As Pinterest continues to grow its use case, one trend that reflects this common problem is that users want to search for the exact right Pin matches by their own skin tone in order to reduce the results.

According to Pinterest:

"Last year, nearly 60% of the top 100 search terms for skin-related searches involved a tone, such as dark skin, pale skin, and olive skin, which showed us women of all skin types wanted a way to customize their searches."

And given the use of the platform for searches related to beauty, it only follows that Pinterest is now interested in improving the discovery of this kind, with the extension of its 'skin tone' search qualifier to better target more relevant search results.
On-platform searches for terms like "beauty tips", "eyeshadow", and "glossy makeup" will now include a tappable 'skin tone' option that can further refine your search. Users will then be able to select their skin tone, making the Pin matches that appear in their results more relevant.

"Each palette represents a range of skin tones, with more to come. The more you search, the more personalized your home feed and recommendations will become."

Actually, the company started testing the feature in its web version last year, and now it is bringing that to the mobile app and bringing the qualifier to millions of searches. The initiative is also part of a broader Inclusion & Diversity Pinterest initiative that aims to have more options for people across all backgrounds.

“Pinners shouldn’t have to do extra work like add keywords to find personally relevant ideas. And so the teams got together, listened to Pinner feedback, and worked on improving our machine learning technologies for more diverse results, which continues to evolve. Increasing engagement with beauty Pins is just a start in making all results more representative of a range of looks and styles.”

It's an interesting project, not only from the important perspective of inclusion but also from a search personalization standpoint. And with more than 250 million active users per month now, more of this discovery behavior gets served by Pinterest - and you haven't looked at Pinterest recently, well it would do you some good to give some attention to what is up there, in your branded niches, so as to get an understanding for the potential that may come of it to be worth utilizing in your digital campaigns.

This is a very noble exercise for any business, but perhaps even more so for an online platform. As we strive to connect the world in a better way, inclusion is one of the main considerations. In this regard, Pinterest's project is a valuable leader which aims to provide more options for a wider range of users.