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Fenty Beauty pulled “Geisha Chic” highlighter due to criticism

The brand reached out to a fan over DM on Instagram to personally apologize.

Last week, Fenty Beauty rolled out its new line of summer launches, including the highly anticipated Sun Stalk'r bronzer, which comes in eight colors, and three new Killawatt highlighter shades: Mo’ Hunny/Afternoon Snack, #PENNY4UTHOTS, and Geisha Chic. The latter luminizer, however, has been pulled after complaints from fans that it fetishizes an aspect of Japanese culture.

A Reddit user who left a comment on Fenty Beauty's Instagram about the highlighter's offensive name received a response from the brand via DM. The user shared a screenshot of the conversation in the subreddit group r/BeautyGuruChatter to show fellow Redditors that Fenty made the decision to pull the product until it can be renamed: "We hear you, we’ve pulled the product until it can be renamed. We wanted to personally apologize. Thank you so much for educating us," reads the message.

Below the post, the same user summarized her original message to Fenty Beauty in the thread, saying:

“I left a comment on their post for ‘Geisha Chic’ after they’d removed the name from the post saying it was convenient for them to leave it out and later commented back to people asking what the problem with the name was, about what the Japanese American redditors here said about fetishization of geishas in America and while it could possibly be meant to be positive, it will definitely rub some people the wrong way because of the constant misuse and negative connotations associated with it in western representations of geishas. They have removed their post now. I think of course it’s good they are responding to the feedback so quickly and changing the name, not making excuses. I could understand this definitely leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths regardless though. Curious to hear thoughts.”

Since its inception, Fenty has fostered a great relationship with its followers, cheekily responding to tweets and encouraging fans to participate in #FentyFaceFriday, so it’s no surprise that brand representatives responded to the criticism with an immediate solution.

Fenty Beauty has taken full responsibility for the incident and has since wiped all promotion of the Killawatt shade from its social media accounts.

When reached for a comment regarding the situation, the brand responded with the same message it sent its fans over direct message on Instagram.

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Original story by Allure. Read story here 

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