In a bid to stamp out inequality, the beauty industry is embracing diversity more than ever. Yet despite the plethora of campaigns featuring an entire spectrum of races, a recent survey found that Afro-Caribbean, mixed race, Latina and Asian women in the UK are still poorly catered to when it comes to skin treatments, with 92% of women of colour saying they struggled to find professionals that had relevant experience with darker skin tones.

That’s why facialist Dija Ayodele launched the Black Skin Directory, a website listing UK beauty professionals skilled in working with black skin.

“I felt a service like Black Skin Directory would tackle these hurdles by providing a list of experienced professionals that women of colour could turn to with a degree of confidence and trust,” Ayodele says.

Ayodele is herself an aesthetician who specialises in chemical peels and lasers. Working with top-rated clinics up and down the UK, her website acts as a little black book, promoting doctors and dermatologists who are adept at treating issues such ranging from hyper-pigmentation and keloid scarring, which are prevalent amongst darker skin tones.

The Black Skin Directory also showcases new products, as well as roadshows and events, so that WOC no longer need to spending hours trawling the internet to get up to speed on the latest ground-breaking ingredients and treatments.

Ayodele tells Stylist.co.uk that women of colour can often feel like their individual needs won’t be understood or treated correctly in ‘mainstream’ salons.

“I don’t think some brands realise that by failing to actively say ‘we cater for all’ and showing that in text and imagery, they exclude the women of colour demographic,” she says.

“Take Instagram for example: if a clinic advertises with only Caucasian images, and shows their ‘before and after’ client images only of Caucasian skin tones, subconsciously a woman of colour will assume that they don’t treat darker skin tones. They’ve not seen themselves present.

“It is then upon the woman of colour to make further enquires, whereas a Caucasian lady wouldn’t have to overcome that hurdle.”

Ava Welsing-Kitcher, Stylist’s junior beauty writer, says that she welcomes the arrival of the Black Skin Directory as a woman of colour.

“This new directory arrives at the perfect time, now that the topic of inclusive beauty is being discussed more than ever. Hair and cosmetics are gradually becoming less of an issue for women of colour, but we’re still lacking in skincare that caters specifically to our needs.

“It’s definitely a relief to be able to rely on a trusted base of experts who you can guarantee will know how to tackle my hyperpigmentation, or to directly learn about new products without having to do an extensive Google search.”

You can check out the Black Skin Directory here.

Images: iStock