In the burgeoning era of influencer beauty collaborations, knowing who truly has a say in what products they put their name on can be a tightly held industry secret. But the new HipDot x FacedByKareem Palette is all about transparency and teamwork.

In February, makeup artist Kareem Maliek Rogers, known as FacedByKareem to his 20,400 (and counting) Instagram followers, put together a proposal for a sunset-meets-neutral palette — down to the exact undertones, fonts, and shade names he wanted to include — and HipDot created it to a T.

“I put the shade name, what it meant to me, the undertone, like, slightly red, slightly golden, neutral but still have like a little bit of coolness to it. I made it very specific in the email,” Rogers tells Allure. “By doing that, HipDot was able to develop that palette literally on the first try.”

Of course, the story isn’t as simple and straightforward as that.

Rogers decided to pitch the partnership after one of HipDot’s palettes disappointed him. “I loved each and every palette up from HipDot until that specific one,” he says. “I didn’t expect that from a brand that I loved and worked with before.” From there, Rogers wanted to help make a change within the brand instead of it becoming a part of cancel culture.

The neutrals weren’t flattering Rogers’ skin tone the way they should. He frustratingly paired the palette with others to make it work for him but wished for just one do-it-all palette from HipDot. “I definitely wanted multifunctional shades that will work for all complexions, and you can use it for whatever type of looks you like to create,” Rogers explains. 

After putting together his proposal in three hours, Rogers experienced major changes. He was forced out of his home in Houston, had to quit his job, moved to Los Angeles, and became homeless — all at the start of the pandemic. (He now has a place to live in Las Vegas.) “While I was trying to find a home for myself and survive in LA, during COVID while not making money or having a job, I was still pushing my artistry,” Rogers says. “I was still working on my vision with this palette.”

In the midst of it all, Rogers decided to submit his palette pitch, and within an hour, HipDot gave it an OK. The brand decided to make Rogers’ palette the start of a larger initiative: the HipDot Creator Series. More collaborations with under-the-radar influencers and creatives are in the works.

“HipDot realized there aren’t creators like me, with smaller followings, with hard drive and real passion for change in the beauty community, that are getting the opportunity to work directly with brands on their vision, on their dream products, on what they want to change in the beauty community,” Rogers says.

The undertones are the most essential part of the palette. When picking the right ones, Rogers took his own into account. “I have neutral, golden, and olive undertones, which I feel like is very like hard to perfect, especially when it comes to complexion products,” he says.

Bronzers and blushes for darker complexions are few and far between. Many that are on the market, in his opinion, don’t show up true to tone. So with his palette, Rogers wanted to ensure he and others like him could find everything they needed and deserved in one convenient place — including the perfect, universally flattering yellow.

Mixy is one of the shades Rogers is proudest of. “For deeper complexions, yellows don’t really stand out how we want them to,” he explains. “We want them to be deep, vibrant, true to tone, and how it looks in the pan is literally how it comes out on skin.” Rogers ended up basing Mixy on the vibrant yellows of kente cloth, noticing they tend to have hints of orange and mustard. (Makeup artist Violette has told us in the past these are just the right undertones for a yellow that flatters all skin tones.)

Rogers was able to know the exact undertones needed in the palette and be able to accurately communicate them to HipDot due to his experience in the beauty industry. Since 2016, he’s worked in-store as a makeup artist with brands such as Ulta Beauty, E.L.F., Sephora, and Morphe. Through his retail training, Rogers learned what colors work for which complexions and how to share that information with customers. He also noticed what customers were looking for.

“Working with these brands, being there, I took into consideration everything that was missing,” Rogers adds, “every experience that I had to say, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t have this, but I can make this work with this and pair this,’ I took that into consideration because being a Black man in makeup, having to tell a Black consumer that we don’t have this shade, and they’d look at me like, ‘so, what are you wearing?'” Now, he can point them toward the palette of their dreams.

You can shop the FacedByKareem Palette now for $26 on hipdot.com.

 

Originally posted on “Allure” by Devon Abelman.