Formulating for Dark Skin: What Are the Key Considerations?

TAGS:  Skin Care    Hair Care   

When we talk about ethnic cosmetics, we are focusing on products that are marketed towards African, American, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern and Native American women. It includes all women of color.

It is the opinion of many companies in the beauty industry that offering skincare products for women of color is not about harsh chemicals that have proved to be very popular for women with darker ethnic skin coloring in recent years. Instead, companies are offering treatment and personal care products that aim to highlight and brighten the natural skin tone using conventional treatment ingredients.

Ethnic cosmetics are still very little studied. It is thus a challenge to be taken up to create cosmetic products totally dedicated to this type of skin.

Formulators must be aware of the specific characteristics they are dealing with, as special care must be taken when developing products for women in this market segment. For example, hair products should contain gentle ingredients but at the same time should be very functional.

• Ethnic hair can be very heavy, thick, and dark and require additional ingredients that can help cleanse, condition and give it additional shine.
• For skin care and make-up, there have only been limited products available for women with darker skin tones, which has often led consumers to mix their own foundations or shaded make-ups to get the exact tones to suit their complexions.

Therefore, while formulating for dark skin it so becomes fundamental to understand that it is not only the skin color or hair that differs but also the structure of the skin & hair as well as different needs to meet the growing needs of consumers in this segment.

Let's begin by understanding the major physiological differences in skin and hair.

The Major Physiological Differences

All About the Skin

It is the melanin, synthesized by melanocytes, that is responsible for the differences in skin pigmentation between individuals. There are two types of melanin in the human body:

• Eumelanin (brown/black) – Typical of black skin
• Phaeomelanin (red/yellow) – Typical of Caucasian skin

We determine the natural color of the skin by the amount of these two types of melanin.

But it is important to notice that black skin and Caucasian skin have exactly the same number of melanocytes. It is the size and the number of melanosomes (made by melanocytes and which contain melanin) and their repartition in the epidermis that determines the color of the skin.

• In fact, with dark skin, melanosomes are too many and of big size. They are also found in the most superficial epidermal layers.
• But, for the Caucasian skin, the melanosomes are few, small, and form aggregates, which are digested as they migrate to the surface. We find them only in the deep layers of the epidermis.

Hyperpigmentation is the direct consequence of this very high production of melanin on the surface of the skin. That is the BIG problem of black skin. In the case of inflammation (spot, insect bite, repeated rubbings), darker marks appear on the skin. The complexion becomes INEGAL.

Out of its natural setting (hot and wet), the cell renewal of the black skin slows down, due to the air dryness: the horny layer becomes dehydrated on parts of the body which is poor in sebaceous glands (legs or hands): we then observe a drying out of the skin with the appearance of the well known “crocodile skin”.

On the contrary, in the regions rich in sebaceous glands (face, back, chest), the secretion of sebum gets in a panic to reconstitute a protective film deficient to protect the epidermis from UV rays. The skin becomes oily and often generating spots.

What is Unique with Hair?

The frizzy (African) hair has a curved shape hair follicle. Deeply implanted in the scalp, it is smaller than that of smooth hair and has a round shaped. It grows in a spiral, and comes out lying on the scalp, whereas smooth hair grows and comes out straight.



The frizzy hair’s root produces less fluid and less abundant sebum (suitable for a tropical, hot and humid climate). In Europe, the air is drier, the pores of the scalp are tightened, and it is difficult for sebum to flow. Thick, it is poorly distributed along the hair fibers.

Because of these differences, frizzy hair is ultra-dry, fragile, breaks easily and grows less quickly than their so-called “European” or “Asian” counterparts, their growth evolves by rising instead of falling down.

Related Read: Formulating Hair Care Solutions for Repair and Protection

The Formulation Needs

As presented above, black skin and frizzy hair are very complex and present many problems that brands will have to take into account when creating new products. The users’ beauty and hair routines should also be taken into account as well.

Let's discuss some unique needs that are imperative while formulating products for dark skin and frizzy hair.

Skin Care When it comes to skin care, brands will have to develop 2 distinct types of products – one for the face and the other for the body. For facial care, they need light, non-greasy texture products that will illuminate and unify the complexion and that will also treat hyperpigmentation problems. For body care, they need rich textures and very nourishing products, such as body butter, to fight skin dryness. View Nourishing Starting Point Skin Care Formulations »

Hair Care The 1st keyword is NUTRITION. The black community has a very heavy hair routine in order to avoid dehydration of their frizzy hair and to improve its porosity (ability to absorb water and therefore hair products). We, therefore, need very nourishing products, such as hair cream or oil for this “nappy (natural)” hair. Since this type of hair is less oily than European or Asian hair, it has the advantage of having to be washed less often; however, they have to use cream shampoos (for example with vegetable oil) formulated to nourish the hair while washing it. The 2nd keyword is GROWTH. Another recurrent problem with frizzy hair is its extreme fragility and high breaking power so if we add hairstyles that pull and break the hair, we end up with users who absolutely want to stimulate their hair growth and limit breakage. So, they need growing activating lotions that can be used daily.

Sun Care The big challenge for sunscreens will be to provide protection without the skin bleaching phenomenon. Formulators will avoid sunscreens products based on titanium dioxide. But the most important struggle is to convince this community that it is ABSOLUTELY necessary to protect themselves from the sun even if they are "used" to. Check Out a Variety of UV Filters Available Today »

Make-up As far as make-up is concerned, formulators need highly pigmented products for foundations, eyeshadows and high-coverage lipsticks. As for complexion products, a real color chart has to be created, in order to avoid shades that will turn gray or red. The keyword is COVERAGE, so we cannot extend the range of shades of Caucasian skin. We must create products with light but very covering textures in order to be able to camouflage all the hyperpigmentation spots.

The Choice of the Suitable Ingredients

Colored and mixed-race skin has been known to be dry and irritated. They require intense moisturization. Given the pronounced dryness, powerful MOISTURIZING ingredients for both hair and body, such as aloe vera, are recommended. More specifically, moisturizing ingredients should be based on water-flow regulators which reconstitute the cutaneous barrier and compensate for lack of sebum.

NOURISHING ingredients, such as different butters (the best known being the shea butter) or even vegetable oils, such as avocado, coconut, etc. are recommended while formulating personal care products meant for dark skin.



Make-up is another preoccupation for many. Foundations formulated for Caucasian or Asian skins are not suited to colored skin. To make the gray tones that appear with ordinary foundations disappear, red or yellow pigments have to be added to the conventional dark shades. Emulsions have to be mattifying with colored substances like clay, bentonite or montmorillonite being incorporated rather than white mattifying substances, such as kaolin or titanium dioxide.

Some of the COMPLEXION ILLUMINATOR and IMPERFECTION CORRECTOR ‘natural’ ingredients include:

• Carrot
• Black seed
• Plant extracts, etc.

As we discussed above, the hair tends to become rough, tangled and knotted. This hair type has very high melanin content. It resists sun exposure almost totally, even when the exposure is intense, without color-removal or cuticle damage, as can be the case for Caucasian hair.

Treatments for this very specific hair type are numerous and use various types of active substances. Some of the popular natural ingredients to stimulate hair growth are:

• Castor
• Ginger
• Indian Ayurvedic powders, etc.

Traditionally, African women coat hair with shea butter or palm oil to compensate for the lack of sebum, to smooth the hair shaft and maintain braided hair.

It is also necessary to take into account the origin of these ingredients and to give greater importance to raw materials coming from African farmer’s cooperatives; the aim being to support the local economy and create jobs.

*Note: The above-mentioned ingredients are only a few examples, however not restricted too. Look out this space for more information in the future.

Tests for the Use and Efficiency of Cosmetic Active Ingredients

Very few, if not any, of the distributors or producers of cosmetic ingredients, do efficacy tests of their new active ingredients on dark skin or frizzy hair. So, most of the time, formulators must be satisfied with the documentation on Caucasian hair and skin and extrapolate the results, if possible, to their formulas for ethnic products. For the moment, there are not any real assets or raw materials intended exclusively for this audience.


Very few laboratories have an adequate panel to test ethnic products; thus, the claim is not necessarily proved on an ethnic panel but on a Caucasian panel and then extrapolated.

Cosmetic for black skin is undergoing rapid change and many actors in the sector are realizing that there is still a lot of progress to be made in order to improve tomorrow’s products of ethnic cosmetics.

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