Beauty In June: A Month In Review
Plus, a Beautycon IG account has emerged
This week’s tip jar proceeds will go toward a split donations page to support Black trans futures, which I found within a resource created by activist Brittany Packnett with guidance from Raquel Willis, Janet Mock, Nala Simonet, David Johns. The protection of the trans community, and Black trans lives, is not a debate, or biased topic to me. It is a duty.
One quick thing before we dive in: This IG account created by a group of former employees of Beautycon. WWD has the story.
Alright, let’s go.
A snapshot of beauty in June: Rumblings at Estée Lauder, more investigation around prior claims about Kylie Jenner’s title as a self made billionaire, as her sister, Kim, selling 20% of KKW to Coty, Kanye trademarking “YEEZY BEAUTY”, Unilever and Birchbox joining the Facebook ads boycott, and Sephora and Ulta both taking different moves to reopening plans. Below I flesh out and reflect on some of the bigger developments in June and what they may mean for the future.
WHOMST AMONG US PULLED UP?
We started the month off by watching as brands flipped and flopped to address the realization that Black lives matter. From it, arose #pullupforchange, an initiative started by UOMA Beauty founder Sharon Chuter. It started out with a simple call to action. She asked beauty brands to share how many Black people work at their executive and corporate levels.
Related, there is also Brother Vellies CEO Aurora James’ 15% challenge that asks retailers to dedicate 15% of their shelf space to Black-owned brands. Sephora signed on.
My take: “Pull up” has evolved into a mentality and phrase being used beyond beauty, and an initiative that will have a few moving parts in the future. How will Pull Up For Change continue to hold brands accountable beyond initial IG posts? Let’s keep watching.
SKIN LIGHTENING X BLM
The Black Lives Matter movement has sparked changes that activists have been fighting for for decades. This month, Johnson & Johnson released a statement that they will stop selling skin whitening products, specifically it’s Clear and Clear “Fairness” line, which is sold in India. Unilever (Fair & Lovely) and L’Oréal (White Perfect) said that they’d be dropping words like “whitening,” “fair,” and “lightening” that insinuate that lighter skin is superior to darker skin, from their products. In March, activists got Amazon to remove 15 skin-lightening products from its site.
My take: Still a lot of work to be done, but there are shifts happening that we should pay attention to. Unilever and L’Oréal brand name changes spark more questions to me around formula. For example, as I mentioned in my last BEAUTY HEADLINES, Unilever says Fair & Lovely has “never been, and is not, a skin bleaching product.” Instead, the formula includes ingredients such as vitamin B3, glycerine, UVA and UVB sunscreens, and that they moved away from harmful chemicals like mercury and bleach. When did they move away? I am invested in current convos around skin lightening because it's a global conversation that looks different everywhere. But with the underlying goal: how can we get the production of skin lightening products to end? I found this article by journalist Anuradha SenGupta to be a good reflection. “We need to accept that like racism is institutionalised in the US, bias against dark skin is institutionalised in India,” SenGupta says.
GRAND OPENINGS… GRAND CLOSINGS?
From Los Angeles (and some other CA counties) to New Jersey, some states announced that nail salons, hair salons, spas and tattoo parlors could reopen. In Los Angeles, where I live, as cases surged again, the governor said indoor seating in restaurants will have to end, and bars will have to close. So where does that leave personal care businesses? Still open, according to this cool widget by ABC Los Angeles.
My take: Really important that when we talk about re-opening of personal care businesses, we do so a state by state basis, or in some states, a county by county basis. States are not one one accord.
MAKEUP PLUNGES INTO POLITICS
We saw two things. People experimenting with CV Dazzle (a term coined by Adam Harvey in 2013) with the intent of being undetectable to facial recognition during protests and attempts at “BLM makeup” by influencers that put more attention on themselves, than the issues at hand.
My take: I found the conversations around CV Dazzle really intriguing. This video above by makeup artists and creative Martayla Poellinitz ☝🏾 is not only creative, but informational, as she tracks her trial and error. I think these “BLM makeup” looks say things about the psychology of white people and it was a lot for me to process. I will leave you with this quote from a conversation I had with sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom, PhD on the topic: “It is the authority that Black people are exerting over what is authentically ours to own, that feels like a personal attack on [white people] because they've been told not only are they the norm, but their normal is democratic.” In reference to authority, Cottom does not mean an authority that Black people have over “BLM looks,” but authority to say “this isn’t right” in the beauty realm, which pushes up against this idea of beauty standards being democratic, when in reality, they often favor physical features associated with white people.
LOOKING AHEAD
TOMORROW, JULY 3RD, IS NATIONAL CROWN DAY
The CROWN Coalition has officially declared the date "National CROWN Day." It marks the 1-year anniversary of the signing of the bill in California. It was created to banish hair discrimination in the workplace, and since then signed into law in 7 states (CA, NY, NJ, VA, CO, WA, MD) and 2 municipalities (Cincinnati, OH & Montgomery County, MD). 23 states have introduced the CROWN Act. This is definitely personal for me.
BLACK-OWNED BEAUTY SUPPLIES
The closing of businesses during COVID-19 created a unique situation: Black women who have virtual beauty supply stores saw a boost and others, such as celebrity hair stylist Susy Oludele, created HBS Beauty Supply Store, as a way to supplement their income and support clients. Already established Black-owned brick and mortar stores pivoted to online. In addition, Mahisha Dellinger, CURLS hair care owner and CEO, is developing a new distribution network for Black-owned beauty supply stores. African Americans make up 86% of ethnic hair sales but often face discrimination starting their own beauty supply businesses. (PS - I plan to write about this soon.) I think we’ll continue to see more push back, and also Black women using this as an opportunity to venture into the beauty supply world, especially as there is more of an emphasis on buying Black.