Live Tinted Launches Huestick, a Multitasking Makeup Product for Every Skin Tone
If you're one of the more than 60,000 people who follow Live Tinted on Instagram, you know it's an inclusive beauty community founded by Deepica Mutyala that focuses on featuring skin tones that are underrepresented in media. Now, it's also a full-fledged beauty brand, thanks to the launch of its first-ever makeup product, Huestick. And it's no surprise that it's an inclusive multitasker.
The brand describes Huestick as the "first-ever eye, lip, and cheek multistick with clean ingredients and safe pigments that balance out dark circles, spots, and hyperpigmentation. The product defines Live Tinted’s mission of representing 'every shade in between.'" The crayon-like stick — which is vegan, cruelty-free, and packed with hyaluronic acid and vitamins — can be swiped onto eyes, lips, and cheeks as shadow, lipstick, or blush; but its most-exciting use is arguably as a color corrector. It can be dabbed on dark undereye circles and hyperpigmentation to balance them out and help reduce the use of heavy concealer.
The three universal shades of Huestick are both blendable and buildable, with a weightless, demi-matte finish. Now, when you hear there are only three shades, that might not seem inclusive in the way that other brands have tried to be inclusive, but according to Mutyala, there's a good reason for that. "The beauty industry has been trying to answer diversity by offering foundations in 50-plus shades. While that's moving in the right direction, we still need campaigns, communities, products, and people in power who understand the every day of diversity," Mutyala says, which is how the community she founded led to this launch.
"Through my own experiences as a beauty aficionado, having worked in the beauty industry and eventually becoming a beauty influencer, I formed a very clear point of view on the impact I wanted to have in the beauty space: to disrupt the representation and inclusivity in this industry," Mutyala tells Allure exclusively. "But this dream would not have been possible without the Live Tinted community. The whole point of inclusiveness and representation is to offer a platform, make sure people have a voice, and then incorporate the power of collective experience into creating impact. This community fueled my determination and was a part of every step of the journey."
The three shades are orange, pink, and red, the latter having been inspired by a tutorial Mutyala posted in 2015, “I made a YouTube video about dark circles and a proper way to mask them — with a red lipstick to offset dark circles," she says, explaining that for some skin tones, a true red hue is needed to color-correct dark circles and the darkest hyperpigmentation. "It went viral because even though half the world has an issue with hyperpigmentation, the beauty industry has given no solution." But unlike lipstick, Huestick's red shade was developed without the red pigment carmine, making it safe for use around the eyes.
So while there may be only three shades, they can serve multiple purposes for millions of people who have felt underserved by other makeup brands and products.
Live Tinted's Huestick launches May 6 on livetinted.com for $24 each.
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