Beauty Chemist Cosplay
Beauty Chemist Cosplay
Brands know we aren’t actually chemists right?
In today’s post:
Q (not) A Beauty & Pop Culture Questions
The Full Beat Beauty Chemist Cosplay: Brands know we aren’t actually chemists right?
Was it a wig Rih? I want to stress that even though I expressed my disinterest in FENTY Hair products, this is not an anti-Fenty account. That being said, it was a wig. I know some of the girls debated, but I had a 27-piece in the color 27/30 before.
Where are all the dark-skinned Black women in the Bridgerton universe? A few things: I am late to the show (like 2024 late), this conversation has been ongoing, and they have incredible representation for dark-skinned Indian women. Charithra Chandran is stunning. And also, why aren’t there more dark-skinned Black women with lead speaking roles?
Will you survive if you can’t same-day Instacart your matte Limecrime lipstick? Yes, you will. Apparently there’s a Sally Beauty x Instacart collab happening. Do you really want to contribute to the exploitation of gig workers for dry shampoo?
I’m a little confused by this news being “released” to the public since it was mentioned earlier this year.
In my Black Beauty Predictions for 2024 I said that medical-grade skincare would be the move. Influencer culture can only be influential so long as it is aspirational, and while anyone can buy snail serum from their local Marshalls, only some can afford PRP facials. PRP facials, micro-needling, chemical peels, and other procedures that should be carried out by licensed professionals are all the rage. This may explain why there are so many new skincare products that insist on their own scientific based efficacy. Those who can’t afford “medically-mediated” beauty treatments can rely on products to generate similar results.
As a result of this interest in medical and science based results, there has been a noticeable shift in how brands present products to consumers. Gone are the days of products like “Dessert Treats, a “kissable and taste-able” collection of body creams, fragrances, etc, that was entirely edible.” Instead, products lead with their primary ingredients and insist upon themselves that they are science based/tested/approved.
For example Naturium’s “Booster Hyaluronic Acid Body Wash” and “The Energizer Mandelic Acid Body Wash” lead with the names of ingredients that we should associate with a specific and desired effect. The same can be said of Rhode’s hero product, “Peptide Lip Treatment,” Eadem’s “Le Chouchou Lip Softening Balm.” Marketing at Cécred has repeated that products were in development with chemists for years.
This time last year products offered us strawberry face summers and glazed doughnut skin. Now, the girls want to be explicitly slathered in acids and have nurses inject parts of their beauty routines. This is not a critique, I am too am a girl who slathers herself in acids. But, if beauty critic Jessica DeFino is right (she usually is) and “We buy products to become products. We consume to be consumable,” what does this heightened interest in ingredient focused beauty tell us about who we want to be? Or rather, who brands want us to believe we are?
Candice Wuehele writes, “But this is beauty industry marketing 101: the shortest path to objectification is to convince the consumer to try to become an object.”
Are brands playing into our desire to cosplay as skincare experts with some of these names? Maybe.
In this article, DeFino quotes Hailey Beiber about wanting to look so delicious that someone would want to take a bite out of her, and how her products inspire a similar desire in customers. While the goal of the products is to inspire this interest (being the bitee not the biter), the names don’t reflect this desire outright. Instead the aforementioned brands tell the consumer exactly what they should expect, but only if they know what the ingredients do.
To this end, these ingredient led names serve as a wink or nod to the “informed” consumer who would know what peptides, mandelic acid, AHAs, and the like do to the skin. For the consumer who has skimmed articles about peptide acting as a plumping agent, purchasing a Peptide Lip Treatment is a no-brainer. They “know” what the ingredient does and thus what it should do for them. No cute name required.
But do we really know what these products do? Many of us are experts on our own skin. For example, I know that going too hard on the dairy will lead to a breakout and I know which exfoliator my skin loves. But I am not a chemist or an esthetician.
In another piece DeFino writes, “Over the past few years, Big Beauty has strategically co-opted science as a sales tactic. “Science-backed” has eclipsed “clean” (and “natural” before it) as the marketing term of the moment. Brands with single-ingredient offerings (The Ordinary, The Inkey List) taught customers to cosplay as cosmetic chemists, and dermatologists used their medical degrees to market self-branded skincare companies.”
There are other reasons for these clear and direct product names like Cécred’s “Clarifying Shampoo and Scalp Scrub,” such as preventing misuse and consumer confusion. Tessica Brown’s infamous Gorilla Glue incident comes to mind. Preventing confusion and misuse also serves to mitigate potential lawsuits and subsequent bad press.
Perhaps a better question is, has the knowledge we have access to actually helped us make better skincare, beauty, and cosmetic choices? Some people are dermaplaning healthy skin off their faces, using nail clippers to remove moles, getting “veneers” in the backs of barbershops, and curing false eyelashes with UVA rays, so not really.
We may do the reading, watch the influencers, and use the products, but we don’t receive expertise through osmosis. We are not experts, and brands know this, but play into our belief that we are to sell us products. To combat this we must resist passive engagement with products like only learning about trending ingredients.
Instead we should, whenever possible, seek out education and information from professionals who are not reliant on our being fooled to generate profit. I want to underscore here that expertise is not synonymous with formal education, and those with hands-on experience with products, brands, and formulations should be respected and valued always.