Content Creator Golloria on Youthforia, Changing the Beauty Industry and Being Her Authentic Self
Courtesy of Golloria.
In late April, content creator Golloria compared the darkest shade of the Youthforia Date Night Skin Tint Serum Foundation, shade 600, to black face paint and “tar in a bottle” in a viral TikTok video that has accumulated over three million likes at the time of writing. With a swatch of the foundation and another of black face paint on either side of her face, she pointed out the apparent lack of undertones in the shade and started an online discourse thereafter.
“I know my ‘Darkest Shade’ videos usually do really, really well, but this one, I posted it out of sight, out of mind,” Golloria tells Teen Vogue. “I texted my manager, ‘I think this might go viral, but I'm not sure because I've never seen anything like this, but I think this is going to be it.’ So I kind of had an inkling, but I didn't want to have an inkling. I didn't want it to be a big, crazy thing, and obviously, it became a big, crazy thing.”
Golloria, who boasts over one million followers on TikTok, has built a platform capturing both the good and bad of the beauty industry. While she shares a range of content such as GRWM videos, lip combos, and more, she’s also documented her trial-and-error process of finding foundations that match her skin tone in her “Darkest Shade” series. This isn’t the first time Golloria has called out a beauty brand for not considering consumers with rich complexions on her social media accounts. It’s also not even the first time she has called out Youthforia.
Back when the brand released the Date Night Skin Tint Serum Foundation in 2023, Golloria, Christina Abiola, and other creators took to the social app to highlight that none of the 15 shades even remotely matched their skin tones. Their videos swiftly prompted Youthforia to make a statement. The brand called the initial release a “proof of concept” and stated that more shades would later be released. Though meant to patch a wound, the sentiment behind the statement made many Black and Brown consumers feel like an afterthought.
Leading up to the release of the new shade range, Youthforia, as well as founder Fiona Co Chan, shared various promotional videos on TikTok. This included a clip of Chan describing her troubles and concerns both in business and her personal life, as well as a video where she tried to find someone whose skin matched the darkest shade in a shopping mall after seemingly being unable to find a model via traditional castings.
When the new shades finally launched this year, many consumers were intrigued and asked creators like Golloria to post videos trying them again. “I just felt like, at that time, people wanted me to try it a lot,” Golloria says. “They were like, ‘Golloria, please try it. Please try it.’ And I think it's because of the video that I did [in] September.”
“I think [in discussing] inclusivity, it's really important to talk about redemption,” she adds. “I think brands are able to redeem themselves. I think that you just have to put in the work to do it. So I was willing to give Youthforia another go at it.”
Golloria says she was originally hesitant, “At first, I obviously didn't want to make a video because I was just like, ‘This is really sad. This is just really sad. There's something off here, and it's just black.’”
“Although I knew something was off, I knew that it was really important to spark the conversation,” she adds, and she’s glad she did because “it really started a bigger conversation on what colorism and anti-Blackness and racism actually looks like in the beauty industry.”
“I'm always going to stand for inclusivity, stand for what I believe in, and I do it for the dark-skinned girls.”
Golloria admits she received many negative and skeptical comments at first, including some people minimizing her concerns and others telling her to “just mix it,” to which she responds, “I'm not a cosmetic chemist. I should be able to walk into any Sephora and pick up my shade, my contour, whatever it may be, without question. And I think that's where a lot of people are having the disconnect. They've never experienced not even having their shade.”
A number of other creators posted videos that affirmed Golloria’s concerns, sharing similar thoughts and even showing what the products looked like mixed together. Golloria also cites Javon Ford, a cosmetic chemist and namesake beauty brand founder, who compared the ingredient list for the lightest Youthforia shade, 100, and the darkest shade, 600, highlighting the latter only having black iron oxide as a pigment, whereas the former listed four different colors.
“I think Youthforia just does not really care about us, and that is what it is,” Golloria admits, noting that on the date of our interview, May 17, the brand had yet to issue a public response to these recent criticisms. (Though there’s no explicit mention of the foundation shade, the brand seemingly made a statement via Instagram on June 3. The post reads, “Our Commitment to Providing Inclusive Products,” and goes on to pledge that a new internal position will be created to review products. Youthforia did not respond to Teen Vogue’s requests for further comments.
Golloria also did not wish to comment on the brand’s post when later asked. However, during our interview, she did share that she has hope that this incident can be a learning experience and that the beauty industry can improve its shade diversity and color matching to represent all shades. “Even though it kind of sucks to get all of that really negative anti-Blackness and colorism, I know that bigger picture, that video helped so many people, and it really did a lot for the beauty industry,” she says. “And I hope that the beauty industry takes this and they're like, ‘You know what? We can do better. Let's include everybody.’”
This is an effort that Golloria has been working on throughout her career. Though this situation, in particular, has stirred up much buzz, it’s not exactly something new for her. Golloria has similarly called out Bobbi Brown, Prada, and more. At a time when influencers are being scrutinized for prioritizing sponsorships from brands rather than authenticity, Golloria’s decision to call them out feels all the more bold.
“I feel like you have to remember who you are, and you have to remember your why,” Golloria explains. “I'm going to stand behind my roots. I'm going to stand behind what I believe in, even though those videos are so hard for me to make, because it just takes a lot out of you emotionally. And it is draining, and it is taxing to see hundreds of thousands of people dismiss your experiences as a Black woman or just a creator of color. We experience it so much and at such high rates, not even just from the people watching our videos, from the industry in itself, from these brands in itself.”
She adds, “When it comes to the paid partnerships, the brand trips, everything of the sort, Black creators and creators of color are always going to be at a disadvantage, and we're always going to have to work 10 times harder. And that is just the truth of it. In terms of what does to you, it does what you let it. It does what you let it. You can either sit here and stand behind your morals and behind your business and your ethos, or you can perform for these people and get your little claps for the first 24 hours and then forget what made you, why you're here, what you're doing, and your purpose.”
Golloria’s purpose goes beyond just the beauty industry. Recently, the social media star has similarly been using her platforms to bring attention to global issues such as humanitarian crises in Sudan, Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and more. Discussing her decision to do so, she says, “I know [in] the beauty space a lot of creators are really scared to talk about it because there [are] the brand deals, there's all this stuff, but people are literally dying. Children are literally dying. And you just cannot forget why. You have to have a little bit of humanity, just a little bit. It doesn't even have to be a full cup of it — have a little bit of humanity. So I feel like that's just where I differentiate as well, is that I'm going to stand behind what I believe in.”
Eventually, Golloria would like to use her experiences to open a beauty brand of her own, even if it’s not in the near future. “I sometimes forget I'm 23,” she shares. “I'm still really young. So it's like I have so many years ahead of me, but I do think that down the line, that is something that I would definitely want to do. And I would definitely want to cater to a lot of the darker complexion shades, and even just the contours, the bronzers, not even just the foundation in terms of inclusivity. I'm talking about products across the board of the entire line, from the blush to the contours, to the brow kits, everything.” But, in the meantime, she’s interested in becoming a runway model next.
When asked to describe herself to those who may have just recently come across her pages, she shares a similar sentiment of self-discovery. For the first time during our discussion, she seems a little stumped by the question. After taking a pause and releasing a deep breath, she says “I don't even know. I feel like that's honestly such a good question because I feel like sometimes I put myself in a box in the beauty space, like I can only do one thing and one thing only and I forget that I'm a multifaceted person with so many things, and I'm just a layered person.”
Finally, she decides, “I would just say, ‘I'm Golloria. I do some makeup, I laugh, I kiki, and I sprinkle a little activism in there.’ I think that's what I do. I'm always going to stand for inclusivity, stand for what I believe in, and I do it for the dark-skinned girls. That's just me. I do it for the dark-skinned girls.”
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
Want more style stories from Teen Vogue? Check these out:
