The Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs within the federal government prompted many American businesses to follow suit, ending their own DEI initiatives. In January 2025, Target announced it was scaling back its DEI initiatives, including ending three-year DEI goals and stopping participation in external diversity surveys, including the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. Walmart also scaled back its DEI initiatives, which included discontinuing DEI training for employees and ceasing sales of some LGBTQ+ merchandise.
In recent years, beauty has been a bright spot in the inclusivity movement. It started with “The Fenty Effect,” a term describing the industry transformation sparked by Fenty Beauty's 2017 launch featuring an unprecedented 40 foundation shades. This bold move established a new standard that challenged competitors to follow suit. This meant that the beauty industry had already begun to address its lack of diversity a few years before the DEI movement gained significant traction in 2020. Five years later, it appears that the pendulum swung the other way across most major government and industry sectors—except for beauty.
Recent data from the 2025 SeeMe Inclusivity Index for beauty demonstrates that inclusive brands grow faster than their less inclusive counterparts. The index analyzed over 100 beauty brands across six key identity dimensions, including gender expression, skin tone, age, body size, visible disability, and sexual orientation across major consumer-facing touchpoints like advertising, products, websites, and brand purpose.
“The data shows that inclusivity is good for business. Period,” said Asha Shivaji, co-founder and CEO of the SeeMe Index. “While DEI and inclusivity have been highly politicized over the last few years, the clickbait headlines distract from the fact that inclusive marketing drives the bottom line. So if you want to grow faster than your competitors, it’s time to lean in.”
Founded by former Google executives, the SeeMe Index scored brands and assigned them to one of four segments: Certified Inclusive, Acts Inclusive, Feels Inclusive, and Thinks Inclusive. The 15 brands that lead the industry by earning the Certified Inclusive distinction include:
For the second year in a row, Certified Inclusive beauty brands outpaced the growth of their less inclusive competitors, growing three points faster than less inclusive brands, further demonstrating that inclusivity is a business imperative. The SeeMe Index partnered with Circana to determine this figure by leveraging point-of-sales from 2024 vs. the previous year.
The SeeMe Index is the latest in a growing body of research that proves that inclusivity is good for business. The UN Women’s Unstereotype Alliance identified “strong empirical evidence to show that brands that include more progressive portrayals in their advertising perform better commercially,” with 16.26% more sales than in less progressive ads. According to McKinsey, 45% of Gen Z and 50% of millennials say they would stop using a beauty brand if it failed to be inclusive or socially responsible.
Inclusivity Insights
E.l.f. Beauty was recognized as a Certified Inclusive brand for the second consecutive year. The beauty brand saw a 700% increase in stock price and 23 consecutive quarters of sales growth, which the company attributes to its commitment to DEI.
This commitment can be seen in the brand’s initiatives to partner with creators with disabilities for their Show Your(s)e.l.f. Campaign. E.l.f. Beauty also created the "Beauty For Every Eye" bundle (inspired by blind swimmer Anastasia Pagonis) to provide products specifically for blind and low-vision consumers, which includes scannable QR codes that launch audio recordings of Pagonis describing each product in detail.
According to Shivaji, certified inclusive brands showed consistency in efforts across all brand touchpoints, which demonstrates to consumers that the brand is acting authentically instead of performatively. She cited MAC Cosmetics as an example, stating that the brand has consistently supported the trans and gender nonconforming communities. MAC Cosmetics is 4.5 times more likely to feature gender nonconforming individuals in their ads than the competition. MAC Cosmetics features all genders on product pages and partnered with trans pop artist Kim Petras to celebrate the 30th anniversary of VIVA Glam in 2024.
“There’s a consistency in their [MAC Cosmetics] actions that shows consumers they care about these communities, and consumers respond positively to this,” said Shivaji.
Interestingly, Fenty Beauty and NYX Professional Makeup both dropped down from Certified Inclusive in 2024 to the Acts Inclusive segment in 2025, indicating that the bar for inclusivity has increased, along with consumer expectations.
Brands that are Black-owned and founded were found to increase representation beyond just skin tone. These brands are two times as likely to feature talent of different ages in ads, 1.8 times more likely to showcase lesser-seen facial characteristics (i.e., vitiligo, facial birthmarks), and 1.5 times more likely to provide product testing transparency that includes the skin tones of participants.
The percentage of brands designing products for people with disabilities has doubled, increasing from 11% in 2023 to 22% today, according to the SeeMe Index. Brands like One/Size by Patrick Starrr and Maybelline partnered with creators with disabilities to showcase features such as rectangular packaging that is easier to open and raised text, which helps blind or low-vision consumers recognize products more easily. Other brands initiated packaging redesigns that made best-selling products more accessible, like Beekman 1802’s Bloom Cream Tube, which was redesigned to be used with one hand.
“The shift in designing for disability positively surprised us because changing products or packaging or designing with disability in mind has a long lead time, so to see brands making these updates within a year is promising for what’s ahead,” said Shivaji.
Opportunities for Growth
Despite this progress, the SeeMe Index also found that colorism remained an issue in ads. Weighted average screen time continues to decline for talent with deeper skin tones, especially with creators. Shivaji said she was surprised by the persistence of colorism in the industry because this insight garnered the most interest when she launched the first index in 2024.
“What the lack of change tells us is that we must keep educating brands and the industry and get this data in more people’s hands,” she said. “It’s also why this year we are layering talent type onto the colorism analysis. We want brands to understand where deeper skin tones are the least represented, and we’ve identified it with creator content. We hope this helps them take more immediate action.”
So, how can brands avoid colorism in their ads? Jason R. Klein, co-founder and COO of the SeeMe Index, recommends that brands measure content using the Monk Skin Tone Scale to help identify if they are underutilizing talent with specific skin tones.
“The beauty industry has been grounded in the Fitzpatrick Skin Tone Scale since the 1960s, but we consciously measure against the more robust Monk Skin Tone Scale, which accounts for a broader range of brown and black skin tones and helps identify industry insights about colorism which can be more actionable,” said Klein.
He also recommends understanding which talent types are underrepresented by skin tone. The SeeMe Index assesses talent in marketing assets for multiple brands and how they are categorized (celebrity, model, expert, everyday person, or creator).
“We found that creators with deep skin tones have the least screen time,” said Klein. “If you know exactly how representation needs to be improved, you can take action to rectify it.”
The SeeMe Index was created using responsible AI, which Klein says has been core to its DNA from the beginning. “When we utilize computer vision AI to measure the inclusivity of brand marketing efforts, we are hyperfocused on what can be measured objectively,” he said. “The measurement scales we use have been carefully designed to reduce bias and include lesser-seen identity dimensions.”
The SeeMe Index has applications beyond the beauty industry. In October 2024, Klein and Shivaji launched the SeeMe Inclusivity Index for OTC Health and Wellness.
“We already use the technology to consult for food and beverage, finance, travel, and retail brands, so those are all additional consumer sectors we are exploring for future indices,” says Shivaji. “It’s critical for us to launch into consumer sectors where inclusivity is important, not just as a moral imperative but as a business growth driver as well.”
