Is black the new beige?
Walking through flagships, beauty departments and drugstores, we see it everywhere; black fixtures, black shelving, black counters… It’s become visual shorthand for ‘premium’ – a visual cue that signals sophistication, elegance, and authority. We get it. On a mood board, it works beautifully.
Reality hits
In the reality of busy retail environments, what we see is a different story. Drops of foundation, smears of lipstick, and specks of eyeshadow all become instantly visible on the black backdrop. The moment a customer interacts with a fixture, fingerprints settle. Dust and lint become immediately noticeable. Furthermore, increased cleaning accelerates wear more on black than on lighter alternatives. What started out with premium intention feels tired. The question is: Are aesthetic dreams outweighing operational practicalities, and, if black remains the colour of choice, how can brands use it in ways that don’t ignore reality?
Our perspective
By working with your agencies and designers, we give the creative team control on decisions about real-world operational factors which are otherwise left to other disconnected stakeholders later in the process. Such procrastination only results in the erosion of creative vision and compromised performance. Black is not necessarily a bad choice, but it must be approached with full exploration of the environment and maintenance processes into which it’s being deployed:
- Material selection
Not all black finishes are created equal. We identify materials which satisfy all aspects of the project and select finishes that work as hard as they look.
- Performance testing
Before anything gets close to reaching a store, it must survive our unique in-house test lab, simulating and accelerating extreme conditions. We ensure that fixtures will perform over time against the wear of tear of daily use, including shopper abuse, beauty products, and cleaning agents.
- Serviceability
Through total manufacturing control in our own factories, we ensure that the decisions agreed with the creative team, and specified through design and engineering, are exactly what gets deployed into the marketplace. Our ongoing field-maintenance programmes ensure that fixtures continue to look as good as the day of installation, and that lessons are fed-back to continuously improve future iterations. This is true sustainability built into our core business processes.
Our conclusion? Black isn’t necessarily the wrong colour for beauty retail, but there’s a lot to consider if it’s to remain premium. Great design doesn’t ask brands to choose between beauty and practicality, it delivers both.
Published 2 September 2026