Beauty company's tearful apology after TikTok backlash over 'all white' influencer trip
Beauty influencers called out the Pink Honey brand trip for having 17 influencers who were all white
The owner of a TikTok-famous beauty company has posted a tearful apology video after users on the platform criticised a recent influencer trip for a lack of diversity.
Pink Honey is a cosmetics company selling make-up in packaging that looks Instagrammable. It was founded by Olivia Taylor in 2020, and has amassed 264k followers. Its popularity boomed during the pandemic, mostly due to their eyebrow product - which looks like honey. Hundreds of thousands of products have been sold directly through the TikTok shop since.
At the end of last week, Pink Honey held a ‘Christmas staycation’ for 17 beauty influencers. During the two-day trip, the company started posting content online that indicated all the influencers present were white women. The video generated criticism from those who felt those on the trip didn’t reflect the diversity of the UK - nor the company’s own customer base.
In one video, with more than a million views, make-up artist May Tahmina said: “How is it in 2023 beauty brands are still holding events that is just purely full of white people, and that’s it.”
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She said: “No disrespect to the girls that were there, they all deserve to be there. What I don't understand is why Black and Brown creators aren't given the same opportunities. In the UK, especially brands up north, are so bad on inclusivity there's either one or two black and brown people, and they're rarely a hijabi.”
She added: “At this point, I don't care if a brand feels like it's having to tick a box. Please tick that box.”
Responding to an onslaught of criticism from disappointed fans and content creators, Taylor said in a six-minute apology video that the influencers were picked based on how much they had supported the brand’s growth
“It's just that these people who we asked had a real tie to the brand, and that is why they were asked,” she said. “There were things being said that I wouldn't have had somebody on this trip because of their gender, because of their skin colour, and these things are just simply not true."
She added: “It would never ever cross my mind to not work with someone, because of things like gender, race, size, skin type. These things that are being said, I can just promise you that just not true.”
'Hurt, frustrated and tired'
It wasn’t just customers who were frustrated with Pink Honey. When the influencers arrived at the two-day staycation, they were given a hamper of goodies made by a range of small businesses. One of the businesses, candle company Bear Burners, had been contacted by Pink Honey via email inviting them to be part of a “Christmas morning gifting session”, which would be “promoted on Pink Honey” platforms.
Bear Burners posted the email on its own account which indicates Pink Honey had suggested they provide 17 candles per influencer, who had a combined following of 7.5 million
Bear Burners has subsequently expressed their disappointment in seeing no content from the event, as they had contributed over £500 worth of products. In their caption, they wrote: “I can’t help but feel silly, hurt, frustrated and tired. It took us hours to do.”
Pink Honey posted some content on Instagram stories on Friday, but Yahoo News can see no other promotion on the site’s account.
One influencer at the event, Alana Jasmine Thomas, posted a video announcing that because of the circumstances, she wasn’t going to be sharing content about the staycation and was instead giving away the products she was gifted. She tagged all the brands in her video to her 244k followers as a way of giving back to the people who gave her a platform. Thomas posted another video shortly after announcing that most products had been claimed.
Yahoo News has reached out to Pink Honey for comment.
