All hell has recently broke loose in the beauty world. Makeup brand Illamasqua is attempting to weather a shitstorm of bad press after a controversial holiday ad.

Details after the break.

The UK beauty brand posted the ad on its Australian Facebook page. Instead of likes, there have been accusations of racial insensitivity taking over the page. Its obvious, the blackface, light lips and top hat are a little too reminiscent of the minstrel shows that depicted African-Americans in a negative light. The ad was briefly pulled, but later re-posted with the following message:

We thank and acknowledge your comments regarding the above image. Obviously it was never our intention to cause offence; Illamasqua has always celebrated the right to self-expression and we continually push creative and artistic boundaries, priding ourselves on working with models of many ethnic backgrounds to reinforce this point. Alex Box, Illamasqua’s Creative Director, has emphasised that this campaign is about colour ON the skin, not colour OF the skin, depicting polarity between the two images (both images are the same model) not race.

Seriously?