Lady Gaga has apologized after beauty influencer Golloria George called out the pop star's Haus Labs’ beauty brand for a lack of darker shades in a new bronzer launch.
In a May 29 video posted on Instagram
, the 25-year-old content creator criticized the brand's Sun Dipped Bronzing Veil after trying out the product ahead of its initially planned July launch. The company halted the product's release following the backlash.She expressed disappointment after applying the three darkest shades, saying "I don’t know what or who you guys switched up in that lab, but switch it back. Thank you." In the post's caption, she wrote "no one is bigger than the program. not me, NOT haus labs, NOT any brand. do better."
Haus Labs, which the "Mayhem" singer founded
in 2019, posted a statement from Gaga on Thursday, Oct. 1 addressing the response from "our community, led by Golloria" regarding the lack of inclusivity in its shade range.
"It was also clear that the way the company initially handled that feedback was wrong. We want to take full responsibility for our mistakes," Haus Labs wrote in the statement shared to Instagram. "Although we went through our shade development process, at some point the decision was made internally to launch with only six shades. That was the wrong decision."
Haus Labs also explained that the company asked Golloria to remove her video "on the technicality" that the influencer reviewed the product before the embargo had lifted. "This was unkind and not at all how a creator, or any customer's voice, should ever be treated," the statement reads.
"We took both of these failures extremely seriously, and took steps to make change. Thanks to her powerful voice, we decided to pause the launch and go back to the lab to ensure we had a truly inclusive shade range from Day 1," the statement continued. "We also had important internal conversations to reflect on where we went wrong to prevent this from occurring again in the future."
Golloria responds to Gaga's apology, addresses 'legacy of colorism'
Golloria addressed Gaga's statement on her Instagram Story Thursday, explaining that she never speaks up "just to make noise."
"i speak because colorism is bigger than any product i could ever review. it has shaped who the world learns to see as beautiful, who is instinctively afforded softness and grace, and whose absence we've been conditioned not to notice. beauty is simply one of the clearest places we can see its fingerprints," Golloria wrote. "that is the legacy of colorism i am trying to interrupt, a world so accustomed to our exclusion that it learned to see our absence as normal."
She wrote that beauty is where she has received enough influence to confront a much larger issue than makeup shading "because what happens here reflects what happens everywhere else, who gets considered without asking, and who has to speak before their existence and humanity is acknowledged."
She wrote that there is power in making people question what they previously saw nothing wrong with.
"i cannot dismantle colorism alone. but i can make sure it does not go unchallenged anywhere my voice can reach," she added. "i can expose the gap, demand the correction, and push the standard forward. and if my voice is powerful enough to change what the world is willing to accept, then i owe it to every dark skinned woman who has ever had to search for herself in spaces that were never taught to see her, TO USE IT."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lady Gaga apologizes after influencer slams Haus Labs' lack of dark bronzer shades
