May 20, 2021
This week, it is my pleasure to welcome Stephanae McCoy, founder of Bold Blind Beauty to the Start Right Here podcast. Today, we are going to talk about how the beauty industry interacts with the blind. Is there an intersection? What grade would Stephanae give the industry? What is it like navigating websites when she needs to shop for beauty? Stephanae also dispels some of the myths about the blind community, the companies in beauty and fashion who have been getting it right, and what steps need to be for us to become authentic allies that want complete inclusion.
Along the way, you will learn that Stephanae was working at Deloitte and was married with three children when she became blind. She candidly shares the adjustments she had to make. You will learn that blindness is not a monolith and that many blind people do have residual sight.
Stephanae started her site, Bold Blind Beauty after she was asked to do a makeup workshop for blind women. At the time that she was doing her research, there weren't many resources. The site expands knowledge about living with blindness and demonstrates that living can be done boldly.
She shares how Covid-19 impacted her as a blind woman unable to drive. Stephanae had to rely on websites and found that many have the technology to better communicate with the blind community but do not use alt text correctly. She also explains why audio captioning is important.
Here are the fashion and beauty companies that earn high marks with Stephanae:
Beauty: Dr. Jart, Whamisa, Bioderma, Herbal Essence's Bio-Renew line, Cleanlogic, L'Occitane, and Too Faced Cosmetics
Fashion: Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, and Aerie
Plus, the product Stephane raved about in the Fast Track round: