Like most teenage girls, Scarlette French is figuring out how to express herself. She likes punk rock music, is into dark clothing, and likes to experiment with her makeup.
But the difference for this 13-year-old is that she can’t see herself in the process. The teen, who is from Oneida Nation of the Thames near London, Ont., was born with an eye disorder that’s led to severe vision loss, and is only able to see a limited amount of light.
“I do makeup as best I can, to the best of my abilities, which sometimes doesn’t look the best. But I still try really hard,” French said.
She explained that she put braille lables on her makeup containers to help her identify colours and products so she knew what she was putting on her face.
But the experience was less than ideal.
Tiffany Houston recognized that after meeting French through the Shine Foundation, where she’s the CEO. The organization helps Canadian youth with severe disabilities live out their dreams. French’s dream was a makeover.
“We wanted to give Scarlette the ability – after her dream day makeover – to be able to continue to have that impact, that independence and that confidence to be able to express herself,” Houston said.
With help from the Canadian National Institue for the Blind, Houston connected with Cheekbone Beauty, a St. Catharines-based Indigenous-owned makeup brand. Together, they developed “Scarlette’s Palette.”
It’s one of the first makeup palette prototypes that uses tactile features and an audio description to make it easier for blind and low vision people to do their own makeup.
Scarlette’s Palette contains three lip and cheek creams, two highlighters and one powder blush inside an easy-to-open case.
Each product is inside a circular holder with a raised tactile ridge around it.
“One of my favourite things about the palette [is it] has raised edges so you don’t just slide your finger in the makeup. When I’ve had makeup palettes in the past, I’ll accidentally stick my finger in something and then it messes up the whole look,” French said.
At the top of the palette, there is a QR code that links to an audio description video that explains how to navigate the palette and details each shade, which Houston said is more accessible for the visually impaired population who cannot read braille.
While only 20 prototype palettes have been made, both French and Houston said they hope Scarlette’s Palette will spark conversations among other beauty brands and charities about accessibility.
French’s mother, Samantha Kennedy, said the last few months of her daughter’s life has been life-changing.
“Scarlette is so happy. We’ve just seen her confidence skyrocket. She’s doing her hair, she’s picking out her clothes, she’s taking good care of herself and she’s just in such a good place because she did this,” Kennedy said, adding that she hopes other people with disabilities will have similar experiences.
“There’s not a lot of support out there for people with disabilities to access beauty products, which is really unfortunate because Scarlette has had so much fun on this journey being able to explore and express herself with these products,” she said.
French said that her dreams have only grown since becoming the face of a makeup palette, adding that she wants to become both a musician and social media influencer in the future.
“This is all so crazy to me. This is all very shocking, but I’m happy about it obviously,” she said.
“I would like it to be something that motivates other girls into doing their own makeup and getting good at it, instead of saying, ‘Oh, I have a visual impairment so I can’t do this,” French said.
