Also what do you mean by people of color? The skin tone of human being is a continuous spectrum from milky pale to midnight dark and every shade in between. I supposed as skin care professionals you must have a scientific way to quantify that, in stead of just "people of color".
We have formulated our products with ingredients ideal for Fitzpatrick Skin Types 3-6 (medium to very dark skin).
"Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine."
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
Edit: at the risk of going offtopic, perhaps it would be helpful to explain in a bit more detail:
When you post "just don't bleach your skin, was it hard to understand", that's not only a shallow dismissal, it indicates that you haven't taken the time to read the thread, where they've talked multiple times about the skin conditions their product treats (I know literally nothing about this, except that I did read the thread).
Second, what you posted about 'people of color' definitely felt like cross-examination to me, i.e. hostile questioning designed to 'gotcha' rather than curious conversation. "People of color", for better or worse (it's a rather stilted phrase) is the term that 'polite society' has settled on for the time being—in other words, it's used by millions if not hundreds of millions of people. It's not as if these founders invented it, and challenging them about whether the phrase has any meaning points the thread into a social-controversy flamewar, which is off topic in the context of a startup launch.
Actually, when I re-read your comment, the last sentence doesn't seem hostile if I ignore the previous sentences. If you had stuck to that and maybe added a bit of neutral context to explain why you were asking, it would have been fine - and fortunately nphatak has already give you an informative answer.
In my case, being mixed race, I could fall anywhere between 2 and 4 depending on the time of the year and my tanning. The clarification is helpful. "Lion Pose" also evokes Black culture so I would assume the intention is to target mainly the Black community (of which I consider myself part of, anyway) whilst people of colour is a broader group so it's a valid question.
It can also be confusing (and for some frustrating, but I don't find it so myself) because "people of colour", especially in the USA, generally means anything that's not a 1 on that scale (e.g. some latinos or mediterraneans), so the ambiguity can easily be avoided by using darker skin vs fairer skin, which also has no political or ideological connotations, generally.
Personally I think this is a great brand and one I hope also makes it across the pond to Europe. We need more, not fewer, beauty and skincare products aimed at treating darker skins.
Millions or hundred of millions of people using the phase "people of color" doesn't make it correct, especially in a skincare context. I don't call myself colored (I am Chinese) and my black friends don't call themselves colored, my Indian friends don't call themselves colored. This is a nerd's forum so I tried to be nerdy about it.
> I was referring to the anecdote story at the beginning of the post. I believe even in the US, bleaching your skin has been an obsolete practice so I am not sure which point the anecdote was supposed to make.
If you had posted that originally, instead of a shallow dismissal that came across as cross-examining, it would have been fine. Even better, you could have posted "I believe even in the US, bleaching your skin has been an obsolete practice" and followed it up with a curious question. You may have been unsure which point they were making, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one. Why not simply ask for it politely? Your entire comment was the antithesis of that, which is why I responded to it in detail.