LOral Chemist Balanda Atis: Makeup is Personal

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PEOPLE IN AMERICA

LOral Chemist Balanda Atis: Makeup is

Personal
October 26, 2016

Beauty comes in many shades. But some women nd their shades are
underrepresented in the cosmetics industry.
Balanda Atis wants an end to that. She is a chemist in Research and Innovation at
cosmetics company, LOreal USA. She is also the manager of LOral Women of Color
Lab in New Jersey. She wants to create makeup that works for all women.
Makeup is personal. It is what drives each person, but drives each person dierently.
So its your customized look. Its your customized feel. Its what you think of yourself.
Its completely personal.
Atis is African American. She knows from her own experience how dicult it is for
women of color to nd foundation makeup right for their skin tones.
LOreal launched a product line for women of color to answer the need. Atis says it was
a good thing, but something more was needed.

e head of the makeup division came to us at the time and said oh, are you guys
happy now you have a lot more shade oerings that are suited for your skin tone and
although we were excited to see the eort being made.
We did notice that there was still the concern of the shades either being too ashy, too
red and just didnt cover a large segment of the population. So at the time he basically
said, and Im quoting, If you dont like it, then x it. So that was our opportunity to
take on this project and to gure out how we can create better foundation shades for
women of color.

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So, Balanda Atis and other Loreal chemists began to explore.

We had the opportunity to travel across the U.S, to dierent regions of the U.S., as well
as internationally, such as South Africa, to gather skin tone measurements to make
sure that the shades that we were creating were suitable for a large range of skin tones.
And, in order for us to understand the colors that make up the skin, we had to use,
basically, a camera. And this camera, instead of giving us an image, gives us numbers
and those numbers translates to the color in the skins. So that information helps us to
create the foundation shades.
e information they collected led to breakthrough results.
What we found is that you can use a really special colorant,
colorant called ultramarine blue.
And ultramarine blue is a truly clean, vivid,
vivid bright, rich color that allows you to go
deeper, but as you go deeper, youre still able to have a very natural color to the skin.
Again in the industry its quite dicult to get deeper shades and not have them look
muddy or dirty or ashy.
ashy So with this particular colorant we were able to get deeper,
cleaner, natural and beautiful colors. We really felt a sense of satisfaction, we felt
complete in a sense, because we knew that we had found something that would allow
us to give this natural look that so many women were looking for.
Balanda Atis is of Haitian ancestry.
She says it was exciting when she came to the United States. She had fun learning a
culture dierent from her own, and becoming part of that new culture.
Atis says many Haitian families expect their children to become doctors or nurses. But,
she knew she didnt want a career in medicine. e chemist says she always had a
passion for science, but was not sure how to make a career in it.
e world of makeup and me meeting was not very, I guess, common. I was super
excited once it happened, but it wasnt something that I wanted or that I knew was
going to happen. When I got my degree in biology I knew I wanted to do something in
the science eld. I was always interested in science but not quite sure what aspect of

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science I wanted to go into.

It was aer I graduated from college, and I wanted a job just like any other recent
graduate and I was fortunate to join a company that worked on cosmetics and personal
care products. And while there, I had a wonderful opportunity to come to LOreal and,
with that, is how I started my career in beauty. I started o as a chemist working on
mascaras, absolutely loved, loved, loved creating mascara and eye products for women
around the world so it was a great opportunity to learn and go even further into
cosmetics.
Balanda is happy that she married her love of science to cosmetics. She shares her joy
with teenagers by giving talks at schools about the importance of science.
Being able to showcase and share with others what STEM is -- Science, Technology,
Math and Engineering -- is awesome. Most kids dont have the opportunity to really
have a good understanding of how science is used. Most kids just see science as mixing
something in the beaker and then, poof, something explodes. But science is so much
more than that. Science is in everything that we do. And being able to relate science
and beauty together is just fun.
ose school visits do not take place on U.S. soil only. Balanda Atis also shares her
knowledge and experience to young people in Haiti.
Besides taking care of my two daughters, I really enjoy giving back. And one of the
ways that I give back is I go to Haiti and work with school age kids at a school that we
have in the south of Haiti and provide them with education and, then, with medical
care.
So we travel during the year and go to dierent villages, actually in Haiti and provide
medical treatment to the less fortunate. So its a wonderful opportunity to be able to go
back reconnect with your roots, eat some great food, enjoy the lovely beaches and just
be one with people."
Balanda Atis will continue to explore and create makeup products for all women.
I aspire to not only create better foundation products for women of color, but to create
better products in general. Whether its a foundation, whether its a lipstick, an

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eyeshadow, if its learning how to better customize and personalize products for
women, I aspire to go to that next level. I want to see what is out there that allows me to
continue to grow.
Im Marsha James.

Marsha James wrote this story for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.
We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook
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Try this quiz to check your understanding of this article.
Next time on People in America, American Actress and Senior Director Melissa
Fitzgerald talks about her work for Justice for Vets.

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Words In is Story
customize v. to change something in order to t the needs of a person
cosmetics n. a substance (such as a cream, powder, lipstick) that you put on your face
or lips to improve your appearance
foundation base make-up; a special cream that is the color of your skin and that you
spread on your face and neck before putting on other makeup
colorant - n. a dye, pigment or other substance that colors something
range n. a group or collection of dierent things or people that are usually similar in
some way

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vivid adj. very bright in color

ashy - adj. of a pale grayish color
beaker n. a wide glass with a lip for pouring that is used especially in chemistry for
holding and measuring liquids
Go even further into - exp. go into=explore
Take the bull by the horns exp. - to deal with a dicult situation in a very direct or
condent way
One of the great a-ha moments exp. we had a moment of sudden insight or
discovery

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