Makeup Artist Under Fire For Turning A White Woman Into A Black Woman

A makeup artist has faced severe backlash online after he used makeup to transform a white woman into a black woman.

The Los Angeles-based cosmetic enthusiast goes by ‘Paintdatface’ on Instagram. His astonishing makeup transformations have earned him over 65,000 followers on Instagram.

But if you look through his feed he definitely lacks a few people of color. So instead of recruiting a few Black, Latin or Asian models, he decided to turn a blonde, blue-eyed white woman into a brown-eyed, darker-skinned beauty.

But ‘Paintdatface’ wasn’t completely oblivious that his actions could likely get him into hot water – he posted a long disclaimer along with the controversial photos.  

“This is a transformation that I’ve been holding back from releasing for a while now, solely because of the fear I’ve had of people turning it into a racial scandal against me,” the artist wrote next to the photos.

“THIS IS NOT ABOUT A RACE CHANGE. This is about one woman acknowledging, embracing, and celebrating the beauty of another woman’s culture.”

But his protests explanation did not wash with many, who accused him of using ‘blackface.’

‘A non Black person painting their face to emulate Black [people] is STILL blackface,’ wrote Chihiro Ogino wrote on Twitter.

‘Really? You want to celebrate black culture? GET A BLACK MODEL! This is clearly blackface, your ‘disclamer’ doesn’t change that,’ tweeted Nessa.

‘You’re trying to justify using BLACKFACE. Why not just use a model of color? You clearly lack them on your page as-is. You can’t create one of us just because you don’t want to use us. #Rude’ wrote Mandaplease on Instagram. 

‘If it wasn’t about race you wouldn’t have needed a four page long disclaimer,’ noted Leila Ellis Nelson. 

The artist finally deleted the photo, then wrote, “The transformation that I recently posted of a woman transformed into a woman of another culture has been highly criticized by those who don’t understand the message.”

“I deleted the post, not because I had regret or saw wrongdoing, but because of the negativity social media turned it into. It’s been assumed by most that my intentions were to transform my model into a black woman.”

“Truth is, my intentions were to keep the look vague enough to be relatable to many women of different cultures, but the true inspiration of the overall look came from my Cuban heritage.”