As a woman of color, Beauty Boss, Madhura Mahadeshwar wanted to create a line of products that catered to all skin undertones: neutral, cool, olive, and warm. She created WOC, a line of lip shades that whole-heartedly represents women of color by catering to a range of skin tones and undertones. Read on to learn more about her brand and mission:
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and why you started WOC Beauty?
I was interested in the beauty industry from a very young age when my father used to create color pigments to serve different industries including the cosmetics industry at that very time. This brought me closer to the eyeshadows and rouge samples back home.
As I passed the school, I espoused a different direction for my career and landed up working with a corporate company for a while until I uncovered the essence of the beauty industry, so getting into this creative commercial enterprise was purely not by accident.
Being brought up in Indian society as a brown woman, I was looked down by most of the people and coped up by being a victim of colorism which, sadly, still did not change over the period.
Moving up and head, my mid-20s evolved my interest as and when I enrolled in a cosmetic formulation course to grasp a deeper and cohesive understanding of ingredients along with their safety in application to create color cosmetics including all skin tones and undertones which have been lacking in representing diversity across the beauty industry. We understood how hard the notion of bringing this change is important not just in terms of color representation but to actually comprehend the various undertones by working out different shades to suit the undertones and the skin tone and that’s how WOC Beauty came into existence in April 2020.
Can you tell us a bit more about what your brand stands for?
Women of Color is a brand that proudly embraces individual melanins, and whole-heartedly represents women of color, it resolutely lives up to its name. Our brand intent does not oversight lighter skin beauties and in no such case means to abandon them. We usher our brand ethos to coequally recognize, cherish, and celebrate all skin types and complexions. Bearing in mind the stereotypical notion towards women with darker skin melanins, our belief lies in the justness of the diversity in skin colors and bringing into being the products that emphasize their simplicity and beauty. Our brand vision statement glorifies embracing individuality and empowering women of color.
Can you tell us a bit more about your products and the color range?
We began the extensive process of understanding the various undertones for instance cool/warm/yellow undertones, golden, olive, grey/ashy skin tones along with mastering expertise in colors that affect these undertones and skin tones.
Building upon the keen knowledge for the development of the products, it took 8 months to ensure that the lip colors enhance different skin tones and to stick firmly to the objective that one color may not fit all skin types and complexions. Adding on to the depth, our prime aim was to create a feather-light formulation that is bound to feel weightless and also establish a power of building upon the beauty articulation starting with lip tints to extremely pigmented blends. The mild and runny consistency grants non-creasing factors on your lips that certainly stay for at least 7 hours even after being in contact with water or heavy meals as reviewed by multiple bloggers on YouTube. Further, into the frill, our products are a promising agent of multiple usages with the lipsticks and have elicited to be smudge-free and transfer-free making it even more bountiful as a lip product.
More onto it, our wide range of 25 different shades in two categories: matte and metallic matte covers as many skin colors and complexions as possible. Brown, nude, pink, purple, mauve, red, and orange tints are readily available to embrace diverse skin tones and types.
What does it mean to be a #beautyboss?
My constant ray of inspiration comes from the great Pat McGrath with the work she has created a name for herself, the stupendous mix of zest and zeal of the path she has opened for women of color to thrive in this beauty industry is what I’m yearning and learning every day which encourages me entirely to be a #beautyboss.
Straightly for me, shaping myself into being a beauty boss revolves around expressing and manifesting the inner you and resonating your inner spark in your work for the people around you to be up in the skies of self-confidence in their own skin. Celebrating the unique ways to blossom creatively in the beauty space and contributing to this industry inclusivity is a powerful step we’re taking every day which in turn is consequential for the inclusive and diverse beauty notion with foreseeing. Being grounded to the core of WOC Beauty does not just come under a brand name, but also weaves a family under the umbrella of empowered women of color and makes sure of our success wholly and solely together for a better future with collective efforts- which is what leadership is!
