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Three “beauty consultants” are suing the company that runs the cosmetics counters at department store Liberty for race discrimination.

Darshana Patel, Semone Ballin and Leena Chaudhary, who worked for Hourglass on the cosmetics counters at the Regent Street store, have taken the case to an employment tribunal.

Ms Patel, 30, claimed she was only allowed to “ghost write” a beauty blog while a white colleague was allowed to use his own name, and accused the company of not wanting to be “associated with people of colour”.

Hourglass’s Los Angeles-based founder and chief executive Carisa Janes also allegedly questioned why Muslim women wear make-up under face veils and allegedly described Ms Ballin as the “coloured lady”. Ms Janes denies all the allegations.

In another alleged incident, a woman employee was said to have been asked to look “more Western” in a video for Femme Nude Lipstick for Hourglass Cosmetics UK Ltd.

In her witness statement Ms Patel told the Central London tribunal how she discussed the video with the employee in 2013: “She [the employee] had said that the respondent wanted to make her lips smaller, her nose narrower and her skin lighter in the online promotional video title for Liberty’s.”

Senior sales associate Ms Patel, of Wembley, who resigned last year, said: “In September 2013, I wanted to write a beauty blog. I was told I could only do this as a ‘ghost writer’. I then found out that Josh Collier (Caucasian) was able to do this freely.”

Ms Ballin, 34, whose grandparents are Jamaican, told the tribunal that at a team dinner in October 2013, Ms Janes referred to her as the “coloured lady”. Ms Ballin, who worked as a freelance sales associate and make-up artist but was dismissed in August last year, said: “Darshana … informed me that when someone had mentioned my name at dinner, Carisa rubbed her own arm and referred to me as the ‘coloured lady’.”

Ms Ballin, of Wembley, further claimed that on July 28 last year Ms Janes made comments in the presence of Ms Chaudhary, who is a Muslim.

Ms Janes allegedly shook her head “in disgust” while saying: “I don’t understand why Muslim women wear so much make-up when their faces are covered up. I just don’t get it.”

Ms Chaudhary, 34, also a senior sales associate, began working for Hourglass in May last year and was dismissed that September after the company claimed she had failed to hand in sick notes.

She said that on July 30 last year she was told Ms Janes planned to fire Ms Ballin. Ms Chaudhary, of Wimbledon, said: “Daniela (Saenz) mentioned that she needed to talk… She then went on to tell me that ‘you’re not going to believe this — Carisa is going to fire Semone because she did not like the look of her’.”

In her statement, Ms Janes denied all of the allegations against the company and herself. She said: “I have never criticised or denigrated any religion and I have never said any cultural tradition is stupid.”

She said the warehouse staff in the US is 70 per cent non-white and the “UK workforce is also diverse and has the same friendly, family atmosphere”.

She added that Ms Ballin’s “contract was terminated because of her poor attitude on the counter, which was not doing well, and as we were moving from freelancers to employees, so it seemed the right time for us to part ways”.

Between them, the women are claiming £38,000 for sex discrimination, breach of contract, race and religious discrimination and unfair dismissal.

The tribunal hearing continues.

Update 28/1/2016: Three beauty consultants have failed in their demand for £38,000 for alleged race and sex discrimination from the company which runs the cosmetics counter at Liberty.

Read the full article here: Liberty beauty workers' race claim thrown out