CHENNAI: There is something about celebrities that I don’t quite understand. For starters, they seem to have the monopoly in having destination weddings in places that I will never be able to find on a map. Then there are the idiosyncratic baby names that would have little North laughed right out of preschool if you tried them. Most annoyingly: now they are coming for our beauty budgets too?!
To be clear: my point isn’t that a celebrity make-up brand would be automatically bad or we shouldn’t buy it. I want us to ask the right questions: what determines the success of a beauty line? Is it celebrity themselves attached to it? Is it the storytelling or branding that comes with the product? Size of their fan base? How relevant they are in the public eye? Or is it how good the products are in themselves?
I’d be willing to argue that the product isn’t really what is driving the mass interest. Let’s look at brands like KKW Beauty, Haus Labs, Kylie Beauty: Some of the biggest, and in my opinion some of the most lacklustre and drab products for how popular and expensive they are.
There’s no new need being met, no new demographic or niche being catered to, no new innovative packaging PR products in any capacity. Releasing a new neutral palette every three weeks is hardly a compelling product range, and slapping new packaging on a pre-existing formula is hardly a compelling business model.
On the other hand, we have brands like Honest Beauty by Jessica Alba; doing some really great things in vegan and chemical-free beauty. There’s an angle, a story to it. There’s Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty — sure the products aren’t staggeringly better in any way, but there is such fabulous work being done with inclusivity of shades. Millie Bobbie Brown is targeting a new demographic: teens and pre-teens.
It comes down to this: does a product have to be innovative, or even ‘good’ necessarily, if there is a celebrity attached to it? Does it have to be different, or are we just willing to settle for less if there is a popular person endorsing it?
I can still see sense in beauty influencers and make-up artists starting a brand…some more than others. As a career, they spend all of their time testing trying researching different kinds of product. They create bestsellers and cult classics out of product lines they work for, so it makes sense to grow into having your own. Most times celebrities aren’t even applying their own make-up — it’s make-up artists who have experience with products and techniques.
In general though I prefer brands where I am buying the product itself, or a vision, an idea or a concept rather than a person endorsing it. It is the ingredients and efficacy of what you are using. Really, it’s almost like art: are you buying the beauty of the painting or a Picasso?
Saumya R Chawla @pixie.secrets
The writer loves to over-share, drink wine & watch period dramas