Zoe Saldana Is Doing Her Own Hair And Makeup Because Hollywood Glam Has Failed Her

When it comes to industry beauty standards, it appears there still isn't a solid foundation, with the biggest shade being thrown towards women of color.

Recently, actress Zoe Saldana revealed that when it comes to getting glammed up on set, she still does her own hair and makeup on a need-be basis. Yep, the multi-million dollar actress and mother of three is also a DIY queen by default, due to the industry's limited knowledge - and products - for women of color.

"[In Hollywood], you have to learn to do your own hair and makeup so that you won't fall victim to a bad image of yourself or a misunderstanding of who you are or of your skin tone or of the texture of your hair. It's quite disheartening when you are told that you're going to be working with 'renowned this' and 'renowned that' and then you get there and they don't know how to do (it) and they don't understand diversity or their creativity is rather limited.

"It's disheartening because you still have to... find a way to feel beautiful even though you're not in control of your face and you're not in control of your skin and you're not in control of your hair that day, someone else is, and they're not really interpreting it the way that you would like to see it.'"

The 39-year-old movie star says that in order to "beat" the odds of a bad makeup job, it's a must we know how to slay our face, when no one else will:

"If you know how to do your face and makeup, and your hair, then you know how to repair yourself last minute, whatever needs to be retouched, so that you still come out winning and still feel confident and still feel beautiful."

Unfortunately, the issue of Hollywood not meeting the beauty needs of Black actresses does not only discriminate against the dark and lovely, but brown women of all hues.

Just last year, actress Zoe Kravtiz complained about the lack of products on set that that work with her hair type and skin tone. She even said that bringing her own hair and makeup artist to do the work ended up being counterproductive for the them:

"I've also had experiences where I'll be on a shoot, and there will be a well-known hair[stylist] who doesn't really know how to do Black hair. So I'll bring someone that does, and that person will really do all the work — but the other person gets the credit...It's really sad.

"I've had [makeup artists] not even bring the right colors for me and then try to put it on. It's OK if you haven't done a lot of darker skin — but people not wanting to respect and acknowledge that there is something different going on here? I've been in situations [on] a movie set or a photo shoot where I feel uncomfortable having to say, 'This isn't right.' Now I'm the difficult one because you don't acknowledge that I do have a different skin tone, and you can't just put a" bunch of light-colored makeup or a bunch of products that work for straight hair [on me]."

It's crazy to think that in 2018, and with the rise of Black Hollywood, that there would be an issue with meeting the smaller demands of actors of color. With the countless makeup artists, beauty YouTubers and #BlackGirlMagic on our timelines, you'd never guess there'd be a shortage of MUA's skilled to meet the industry needs of the brown and the beautiful.

Perhaps with the most recent sell-out power of Rihanna's Fenty Beauty products, the message will soon be clear that Black beauty matters too, and we'll see more MUA's of color working within the Hollywood space. Until then, learning how to adjust, is a must.

Featured image via Zoe Saldana/Instagram