ColourPop, a cosmetic brand who known for its risqué product names, found itself in hot water after giving a few of its darker sculpting stix (makeup pencils) some questionable names. Lighter pencils had playful names like “Gummy Bear” and “Illuminati”, while darker pencils named “Yikes”, “Dume”, and “Typo” raised a few eyebrows. The names in question even prompted black Affinity Magazine‘s Moyo Ajepe to write a piece on why her skin color isn’t a “typo”. Others took to social media to reprimand the brand for being insensitive to people of color.
Photo: Buzzfeed.com
Photo: Buzzfeed.com
When ColourPop realized that they offended a large subset of their customer base they changed the names of the pencils to “Bloom”, “Point Dume”, and “Platonic” while also issuing an apology to customers via Buzzfeed News.
“On behalf of ColourPop, we are sorry and are extremely grateful for our customers’ feedback,” the brand told Buzzfeed. “We have taken immediate action to change the shade names and review our naming process to ensure this does not happen again.”
But fans are divided on whether ColourPop was being blatantly racist or just branding-challenged. The brand isn’t exactly known for being politically correct with its product names. This is the same company that dubbed one of its popular brown highlighters “Churro”. You would think that this would offend the brand’s Latina customers, but it didn’t spark too much talk. In fact, according to GoodHouseKeeping.com, the high lighter sold out in less than one minute. Although it could be assumed that the “Dume” stick is a phonetic play on the word “doom”, it is also a municipality in Portugal.
What are your thoughts on the names?