin. But today i stopped dead in my tracks.
As you know 2012 has been the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympics. The best of British etc etc etc. Well Sleek have a 2012 collection to coincide with this. A pout polish named glory, an eyeshadow palette named pride and a blusher named Glory.
Hmmmm.
Anyway nothing wrong with that. What i find disconcerting is the choice of Imagery in conjunction with the language used with this.
The model is blonde and blue eyed ( her eye colour is actually "enhanced")
she has the British flag in the background. A crown on and Jewellery entwined on her wrist with royal imagery as well. The blusher has a statute on it and a little cute button saying "i love GB". With Glory, Pride and Honour is the tag line.
Now i have no problem with patriotism or Nationalism.
What i dislike is this. Britain is a nation full of different peoples. Due to the UK's Policy of empire building and Imperialism. For a Brand that claims to be for "everyone", that was even able to expand due to ethnic minorities lining its pockets, this collection's imagery and language is a farce. In a time when Devolution is a hot topic, where the riots of last summer actually revealed things that people did not want to see, where we even have a 2012 Olympic team that is multicultural, this is what Sleek Makeup have come up with. Really??? Sleek. Really? You couldn't show all the peoples that makeup this Sceptered isle?? Coming together in a positive way?
I guess you're not really British unless....................... *giggles*
I'm not even going to go deeper down the Rabbit hole with what i could say.
Suffice to say me and My sister will never purchase another product from Sleek.
