Into the Deep End: A New Palette Collaboration Has Options for Every Depth of Shade

Call it the Midas touch: Chicago-based, Afro-Latina-founded independent makeup brand Midas Cosmetics just made beauty a little more inclusive, collaborating with Instagram and YouTube creator Darius McKiver (better known as @NeonMUA) to create Dusk to Dawn, a collection of face palettes crafted with every skin tone in mind.

“When I decided to partner with Darius, I knew we were going to create something amazing. His passion for the beauty community and inclusivity aligned perfectly with Midas’s values and beliefs. This collection is everything that the beauty community has been asking for. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to create these palettes with,” says Midas Cosmetics CEO Rocio Nuñez in a statement provided to The Glow Up.

As the brand shared, the highly pigmented collection features four palettes “created specifically for light, medium, rich, and deeply rich complexions.” each four-shade palette includes a highlighter, blush, contour, and bronzer and will retail for $36 when they drop on August 10—or makeup pros can pick up the entire bundle for $135.

The tagline of the collection is “This is bigger than makeup.” This was chosen because the vast majority of makeup brands leave out rich and deeply rich complexions when they create bronzer and contour ranges. Most don’t go deep enough, or have very purple undertones, despite the makeup community’s many pleas with brands to create them.

Says McKiver, who is also well known as a model for many of his dramatic makeup looks: “We are doing more than putting out makeup that changes the environment. We want to make sure that the language and verbiage also change in the beauty community.”

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The Dusk to Dawn collection includes:

• The Midnight Palette - For Deeply Rich Complexions. Includes a highlighter with bronze undertones, a brick red blush, a cool toned contour inspired by creators like Nyma Tang, and a rich bronzer with deeply rich undertones in mind.
• The Dusk Palette - For Rich Complexions. Includes a gold highlighter, a terracotta blush, a deep cool toned contour that does not run grey, a bronzer shade created specifically for rich undertones.
• The Noon Palette - For Medium Complexions. Includes a white gold highlighter, a peachy pink buildable blush, a cool toned contour that does not run grey, and a bronzer perfect for adding warmth to the face.
• The Dawn Palette - For Light Complexions. Includes a bronzer and contour that are perfect for chiseling, carving and bronzing the face without appearing too orange, a icy highlighter, and a soft pink blush.

As McKiver says, the deeper the palette, the sweeter the boost: “The Midnight palette is my pride and joy. Once we knew that we were doing four palettes, this was my first task,” he recalls. “Seeing so many people have to revert to using eyeshadows and eyeliners to contour and bronze broke my heart.

“In 2019-2020, everyone should have access to basic face products no matter their complexion,” he continues. “No matter what anyone says, beauty is for everyone. And we should be creating products for everyone to use. The Midnight palette is for every person who’s been left out. And I promise it’ll never happen again.”

The mission is personal and very necessary to McKiver, who adds: “As someone who’s worked in beauty retail, I’ve seen firsthand how hard it is for those of us with richer complexions to find products like contours and bronzers. Seeing firsthand on the internet how many of us have begged and pleaded with brands and brand owners for more, just to get let down time and time again is extremely frustrating. Dusk to Dawn was my way of doing what was ‘impossible’ and catering to those who have always been left out. I want the industry to see that major changes still need to happen, and if these big brands can’t do it, the indie brands and micro-influencers will.”

Corrected: Wednesday, 7/22/20 at 7:22 p.m. ET: An earlier version of this post miscredited the model alongside McKiver as Midas Cosmetics CEO Rocio Nuñez, The credit has been changed to identify the model as fellow beauty influencer and creator Biyonca.