By Katherine Snyder
Recently, singer/songwriter and actress Rihanna Robyn Fenty - aka Queen RiRi - launched one of the biggest makeup collections of 2017. Her collection of FENTY Beauty has taken not only makeup lovers and the YouTube makeup community by storm, but the entire world.
The collection surely has us all shook - but the real question is ... is it worth the hype?
Rihanna's FENTY launch party took place on Sept. 7. At the event, Rihanna introduced her collection to her attendees, and several makeup artists attended. She was interviewed by E! News, in which she said this collection is very important to her.
"I want all women to be able to take part in this vision I'm creating. I want all women to feel beautiful in their own special ways," Rihanna said.
The collection of FENTY Beauty launched Sept. 8at Sephora (in store and online) and also online at
www.fentybeauty.com. Rihanna's collection is owned by Kendo, which also owns famous makeup brands including Marc Jacobs and Kat Von D. The entire first collection launch includes the Pro Filt'r Instant Retouch Primer, Pro Filt'r Matte LongWear Foundation (a whole 40 shades!), the Match Stix Trios, The Killawat Freestyle Highlighters, Invisimatte Blotting Powder and Gloss Balm Universal Luminizer.
The entire hype around this collection has become huge. Kendo is the first beauty company to launch a record of 40 shades of skin color for foundation, including almost every skin tone - from Albino people to some of the darkest skin tones. This made Rihanna's collection even more popular. She also used minority models in her advertisements, including extremely dark skin-toned women, super-white women and, in general, women of all colors, to show her foundation can really match anyone's skin tone.
She didn't use perfect models either, like ones who have a perfect smile, or body, or facial structure. By doing this, she was able to reach and bring in a bigger audience to try her product.
This product on the Sephora website presently has a whopping 4.3 out of 5 stars, with over 4,500 reviews. The foundation costs $34, and can be found on Rihanna's website and at Sephora.
After the collection was launched, everyone was dying to try it. The majority of people who have tried it seem to love it - but the YouTube beauty community, on the other hand, begs to differ. Several famous YouTube beauty gurus have reviewed the entire FENTY collection, and seem to have a strong love/hate relationship with the products.
Of watching and studying all these reviews from these beauty gurus many people trust for their opinions and reviews, many had similar reasons to like and dislike certain products.
Popular beauty guru NikkieTutorials reviewed this collection on her channel. The video has an astounding 5.1 million views. Nikkie described the foundation as a "velvet matte." In the video, she seems to like the product, but she later stated the foundation started to give her acne.
According to the reviews on Sephora, many people seemed to have the same problem. Other beauty gurus, such as Jeffree Star, Tati, MannyMUA and Laura Lee, also complained of acne.
Many other reviewers on Sephora.com complained of acne after three or four uses, with some saying it too drying on their skin, and it didn't work for either dry or oily skin types.
Here locally, "It made my skin so dry after awhile of using it, and it took a longer time to apply because it would dry down on my face so quickly," said 17-year-old Bianca Sorci.
"It gave me so much acne after I started to use it for not even three days. I have dry skin, so I definitely know it doesn't work for me or others with dry skin," added 17-year-old Lilly Farrell.
"I'm a guy, so I already have acne prone skin due to my hormones, but this foundation just made my acne worse over time and didn't make my skin look very nice or smooth either, it made me look dry," said 17-year-oldm Anthony.
For me, having experience with makeup and being a makeup artist, I tried the foundation out for myself. I have dry to normal skin. I loved it when I first used it: It had a beautiful finish, made my skin completely even from any redness/discoloration I have, and lasted all day.
Since I wear makeup everyday, I wore the foundation for three consecutive days and I immediately started noticing breakouts on my forehead and chin area. I almost never get acne or texture on my skin. I stopped using the foundation and the acne seemed to stop and go away.
The product was great, but the acne and breakouts were not worth it to me.
Besides Rihanna's foundation, her other products are a huge hit according to YouTube reviews and Sephora reviews. Her second most popular product to the foundation is her Killawatt Freestyle Highlighters. She came out with six compacts, four with two colors in each, and two with just one color inside the compact.
Her most popular highlighter is her single compact highlight color in Trophy Wife. It is bright gold and, as part of Rihanna's vision and campaign, she said it is designed to work on any skin tone.
According to the Sephora website, this product has 4.7 out of 5 stars, with over 1,400 reviews.
So, it looks like Rihanna had a couple hits and misses with her collection. Makeup is a very broad thing to play around with and, who knows, maybe a product will or won't work for you. The best thing you could do is try it out and see for yourself. After all, she did that.
Who knows, maybe Rihanna releasing all of these shades for foundation will inspire other companies to expand their shade ranges for foundation (which, by the way, really is a big problem in the makeup industry)?
Overall, Fenty beauty definitely seems worth the try.
Katherine Snyder is a self-taught makeup guru who has done cosmetic work for theater, dances, proms, weddings and other special occasions. Upon graduation, she plans to attend the Academy of Freelance Makeup in NYC.