The Problem(s) With Tarte

If you don’t have your ear to the makeup ground the way I do, you might have missed some of the controversy surrounding Tarte recently. Because of the various actions this company has taken (and in some cases, not taken), I have chosen not to support them anymore, and I thought I would tell you a little bit about why, just in case you would rather support other companies as well.

This is one of those stories where mistakes were made but if they had just owned it and apologized, it wouldn’t have been so egregious. That is not what happened.

The biggest news a few months ago, was the announcement of the Tarte Shape Tape foundation. This was a HUGE deal, as their Shape Tape concealer is literally one of the most popular concealers (and products) on the planet. I love watching yearly favorites videos and I can’t tell you how many Influencers listed Shape Tape as their favorite concealer. I don’t personally love it because I think it makes my under eyes look dry and extra wrinkly. But if you are in your 20’s (or just have perfect skin) I can see you liking this a lot.

So when Tarte announced the foundation, it was a really big deal, as many makeup lovers were itching to get their hands on it. There were even two formulas: more of a hydrating formula and a matte formula! So people were soooo excited about both. And then… the shade range dropped. And no. This is not a joke. This image originally appeared on POPSUGAR, as I guess Tarte partnered with them to announce the launch.

I think you can probably see the issue here. There are like 13 shades of beige and then a couple dark shades thrown in, seemingly as an afterthought.

Now, plenty of brands have garbage shade ranges (off the top of my head Physician’s Formula, it Cosmetics and Cover Girl all do a pretty terrible job) but there were a few problems here. First, we are in 2018, and we are living in a post-Fenty Beauty life. Fenty Beauty is Rihanna’s makeup line, and out of the gate, they launched foundation with 40 shades in multiple undertones to appeal to the widest range of skin tones possible, which was amazing. And it was a HUGE SUCCESS. (Who’d have thought, black women want to wear makeup, too?!)

Second, as I mentioned before, this was a HUGELY ANTICIPATED LAUNCH! This wasn’t like a brand new line that no one knew about yet. People were ready to get out their credit cards before the product even existed, so it made no sense to basically only make shades for white people.

Jackie Aina (who is one of my all-time faves!) and Alyssa Ashley both made really great videos of themselves trying the dark shades on their skin.

In Alyssa’s video, she also gave alternatives to some Tarte products.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNs7fkbANM8

So, as you might have guessed, there was a LOT of backlash. Twitter kept reminding Tarte that black people exist. Pretty much all of the major Influencers (including those that have worked with Tarte in the past) touched on it.

People were also flooding their Instagram posts with complaints about the shade range. So much that Tarte decided to have a spontaneous giveaway, where all you had to do to enter is enter a palm tree emoji on one of their Instagram posts. As you can imagine, the palm trees very quickly drowned out the important complaints of their customers. So that was neat.

Finally, Tarte went back to POPSUGAR to do damage control to let people know that new shades were on the way… and made it worse.

“A rep from Tarte explained to POPSUGAR that even when Shape Tape Foundation was revealed, the new colors were already in the works. Additional shades are usually added seasonally, which makes sense because your complexion tends to be paler in the Winter and darker in the Summer months (but please wear sunscreen, kids!). And our friends at Tarte were honest: they explained that it can take time to get the full range finished and flawless — they need to get those warm and cool undertones to be exact! “We’re always pushing ourselves and suppliers to work as quickly as possible,” our contact confirmed.”

Y’all. I think you know that black people do not turn magically white in the winter. But does Tarte know that? It’s incredibly unclear.

Another issue is that “10 more shades” kept getting bounced around, because it sounded like Tarte was going to add 10 more shades, which was nice. A bit late, but nice. But it was actually only five shades in each formula, which is still not enough.

So then Tarte decided to issue an ACTUAL APOLOGY. Which is obviously what they should have done from the very beginning. Except… the medium of this apology was really strange, as they chose to do this on an Instagram Story… which disappears. I’m not saying they had to email every single customer about this but even just posting it to their actual Instagram feed or to Twitter would have been a step in the right direction to acknowledge that the issue even existed at all. Instead of acknowledging it for 24 hours and then… that’s it.

The apology:

So, the apology was nice. But by the time most people got to this point with Tarte, it was much too little, way too late.

But that wasn’t the end of the controversy with Tarte Shape Tape Foundation. Turns out that the Hydrating version of Shape Tape had the exact same formula as an older foundation that didn’t do very well, the Hybrid Gel Foundation. So customers weren’t really thrilled to discover that Tarte essentially re-bottled a foundation and called it Shape Tape to try to get it to sell. Customers were already really annoyed with Tarte with the shade range issues and now it seems like Tarte was straight up trying to trick consumers. Not a great look.

And now… we are moving on from foundation to another product that Tarte basically did a bait and switch on, and that is the Clay Play Palette.

The Clay Play Palette was almost like Tarte’s answer to the Kat Von D Shade and Light Face and Eye palettes. It was an all-matte palette with some bigger pans that could be used for contouring or eyeshadows. People LOVED this palette. I didn’t personally get it because I do have the KVD palettes so I didn’t think I needed this, but if you were into neutral looks, this palette could have been your new best friend.

I don’t even think this palette was out for a full year when the Clay Play Volume II was announced. I know Samantha March on YouTube was SO fired up about it because she loves face palettes and she loved the first one so much, so she was excited for round two.

The problem with Clay Play Volume 2 is that it was almost exactly the same as Clay Play Volume 1. They just took out two contour shades and added a blush and highlight (thus making it work for less people in the process) and I think they replaced maybe one or two of the eye shadows. So if you had the first one, you basically already had the second one. And Tarte did not make that clear. The packaging was also exactly the same. So in the first one, there was a black shade called Onyx. In Clay Play 2, there was a bronze shade in that location… also called Onyx. Like… what?

So essentially what Tarte did was replace the first beloved version with the second one that no one even really asked for, and was not very forthcoming about that whole process.

This reminds me of a new palette by Anastasia Beverly Hills called Soft Glam. It’s a pretty standard neutral palette, but there were a few shades in the palette that already existed in their collection. ABH made no secret of this, instead saying, “We could have made almost exactly the same shade and called it something different, but we thought that the original shade worked best.” And they were totally upfront about the shades already existing in other palettes, etc. As a consumer, I appreciate them letting me know that information up front, instead of waiting for me to buy the palette and discovering I already have several shades. Which is what Tarte did.

So, if Tarte was just guilty of one or a couple of these things, I’m not so sure I would be boycotting them. But when you look at the sum of the parts, I’m incredibly disappointed with them as a brand, and quite frankly, I just do not trust them. There is plenty of makeup in the world, so I would rather give my money to those other companies.

The one thing I will say is that I appreciate the fact that the shade range discussion got a bigger stage. Black girls have been screaming about garbage shade ranges for years and it seems like no one really wanted to pay attention until now. So I am hoping those other brands that are just as guilty as Tarte will take note and ensure their lines are inclusive of skin tones other than just white.

laurenelectro

A self-proclaimed beauty junkie/hoarder with a serious Sephora problem. This blog is a total rationalization of that problem. Everything is TOTALLY fine. Her free time is a mixed combination of making fun of reality TV with her husband, hanging out with cats and finally trying to figure out how to do her hair.