Molly Burke Reviews: Blind Accessibility of Beauty Products | Universal Beauty | Allure

i always say that my hands are my eyes so my hands really are how i see the world as a blind person hey i'm molly burke i'm a blind youtuber and motivational speaker and today i want to talk to you about what those of us who can't see look for in our beauty products touch is so important and it would be really great if more products had tactile differentiators because that would just make my life using beauty products so much easier i am not representative of all blind people i'm just a blind person who is affected by the idea of universal design so i'm speaking from my personal experience i would assume that there is some type of writing or design on this packaging but because there's no tactile design on it or embossing i wouldn't know what it is this is the type of product that i myself would have to buy bring home and then either use a braille label maker or find some kind of tactile marker to add to it myself so right away picking up this palette i know this is naked by urban decay i can tell because the letters are embossed so it's tactile when embossing is done where the letters are either raised or indented also works they just have to be big enough so that you can feel the letters individually if it's too small that doesn't really work the only time it really works if it's small is if it is in fact braille but in this case this is like perfectly done this is very easy for me to identify i probably wouldn't go smaller than what the urban decay is the reason braille was created instead of just doing tactile letters is because of size braille is a language that every single letter every single symbol every single number is made up of six dots so it's able to be really tiny and concise and so you're able to fit a lot more into a smaller space the reality is any tactile marker that differentiates the product or the package is going to make a big difference for me being able to figure out what product is what not only are these shampoo and conditioner bottles the exact same as one another but these could be truly any product made by any company they're very generic packaging and they're identical to one another which makes it very difficult again this is something i would have to adapt myself by doing something like putting a hair elastic around the shampoo and nothing on the conditioner on these bottles i know right on the bottom at the back there's a bunch of small circles or dots and that is the conditioner and then on this one i can feel right down here at the back there is stripes for shampoo so s stripes shampoo see circles conditioner not all blind people can read braille and so herbal essences made a real effort to make sure that they could label their product that everybody who just can't read a label could still read their version of a tactile label if i could make one suggestion to her blessings on how to improve this even further i would suggest they put the tactile markings either on the top of the lids or on the tops of the bottles right now the way it is is when i'm in a shower or a bath i have to pick the product up in one hand and feel it with the other to find it because it's at the bottom of the bottle so this is a brand that i've never tried before i've never heard of them but right away i can feel that there is a symbol on the top now because i don't know this brand and i've never tried it i don't know what that symbol means however if this was a brand that i utilized a lot i would get to know what this symbol meant and i would easily be able to figure out when it's in my drawer what it was it's just very simple um and it makes it easy for other brands to take that exact same system and that's truly what universal design is designing something that becomes the standard just like on laptop keyboards the f and the j universally across the board every company has a little tactile line so that's really what you want when you're thinking of universal design these lipsticks feel the exact same i wouldn't be able to tell anything is different about them they could be any lipstick by any company any color any finish there's nothing helpful about this packaging the brands who really make their packaging stand out and make each line something unique and different is way easier for people like me this brand takes the same lip product and makes it different depending on the finish so i can tell just by touching this this is a matte finished packaging so i assume the lipstick is also matte finish and this is a glossy finish on the packaging so i assume this has more of a glossy finish to the lipstick and so that's really helpful even though i can't differentiate what colors they are i can at least differentiate what finish the lipsticks are one good thing that maybelline also did with this is they put the color on the outside and so for somebody like me who's pretty much totally blind i only have light and shadow perception that doesn't help because i can't see color but for somebody who is low vision and can still see some color that's super helpful because they can automatically look at the packaging and tell which lipstick it is too faced is a brand that i would say across the board generally does a pretty good job at differentiating their packaging while making it super aesthetically pleasing to people who can see it so you wouldn't know that this is super helpful for people like me who can't see this one is not waterproof this one has tactile bumps all over it and it is waterproof you would never know as a sighted person how important that would be to somebody like me but automatically i know despite the fact that these are the exact same formula one is waterproof and one is not and i can easily pick off a shelf which is which this palette is the bane of my existence i can't stand palettes that do this where they just seem to throw the colors in there and there's there's no uniformity to it there's just no way for me to memorize all of these colors and i'm really good at memorizing my palettes but when it's just so all over the place where there's darks mixed with lights brights mixed with neutrals nothing makes sense so it's really hard for my mind when i have a number of palettes to remember where things are so i just end up not reaching for something like this and it's certainly something i would never choose to purchase my personal preference for palettes is under 12 shades because it allows me to have enough to play with but also it's not too much that i can't memorize each shade and what they look like every blind person finds a different unique way to create tactile markers for themselves for me personally with my palettes i just try to memorize them when i get a new palette i listen to lots of reviews on youtube i have people in my life like my mom describe each shade to me and that way i can really paint a picture in my mind of what shade is where and what shades would go best with one another so i can create eye looks in terms of being able to find shades you know the layout in terms of having the tactile markers between isn't bad however they're pretty tight together and they're such small pans that it would be easy to think you're dipping your brush into the right shade but end up in the wrong one this palette is by tarte that's a brand that i really enjoy palettes from because for the most part the colors make sense this palette is perfect tarte often does this with their palettes where they make a clear color story uh all the colors make sense where they're lined up i know that it could be brow bone shade lid shade crease an outer v or liner shade option each line is a different tone so i know that i can just memorize top line is cooler toned second line is warmer toned and so it just makes it really really easy and with these strong clear plastic dividers between each shade i can clearly navigate around the palette now this is your standard mascara it is a long handled wand and i can use these it's just more difficult because i just have less control when i'm trying to do my mascara and my hand is out here because i'm not looking in the mirror i'm doing it all by tactile feedback this one's nice because it's short however even though i get more control because i'm nice and close to my eyelashes the wand is different shapes on each side which is something quite a few brands like to do they like to say on this side you can lengthen and with this side you can give volume but for me i can't see which side is which and so i love when wand is just uniform all the way around this mascara is a great example of something that i would say is ideal it's a mini mascara so i have a short wand for control the brush is very uniform all the way around so it doesn't matter what way i hold it or what direction and it's also nice and skinny so it just makes less chance of me hitting my nose makes it really easy for doing my bottom lashes because it's so slim so this is definitely a very ideal mascara i am never willing to leave the house without having a sighted person check my makeup over so currently i live with my partner and he checks my makeup in the morning and he's learned how to fix my makeup for me i can use the app like an app similar to be my eyes be my eyes is one of a number of apps that allow you to call a volunteer and through the camera that's on your phone they can see whatever you point it at and they can describe it to you so i just go on the app click to find a volunteer you know i can point it at my food at my face at my clothes at whatever i need to see and they will be my eyes very literally they will describe what's in front of me [Music] too faced is an example of a brand that does this very well adding fragrance to their product lines so they have their sweet peach and it all has a peach flavor or peach scent it probably tastes like peach too i don't know i don't eat my makeup um and then the bronzer is the chocolate so it smells like chocolate it's my favorite bronzer here's their holiday palette which is sugar plum so it smells really sweet not only does the difference in fragrance of their products allow me to have a multi-sensory experience when i'm doing my makeup because even though i'm missing out on the look in the mirror i'm having the fragrance and that's really enjoyable for me but it also allows me to differentiate which palette is which certain products are easier to figure out how to open than others i think a lot of sighted people just look and are like oh here's where the hinge is this is where i open it but for blind people we're doing it all with our fingers um so when it's not really obvious tactilely it can be difficult so for example this one the edges are quite flush and that could be an opening it could be the part where you push it up but it's not it's on the other side and it's in the middle where you have to kind of dig in and open it so either one of these to me could be an opener um so once i knew the product well enough i would know which one was able to open but on initial touch i i think that i would try to open it on this end versus this one from benefit you would think could be difficult but there's clear openings in the back and so i know boom it opens that way [Music] this isn't a problem that i've faced too much myself but i've heard a lot of my fellow blind girls complain about round packaging because the moment you knock it over which we are known to do it can just roll away of course now it doesn't roll why would it why would it roll when you wanted to it's like when your computer breaks and you bring it in to get fixed and it works perfectly obviously when something rolls away on the floor and you can see you just visually scan you walk over and you grab it but for us we usually have to get down on our hands and knees and feel around for it so it can take a little bit longer and it's so funny because i've knocked over numerous things in this filming and they've rolled all the mascaras some products that i generally avoid doing are a lot of liquid products um like liquid blush liquid highlight liquid bronzer or even cream especially liquid liner because if i did go too heavy-handed if my line wasn't crisp oh geez i need somebody to be able to help me blend it out and liquid products just tend to set so fast that it doesn't allow somebody to step in after i'm finished and kind of buff it out fake lashes are also something that i have not figured out how to do on my own yet if any fellow blind makeup lovers have tips please let me know because that's definitely something that i can't do on my own the only other thing that i try to avoid as much as possible is loose powders because i am just bound to spill it i will use a loose translucent setting powder because if i spill it it's translucent but any colored product with a lot of pigment in it i definitely don't get loose because i will spill it everywhere i had help curling my hair today i did not do this i love having curled hair and it always makes me feel so fun but i can't curl my own hair because of the heat you know you have to wrap the hair around yourself and it is a very hot barrel and people have suggested to me to wear a heating glove well like i mentioned earlier my hands are my eyes so the moment i put a heating glove on i can't even feel my hair so i can't separate it i can't find which pieces i've already curled or not so really curling my own hair is just not really an option which sucks i can straighten my hair although i naturally have straight hair so i don't really have to but i can do it because the outside is covered with plastic on straighteners and the plates are just on the inside whereas the curling wand the barrel is an entirely exposed heat source so this is a product that i've been dying to try it is the dyson air wrap i thought that this could be a really good option for somebody like me who can't see because you can control the heat really easily and it doesn't get as hot because it's not metal so it's not conducting the same way also you wrap it around but then you let go and the air sucks the hair and holds it for you so you really don't even have to have your hand close to the heat source for very long so i'm intrigued to try this out oh look at that i did it takes some getting used to but once you get the hang of it it does work and i have it on the lowest heat so this is not hot at all like it's actually quite cool air cool this is definitely a great tool for blind people who want to be able to curl their hair independently since it really doesn't get hot when you keep it on the coolest heat setting and it does still curl the hair so it's really great that way i think it's worth mentioning that something like universal design is a huge step forward to bridging the gap and helping employ more and more blind people when blind people are actually able to access and use devices products and spaces in an equal way due to universal design it empowers us to reach our full potential

Channel: Allure

Views: 2,118,663

Keywords: molly burke, universal design, blind youtuber, molly burke products, braille product packaging, tactile design, disabled beauty, package design for the blind, accessible beauty, universal design allure, blind beauty product must-haves, molly burke recommends, blind accessibility, package design for blind, braille beauty product, hair curlers for blind, mascara for blind, dyson airwrap, how blind people use makeup, molly burke 2021, molly burke allure, blind test, allure

Id: u2Xx_C5X9lM

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021

Reddit Comments

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[u/sailorveenus]

I found tarte to be the best too!!! Their palettes are organized coherently like a line of four shadows horizontally = one look.

Any shadow with name colours is also really helpful

[u/darthtinmay]

I found this incredibly interesting and eye opening. She mentioned that some brand that are more low vision user friendly are urban decay, too faced, and tarte.

I think one reason why I found this super interesting is because a couple of weeks ago, I watched a Smokey glow video of her talking about some brands that lost their “sparkle.” (I don’t remember the exact wording she used but that’s the essence of what she said). And tarte, urban decay and too faced were the brands she focused heavily on.

The comment section was also filled with people agreeing how those brands suck now. It just goes to show how there’s a reason why some brands are still popular and are around. We may just not know the why yet.

I hope that this video was insightful to other brands, both mainstream and indie. I hope that everyone can make more universal, and user friendly packaging.

[u/Civil-Armadillo-4881]

This was one of the most interesting videos I've watched in a long time. Something that stood out to me was that the brands she mentioned multiple times as having packaging that was accessable for her were brands like Urban Decay, Too Faced, and Tarte. All of which are brands that many makeup lovers on YT and here are "over" or feel like aren't as cool and trendy anymore. Which makes me think that many newer releases, newer hyped brands, etc. she never gets to try out because the products are harder for her to use and that's sad. Definitely makes me reconsider how I view certain packaging and whatnot

[u/GrumpyFinn]

Finally, my lane! I'm blind and a professional accessibility consultant. Those huge Morohe palettes are hell for me.

[u/MohandasGandhi]

Molly Burke discusses blind accessibility for beauty products and talks about which products and brands incorporate even small features that aid blind people in differentiating products.

This is an important topic that, unfortunately, is greatly ignored. Our world is very inaccessible to disabled people and while brands rarely think to make their products accessible, some have incorporated small features to help blind people and some have added textile aesthetic features blind people rely on.

Some of the things sighted people dislike or find redundant, blind people rely on heavily.

She mentions Tarte and Too Faced are both brands that are somewhat low vision user-friendly because their products have scents, different textures, and cohesive color stories users are able to memorize.

[u/torchikorita]

Someone at work just gave a presentation on digital accessibility and I appreciate seeing a big publication talking about it in terms of beauty as well, as these are things I was never aware that I needed to think about in terms of brands I support.

ETA: I learned about Molly last year and she's opened my eyes in a lot of ways, I have great respect for her tact and her take on life.

[u/ai_latte]

This was really interesting, as a UI UX designer I always check my contrast and test my type to make sure it''s accessible to everyone, but I never thought about the makeup aspect of it.

[u/imjohnk]

Really interesting video. Things you don’t ever think about, but are really important for blind people. Kinda crazy to remember all these colours, especially if you have more than 2 eyeshadow palletes imo.