Kim Kardashian West always manages to find herself in the deep waters especially when it comes to her latest business venture.
Her shapewear brand, SKIMS, seems to have been doomed from the beginning.
Being culturally insensitive seems to be a common thread.
After receiving intense backlash for naming the shapewear brand 'Kimono', which is the name of a traditional Japanese dress, she had to re-brand the new collection to SKIMS.
This collection supposedly caters for all shapes, sizes and skin tones.
Seeing the gap in the market, as many companies have done, through the production of protective cloth face masks, Kim launched her own SKIMS face masks.
For a good cause of course. Kardashian West, who has donated 10 000 of the masks to a charity, wrote on on social media: "SKIMS is donating 10,000 Seamless Face Masks to the following charitable partners: Baby2Baby, Good+ Foundation, LA Food Bank, and National Domestic Workers Alliance."
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A post shared by SKIMS(@skims) on May 16, 2020 at 9:24am PDT
In a Instagram post she proudly announced that the masks are available in five nude shades.
First of all, boasting about five nude shades isn't something to proud of.
Rihanna knows all about various skin tones when she launched 40 shades of foundation.
So producing only five skin tones is bound to cause controversy, especially when the darkest tone is black. Yes, pitch black.
Many people furiously pointed out that no one, not even the darkest skin tone, is the colour black; in the same way that even the lightest skinned person isn't paper white.
Folks didn't hold back their and took to social media to express their views on the matter which most considered offensive.
Here's are just a few of the opinions shared on Twitter.
You literally made the black models mask TOTALLY BLACK. You do realize black people aren’t the color black like white people aren’t paper white? The other skin tones are fine but why couldn’t you make a dark brown color?
— liz 🎃 (@invisxblestring) May 16, 2020
The color black isn’t nude for black people but go off
— Alexisizzle (@alexisizzlle) May 16, 2020
Kim,
Are you really calling these nudes? I'm black and I would have to work on the sun for 100 years to get as dark as the last mask. How about you call them something else. Unless you designed it for Venom! pic.twitter.com/04sPi4iA71