The beauty industry has recently been awakening to its ableist tendencies, with conglomerates and indie brands alike launching products that address the needs of those dealing with conditions such as limited mobility, vision, and dexterity. But when it comes to vision impairment specifically, the industry’s efforts need to go beyond braille. In order to truly create an inclusive environment, companies need to further explore the challenging touchpoints of this previously unaddressed demographic. Globally, 2.2 billion people have vision impairment. That’s a huge segment of the population who can’t simply walk into a store and pick a product off the shelf or read product reviews online before deciding on a purchase, let alone easily differentiate what product they are picking up off their bathroom counter.

A range of different voices are speaking to the realities of the visually impaired experience. The British Royal National Institute of Blind People created WhatsIn Store, a space with all products packaged in blank packaging and without product descriptions, to give able-bodied customers an experience of what shopping with a vision impairment is like.

Emily Davison, also known as Fashioneyesta, is a fashion and beauty blogger and journalist who was diagnosed with septo-optic dysplasia, which left her with limited vision in her left eye and no sight in her right eye. Since 2012, she has been creating content on style and cosmetics, many of which touch on the need for truly inclusive beauty brands and her experiences as a vision impaired beauty consumer.

Influencer Molly Burke—who at age four was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which leads to vision loss and potentially complete blindness in some—currently has 1.92 million subscribers on YouTube. In her video “Beauty Products Made for Blind People?!,” she  teases apart the tension points of inclusive packaging. Burke points out that Bioderma has braille on its packaging but not on the products themselves. In 1997, L’Occitane pioneered the wider use of braille language on beauty products, using it on 70% of its packaging (both boxes and bottles). Humanrace has braille on its packaging and product components (although the braille on the latter only includes the brand and not product name), and Cleanlogic had the easiest-to-read braille on its packaging. Herbal Essences created sensory enhanced packaging with stripes denoting shampoo and circles denoting conditioner, although Burke notes the symbols could be on the top of the cap instead of the bottom of the bottle for more accessible reading. Praising the skincare brand Victorialand’s CyR.U.S. Tags System—which uses tactical symbols and raised QR codes for product descriptions and offers waterproof adhesive tags that can be applied to any product—the influencer adds, “If an indie brand can do it right, every brand can do it right.”  “We all should be working towards universal design,” Burke states, prioritizing the term “universal” over “accessible” because the former includes all instead of a smaller segment of the population.

As Victoria Watts, founder of Victorialand and the CyR.U.S. Tags System explains, only 10% of legally blind people are able to read braille language. She was inspired to create it as the mother of a son born with vision impairment. “There's a lot of misconceptions, and there's a lot of unawareness of this community. When I dug deeper to figure out why there was such a low percentage of people reading braille, we have technology now and most people lose their vision later in life so that urgency to learn it is not where it was historically,” she explains to BeautyMatter. “Plus on packaging, it's very challenging to implement because of the size that it needs to be for someone to be able to read it, and the space it takes up. Because of those factors, I decided to create my own language for packaging for my skincare line."

Watts built the project after working with the LightHouse for the Visually Blind and Impaired organization, which supports and empowers the blind and vision impaired, to gain insight into how those affected by the condition face challenges navigating everyday life. “It's easy for me as a sighted person to say, ‘I have this great idea, let me do it.’ But if you don't bring in the people that you're designing for, nine times out of ten, you're going to miss the mark. It was important for me to bring in this community and really understand the challenges,” Watts remarks.

The CyR.U.S. Tags system has tactile symbols representing different product categories, and embossed QR codes, which, when scanned, play an audio message to deliver the information on the carton. Indie innovation has once again proved itself as the spark to ignite the flame of change, but there is more room to grow across the industry.

“All these big companies have budgets, R&D, and access to be able to not only get the right information but also bring in people to help them design these things. That's something that has to change across the board, is looking at it differently, and realizing the importance of designing things alongside the people you are designing for,” Watts states.

Through her extensive focus group work, immersing herself in the vision impaired community, she also discovered that it’s more about integrating these individuals into the industry, rather than making specific designs or ranges for them. “They feel different enough in our society. Accessibility isn't just having access to five different brands; accessibility is having access to every brand, every product. Just because you can't see your beauty doesn't mean you don't want to feel beautiful,” Watts explains. “That's why the CyR.U.S. system that I am creating makes every product accessible. Until we're all speaking the same language, we will have barriers and they will not be removed until we're all speaking the same language.”

The founder sees lobbying and advocacy as the main drivers towards making these goals a reality. Pressure from the public has led to advancements (however small) in other areas of diversity within the industry such as LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC representation, so with enough voices and backing, we can hopefully see the industry push forward. If retailers receive demand from shoppers to stock more accessible designed brands as well as put an accessibility aspect into their demands (in a similar way as has been done with clean and sustainable requirements), and brands receive increased requests for universally designed products, change is possible. Given the number of people struggling with a disability—whether from birth onwards or at a later point in life—having accessible products across the board can only benefit all.

Of course, there is a great upfront cost of updating all packaging across all companies to include a CyR.U.S. Tags System; ultimately, this change would open them up to a much larger audience, helping to negate some of these costs. Watts hopes to extend the system across all consumer packaged goods categories in the near future, with the goal to make the system universal by 2025 through to the CyR.U.S. Institute, which is creating a universal accessibility standard as well as offering a brand certification process and licensing opportunities. As she notes: “It's going to take a collaborative effort bringing the industries together to help build this tactile language. Instead of there being competition, we work together to build out this language across cosmetics, health and wellness, and personal care, because it's a very important initiative that’s going to impact lives. That's the way we're going to do it, is together.”

While it can be easy to dismiss that with which we don’t personally struggle, a universal standard across products would not only open the beauty experience to a wider impact but have a much more profound impact in helping marginalized individuals feel more a part of society, allowing them to tap into the exciting potential of beauty. After all, no matter what your level of vision, access to creativity and self-care should be a global birthright.