Did you know that Essence is doing a beauty experiment?

Did you know that Essence is doing a beauty experiment where they’re studying how much of an effect black women advertising beauty products has on the black female population. And it’s not looking good according to their studies:
African-American women spend $7.5 billion annually on beauty products, but shell out 80 percent more money on cosmetics and twice as much on skin care products than the general market, according to the research. That difference comes as African-American women sample many more products to find the ones that are most effective on their skin.
“She spends a lot, but there’s little satisfaction. What keeps us buying is the hope that this product will do what it’s supposed to do,” said [celebrity makeup artist] Sam Fine.
So despite being generally ignored or marginalized by mainstream magazines, black women spend billions of dollars on cosmetics, desperately searching for something that works. According to Smith, Fine also said he believes that the typical African-American shopper is “more likely to buy products from aspirational labels — Chanel lipsticks and Versace perfume, for example — than brands that are associated with celebrities.” Could it be because many of the black celebrities who pitch cosmetics — Halle Berry, Beyoncé, Rihanna — represent only a light-skinned sliver of what the general population of African-American women look like?