The Celebrities Need To Be Stopped
There are too many pointless celebrity beauty products. I propose a solution.
At the end of 2019, I wrote a retrospective of theā¦ best? worst? just kind of there? celebrity beauty brands of the year for Fashionista. I guess it wasnāt so much a retrospective as a critique of all the ways in which celebrity culture has infiltrated our lives. It started:
In 2019, Americans ceded all control to celebrities. āDress me,ā we screamed, and Rihanna gave us Fenty. āMake me smell good,ā we demanded, and Michelle Pfeiffer, Lionel Richie, and J.Lo heeded the call. āWait, would youā¦ register me to vote?ā we asked, and Ariana Grande actually did it. āRun for president!ā we begged Oprah and Kanye and Dwayne āThe Rockā Johnson. No luck there, which is fine, since we already have a reality TV star for president and itās not going great for him.
Then thereās beauty ā an area of our lives thatās always been dominated by celebrities, traditionally via endorsement deals. But āface ofā situations donāt seem to satisfy celebs anymore. They want creative control, a bigger piece of the profit pie, a platform from which to pivot out of entertainment. (Remember when Victoria Beckham was most famous for being a Spice Girl? Me either.) They want to launch their own beauty brands.
Reader, itās gotten worse.
As beauty journalist Courtney Rubin declared in The New York Times late last month, āItās official: Every celeb now has a beauty line.ā 2020 brought brand new launches from Lauren Conrad, Selena Gomez, Pharrell Williams, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez (this time, skincare rather than fragrance), Anthony Hopkins (seriously), and so, so many more.
āWhy is a beauty line now a necessary accessory of fame?,ā Rubin asked. āMoney, of course.ā
Of course.
But do these famous faces need the money?
Of course not.
Celebs, hear me out: What if you took the good intentions behind your brands ā that is, if there are good intentions ā and removed the products?
Take Selena Gomez, her makeup line Rare Beauty, and its Rare Impact Fund, a charity that exists to āreduce the stigma associated with mental health.ā Just do that last part! Beauty culture can have such negative effects on mental health, anyway. We donāt need the accompanying foundation and concealer that subtly message, āYou need to hide your skin/blemishes/all signs of human life.ā Just give us the mental health services, thanks.
Or Pharrellās new skincare line, which includes Braille on the packaging. Thatās so needed! Why not launch a company that makes it easier for all beauty brands to create accessible packaging, instead? Why not use your influence to make the entire industry better, rather than polluting it with more products?
Anthony Hopkins, bless his soul, started a fragrance line in order to drum up donations for No Kid Hungry during the pandemic. Heās pledging $5 of every sale to the organization, with a minimum commitment of $50,000. SIR. You are Anthony Hopkins. Donate the $50,000 yourself! That equates to five hundred thousand meals and zero fragrance chemicals. (I honestly cannot believe that ANTHONY HOPKINS BEAUTY exists. Itās like a parody of celebrity culture. I will never get over this.)
Then thereās Lauren Conrad, creating yet another āsustainableā makeup line. If sustainability is the goal, donāt flood an already-saturated market with the same old stuff. Leverage your lifestyle site to teach followers how to live sustainably using whatās already out there. Thatās so much more environmentally sound than mass-producing ārecycled and recyclableā plastic packaging. (Most plastic does not get recycled, and plastic can only be recycled two to three times, tops, before it becomes useless. Even the most āeco-friendlyā plastic turns into pollution pretty freakinā quickly.) As I said here, the most āeco-consciousā thing a celebrity can do is NOT START ANOTHER āSUSTAINABLEā BEAUTY BRAND and instead SUPPORT ALREADY-ESTABLISHED SUSTAINABLE BRANDS BY OFFERING ADVICE, INFRASTRUCTURE, INVESTMENT, OR AN AUDIENCE.
Speaking of sustainability, JLo Beauty is about to launch with a sheet mask, or, as I like to call it, a pre-packaged pile of glorified garbage. Yes, a single-use sheet mask. In 2021. Itās soaked in an olive oil ācomplexā and costs $48 for a pack of three. (Although Lopez told Allure, āWe should be charging $10,000 for these masks.ā The celebrities are out of control, people!)
ā[Olive oil] is natureās secret ingredient we donāt use enough of,ā the founder said, sharing that her mom and aunt slather their skin in plain olive oil. Amazing! Affordable! Accessible! Instead of pouring it into a golden bottle and upping the price, educate fans on the natural ingredientās efficacy. Tell them that glowing skin doesnāt have to cost $18 per use. Lend kitchen DIYs some of your glamour. (They could use it.)
At the very least, celebrities, please stop pretending that youāre benevolently granting us access to your beauty secrets. You are not.
Consider: Pharrellās ageless face has been the subject of speculation for at least six years. Humanrace has been out for a week. It has had little to no impact on the overall state of his skin. J.Loās glow isnāt a product of an olive oil sheet mask. J.Loās glow is all (speculation alert!) expensive facials, injectable fillers, strong genetics, and maybe some light surgery. Their skincare lines didnāt create their signature looks; their signature looks created the opportunity for their skincare lines.
I donāt really have a point, I guess, just a desperate plea: Can we stop buying (and buying into) celebrity beauty already?
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