An instant classic for every woman of color's makeup stash, Mented Cosmetics should be in your online cart right now. I have had countless conversations with friends about beauty brands that have been started by women of color, for women of color. Mented seemed to always be the true stand out beauty line because of the branding and the presentation of the products. Founders and Harvard Business School Graduates KJ Miller and Amanda E. Johnson brilliantly created the brand to help WOC who still were frustrated by the lack of hues that worked perfectly for their skin tones on the market. In an interview with Blavity the founders spoke about how the brand came into existence because of the ongoing need's of WOC in the beauty market going unfulfilled, Amanda: This has really been a passion project for us and it started out of a real need. We were at Kristen’s house, this was fall of 2015. And we were just talking about makeup… you know, the good, the bad, the ugly if you will. I said to her, “I’ve been looking for the perfect nude lipstick for like 3 years, and she said the same thing.”
Kristen: Yeah, exactly. We’ve all been there and every woman of color that we spoke to was like, “Me too. I can’t find it, it’s not out there” or I’m mixing 4 different products trying to make it happen.” And we felt like that’s nonsense. Like why shouldn’t I be able to have one shade that looks like my true perfect nude…So from there, we said, alright let’s see if we can make it. If no one is gonna make it for us and we know there's a market need, let's do it ourselves." Before I even purchased the Everyday Eyeshadow pallete, I went to Youtube and binged videos from women that had tried the eyeshadow and were giving their reviews. Despite watching the videos for me there was only one way to see how I would react and if I would even like the product and that was to purchase the palette myself and frankly, I have loved it ever since. The packaging and presentation were done very well. Being a millennial I always look forward to and critique the packaging of items that get delivered to me especially from beauty companies. The palette itself has a smooth matte feel to it and has a large mirror that takes up the entire top. I love the fact that the mirror is very large, for me that's a definite plus. The ultra-slim palette holds 9 neutral tones that are highly pigmented so that only a little goes a long way. The colors do super well when applied to the skin. I was a bit apprehensive about the lighter tones and if they would take on a yellow-ish tone but after applying them on my lid they looked browner and I was relieved. All of these colors are super pretty and by far the best thing about them is that you can just put them on in a rush and they look amazing by themselves or blended. This palette is for me an instant classic that should be front and center in every woman of color's makeup collection.
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