Volume 16. The Beauty One.
Damaging messages. Excellent results. Some Barbie content. #HotGirlWalks. This week we hone in on the 150 billion dollar beauty industry.
When it comes to the beauty industry, I doubt I’m alone in feeling all of these things at once:
I really like beauty products. And I love skincare. I’m interested in marketing and love retro-engineering successful beauty brand campaigns. Product review sections can feel like a supportive female community. And also like a trick that plays on our desire for a supportive female community. I hate that women feel guilty and ashamed for aging, which is the only alternative to dying. As a young teenager I often conflated being thin and pretty with being lovable. At times, I still feel very angry about the messages that the younger version of me received. I wonder what our responsibility is, as consumers, to the next generation of girls and women. Though I’ve worked on campaigns for brands like Blinc and Lime Crime. It makes me uneasy that 22-year-olds are injecting paralyzing neurotoxins into their faces as a “preventative” measure. But I use eye cream religiously. And listening to beauty podcasts on a #hotgirlwalk (I know, already a dated reference) is a happy place for me.
Everything above is true for me. And I’m currently good with accepting and holding space for all of it.
In this week’s Content People send we hone in on the 150 billion dollar beauty industry. Let’s get into it.
The Content People Episode
Kirbie Johnson. KIRBIE. JOHNSON. Are you kidding me? Yes, for real. The West Coast beauty editor and host of the ultimate, chart-topping beauty podcast Gloss Angeles was a Content People guest.
Via her podcast, Kirbie (and her co-host Sara Tan) have taught me things like:
The term “reef safe” definitely sells sunscreen. But it’s not regulated, and the environmental impact of certain “bad” ingredients is less concrete than you might think. (Article.)
Ditto for “clean beauty.” In many instances the term is more fear-mongering than fact-based.
Biotin supplements are potentially harmful to your overall health (and maybe your complexion). (Ep here.)
Kirbie’s episode airs on Tuesday. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, and Google to catch it.
Reading
✨ Check out Kirbie’s substack Ahead of the Kirb. I loved her take on the Barbie movie: If Barbie's Feminism is All That Delighted (Or Enraged) You, You're Missing the Point.
✨ Jessica DeFino’s newsletter The Unpublishable. The Huffpost described it as “Yanking consumers out of the matrix made by the beauty industry.” Loved reading Jessica’s thoughts on the Barbie movie, too.
What Do We Require of our Female Founders?
In publishing, there’s an idea that male authors get published for telling a story, while female authors can only get published for telling their (raw, deeply personal) stories.
I think there’s a similar theme in the beauty industry. There is space for female founders - arguably more space than in nearly any other major industry - but the price is that they can’t just sell a product. They have to sell themselves and a deeply personal, carefully woven version of their own history.
For examples, check out my LinkedIn post from a few months ago.
Listening
🎧 Gloss Angeles. Of course. I listen to almost every episode. I usually come away with a new product to try or a new understanding of beauty industry branding. Often, both.
🎧 Breaking Beauty. The OG beauty podcast. I love tuning in to hear what longtime beauty editors Carlene Higgins and Jill Dunn are trying out each week. And, just like Gloss Angeles, these two get some great guests.
The Quote
“It’s clear that writer-director Greta Gerwig aims to subvert much of what the Mattel toy symbolizes in American culture: conformity, compliance, the objectification of women and girls. The issue, as it was with Don’t Worry Darling and Blonde, is that you cannot subvert the politics of Barbie while preserving the beauty standards of Barbie. The beauty standards are the politics, or at least part of them.” - Jessica DeFino.
From Barbie Has Cellulite (But You Don't Have To).
Following
✨Charlotte Palermino
Love following Charlotte, co-founder of skincare brand Dieux, for her TikTok skincare content. I’ve learned a lot from her, love Dieux’s Forever Eye Masks, and admire the brand she’s built. (For example, the Dieux site - branding and copy that’s clear, clever and cohesive.)
As a fellow 36-year-old who also finds it cringe when 30-somethings say things like “I’m so old,” this one really got me.
And, absolutely love Charlotte’s theory that Allergan, the owner of Botox, created TikTok’s viral age filter to get users even more freaked out about aging. THINK ABOUT IT.
✨#BreakUpWithBotox
I’ve been following this since Gloss Angeles covered it. Stealth marketing designed to unseat the world’s fave neurotoxin. ☕💉
The gist:
Revance owns Daxxify, a Botox competitor. It seems like the main value prop of Daxxify is that it lasts longer than Botox. And it uses peptides rather than a neurotoxin. (I’m cobbling those facts together via Google searches - please don’t take my word as gospel on this.)
Revance launched this site, BreakUpWithBotox.com. It doesn’t mention Daxxify but it does use clever, ChatGPT-themed marketing to get people thinking about ditching Botox.
It’s interesting to see injectables like Daxxify working at the intersection of beauty and pharma promotional tactics. The #BreakUpWithBotox site has a fair bit in common with the unbranded DTC disease sites that biotech and pharma companies use in marketing campaigns.
TBH, needles and neurotoxins freak me out. And studies showing Botox reduces your empathy have really stuck with me.
So I debated even including this section - they don’t need more coverage. But, it’s worthwhile to keep an eye on campaigns like these.
As a marketer: They’re smart and informative. As a female consumer: they’re a reminder of just how motivated the beauty industry is to make visible aging uncomfortable for us - so they can profit from ameliorating that fear. It’s projected that the global market for Botox will be nearly 15 billion by 2030.
Medbury
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Here’s what one client had to say
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