The Doctor Will See You

The Makeup Aisle May Be More Welcoming Than Ever Before, But What About The Dermatologists Office? Baze Mpinja Reports On New Treatments That (Finally) Offer More Options To Women Of Color

While the debate about whether or not social media is ruining society rages on, I’d argue that there’s at least one way that it’s helped cement a long-overdue but necessary cultural shift: inclusivity in the cosmetics world. We now have more foundation shades (MAC Cosmetics’ Studio Fix is currently the winner, with 60) and beauty ads featuring people who defy traditional notions of what a spokesmodel should be, in terms of age (Maye Musk), body type (Ashley Graham), and gender (Patrick Starrr). This excites me on many levels—as a black woman, as a beauty-industry veteran, and as a consumer.

But now that I’m sitting pretty on a mountain of dark-brown foundations, I hope the momentum spreads to the dermatologist’s office. Like foundation, noninvasive skincare procedures have been around for decades, but many of the most popular ones—such as treatments using lasers to brighten, resurface, and remove hair—haven’t been an option for women of color because they target pigment or emit pulses of energy or heat that can cause hyper-pigmentation and scarring in medium and dark skin tones. “Historically, most of these devices have only been studied on lighter-skinned patient populations before entering the market,” says dermatologist Andrew Alexis, the director of the Skin of Color Center in New York City.