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Pavel Parshin
As the popular cliché says, the world is changing at a breakneck speed: the “consumer society” is finding new values for itself, and business is in a hurry to fit into the new picture of our time - so much so that it can immediately stand at the forefront of all changes. The beauty industry does not stand aside and has not only picked up new trends, but is also actively shaping its own.
World without M and F
The beauty industry has found a promising new target audience: men. Strictly speaking, attempts have been made before. Back in 2003, Jean-Paul Gaultier, with his Le Male Tout Beau Tout Propre line, said that camouflage of pores and wrinkles is not only a woman's business. But, obviously, he was ahead of his time and suffered a commercial failure. Tom Ford spoke a little later and turned out to be more successful: his men's line is still being sold.
But now this target audience has declared itself. With the development of Instagram and YouTube, it has become apparent that the number of guys uploading their make-ups - from politically correct in the nude genre to the bright in the genre of “die all living” - is too large to ignore.
Jake Jamie Ward, author of The Beauty Boy, is making tutorials on how to mask acne. Since he suffered from it himself, he studied the topic up and down. Manny's make-up artist teaches how to make a make-up in the style of Kim K. At the same time, he also shows marvelous colored smokey on himself. In 2016, young insta-beauty blogger James Charles became the face of CoverGirl cosmetics; in 2017, a man's face appeared on the UltrHD advertising image for Make Up For Ever. Finally, in 2018, Chanel announced the launch of the Boy de Chanel line, which includes a fluid foundation in four shades, a matte lip balm and an eyebrow pencil. The mass market did not lag behind: limited collections, suggesting that they would not only be used by girls, came out from Catrice and Essence.
Seeing such a thing, the care brands Clarins, Biotherm, Shiseido, Clinique, which have been playing on the men's half of the field for a long time, perked up noticeably and released several interesting new products at once.
And literally just another serious player has joined the battle for men's wallets - Givenchy.
The Misters line (mattifying stick, concealer, eyebrow gel and radiance gel) is positioned without division by gender. Just cool stuff for her and for him. Let all flowers bloom!
Why beautiful fairy tales no longer "sell"
For a long time, it was believed that the beauty industry was selling exclusively a dream. Therefore, this requires special “beautiful” legends and special “beautiful” words. During the reporting period of time (read - XX century) what fairy tales they just did not tell us! We listened with rapture about the blossoming pre-dawn roses, from the petals of which it is required to collect pollen and certainly before the first rays of the sun. They froze at the thought of the courage of naturalists who were looking for the most tenacious cacti in the hot deserts (of course, with the sole purpose of transferring this valuable skill to our skin). They fell asleep with a smile on their lips, realizing that it - our skin - is under reliable protection, since the jar with this cream contains extracts of all edelweiss from all the Alps …
Until it was finally revealed that the beauty industry could simply sell retinol, hyaluronic acid and niacinamide. The Ordinary brand, part of the Canadian company Deciem, appeared in 2016 and relied on serums with laconic formulations. Bottles - seemingly pharmaceutical and transparent, like cleanliness itself. The percentage of active ingredients (those very prosaic but proven and working retinols, niacinamides and acids) is indicated on the label. The price for the serum is 7-10 euros.
Two weeks after the launch, The Ordinary sold 30,000 of their sera, and after a short time later, 25,000 people were on the waiting list for individual funds. Products were swept off the shelves - and without any fairy tales about unicorn pollen, can you imagine ?!
As a result, the influential The Telegraph called the success of The Ordinary "overturning fundamental approaches to beauty."
And - absolutely deserved.
Firstly, The Ordinary immediately had followers - Drunk Elephant, Beauty Pie, Brandless - who do not hide (and do not poetic) compositions of their products and guarantee a specific result - moisturizing, reduced sebum production - and not "eternal youth." Even the mass brand Garnier has taken the path of "transparency" by releasing a bio-ruler for hair, where all the ingredients are laid out on shelves.
Second, The Ordinary has made a powerful contribution to improving the chemical and cosmetic literacy of the masses. We finally wondered how high molecular weight hyaluronic acid differs from low molecular weight and whether all peptides are equally peptide. While it was a question of "unicorn pollen extracts", and only highbrow dermatological brands, acting in the category of "dressings", dared to talk about vitamins and retinol, such a need among the general population simply did not arise.
Thirdly, The Ordinary actively communicated with its customers through social networks and on the website. Any client could ask the question "why do I need your squalane?" and get a comprehensive answer on what effect squalane has on the skin (and how it differs from squalene). Their example was followed by many companies that are not afraid to speak openly with the audience, and today almost every brand maintains its own Instagram, has a page on Facebook and quickly responds to questions (including skeptical and negative ones).
As a result, the beauty industry is gradually turning from a “dream selling industry” into a completely understandable and transparent “industry that helps the skin to cope with real tasks and problems”. At least brands are confidently moving in this direction.
Triumph of small (but proud) brands
The main discovery made by makeup artists, cosmetic chemists and just creative beauty-oriented personalities: you don't have to be Estee Lauder, the giant L'Oreal or LVMH to take your place on the beauty map of the world.
Indie stamps - small but proud - spring up like mushrooms after a rain, and expect a new rain (money). And it often spills on them: the most successful ones receive offers from the above-mentioned concerns, which cannot be refused, and / or get on the shelves of large chains. He especially loves promising guys Sephora: it was there that HudBeauty, Fenty, Charlotte Tilbury began to be sold offline. Our L'Etoile also became seriously interested in small brands: in 2018 he brought Dose of Colors, Bronx Colors and the second brand of Ciate founder Charlotte Knight - Lottie London. And he does not intend to stop there.
In general, over the past couple of years, about 500 new beauty brands have appeared in the world. And it's not just that many were inspired by The Ordinary's example. And it's not that thanks to Instagram you can become famous without advertising on all federal channels of the country - you just need to create an interesting product and hire a competent SMM-specialist.
The main thing is that the huge target audience split into one hundred small ones. The world has become more aggressive, and everyone is saving themselves, nailed to their own.
Therefore, there is no longer a single monolithic mass of "successful, self-confident women who want to be beautiful, to please men, wear fur and ride a Bentley." But there are vegan girls and yoga girls. There are healthy women (not to be confused with vegans and yogis, although they also eat almost nothing). Some are feminists. The latter are career-oriented and childfree-oriented, while others are fond of blankets, Scandinavian design and the hygge philosophy. Sometimes they all overlap. Sometimes there is a gap between them. And, of course, there are mysterious and longed-for by all millennials, but there are problems with them: they are growing all the time, and their tastes change faster than anyone big and an adult can study and describe them.
And everyone has their own conversations, their idols, their own cafes and restaurants. And beauty tastes too. The more closely the manufacturer matches them, the sooner he will come out on top.
Therefore, in the middle of 2019 we have a lot of indie brands “for those who understand”. Among them, by the way, there are quite a few fresh and made in Russia. Kontier lotions and shampoos by Moscow hairdresser Alex Kontier are our answer to Jo Malone. Hello Beauty, following the example of The Ordinary, makes inexpensive serums with understandable formulations. Belk produces excellent mineral powder and highlighter with brushes. The Juvenety brand specializes in hydrophilic oils. And there is also the aesthetic-looking and ecological in nature care brand Elixir, whose creams cannot be confused with any other. They are packaged in replaceable metal tubes that are inserted into laconic wooden holders. All fans of Scandinavian design - from Russian manufacturers, with love.
Big brands have also joined in the fight for small audiences and are releasing lines of “point bombardment”: “for vegans”, “for those who are not afraid of bright colors”, “for those who are not afraid of anything”. Do people like natural? Great, here's something natural for them: sometimes it's easier to make a cream from cucumbers than to explain why "chemistry" is not equal to "danger." Harvesting! Are millennials rumored to love everything "super"? So, here are their superfood dishes: Idealia, Vichy (kombucha + blueberries), Double Serum, Clarins (turmeric) and the entire Superfood line from Elemis.
It doesn't matter that there is no such scientifically distinguished category of products - "superfoods". It is important that goji berries - it sounds proud!
Influence of microinfluencers
As a result of splitting one large audience into hundreds of small ones, another interesting story happened.
Even the mastodons of the market, who were always interested in overshooting, squinted, took magnifiers and began to look under these magnifiers to promote their means of little “influencers”. That is, girls and boys who are well-known in their institutes and have a small but faithful and devoted number of followers.
That is, if a couple of years ago the head-offices were lowered to the places of distribution "we need a blogger with coverage of at least 100 K", now the priorities have changed: "100 profile or influential bloggers with coverage of 50-70 K".
The logic here is as follows: “In a world where people believe only“their own”, it is important to find the right“friends”. And quickly make them "ours". In addition, among bloggers with a million-plus population, the cost of a post reaches 150,000 rubles and gives a result that is difficult to calculate. Smaller bloggers have lower appetites and higher conversion rates. (By conversion we mean the frequency of purchases of funds or visits to a brand page.) Sometimes it is not even so much about royalties as about the blogger's true interest in the product that he has to promote.
The Russian brand NaturSiberic has released a whole line of Organic Kitchens based on collaborations with influencers (and not only from the beauty industry). Each blogger could create his own product - and receive a certain amount from each sold jar. They say that the mask of Sergey Ostrikov, who has only 42 thousand followers on Instagram, enjoys particular success. But they believe him. A very good highlighter-bronzer from make-up artist Ani Kartashova and gel facial peeling from eco-adept @Alona_Eco.
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Focus on "little"
That is, for those who are "under 16 and younger." Not having time to keep up with the fast-paced millennials, brands rushed to generations Y, X, Z. For the first time, these kids are seen as a large audience with whom they need to speak in a language they understand, but seriously.
Indeed, creams and serums are not alcohol or tobacco, to be sold only to those who have come of age. Therefore, L'Etoile launched its own brand SodMakeup, convincing parents that it is better for their daughters to learn how to draw arrows without damaging their mother's cosmetic bag. And soon a completely new line of Clarins, addressed to teenagers, will be on sale.
Firstly, it is useful - in the end, it is better to get used to self-care from childhood than to ask the question “sooner or later I will inject Botox?” At 50. And secondly, it is also far-sighted: the earlier a girl starts washing with Clarins foam, the more chances that at 35 she will come for anti-age cream to the same brand. The flip side of the coin is the release of funds for quite adults in mi-mi-mi-package.
Bunnies and bears act on many like a photo with a cat on Facebook - and you don't want to, but you will like (buy).
Look at them - Pupa owls, Lime Crime unicorns, It's Skin masks with monsters - isn't it lovely?.. Fashion came from Korea, where teenage culture is considered a national idea. But not only Koreans, as it turned out, are reluctant to grow up. Children want to be adults - and will buy these products. Adults want to be children - and will buy these products.
And in the near future, when we finally conquer old age, there will be less and less difference between children and adults. The difference is not only blurring between the sexes. Admit it, you yourself buy clothes in the once purely "youth" Topshop and H&M?
New enemies
But all the same, life is still a struggle, new dangers await us, the enemy does not sleep, and we must constantly be on the alert. Fully armed, so to speak.
The question of who is the enemy today and with whom we are fighting today is a key question in the entire beauty industry (in politics, however, too).
In the twentieth century, for example, they fought against cellulite. Every spring, we were given new shells to eliminate the orange peel. Now, it seems, they realized: the battle is lost. Cellulite has remained where it was. The funds are still being issued, but the promises sound more believable: to eliminate the visible manifestations of the villain with the letter "C", to make them less pronounced.
The fight against age is also questioned. A suspicion creeps into the consciousness of many that age, in fact, is not a disease, but a norm. And it is better to accept and love it, while retaining the shine in the eyes and the smoothness of the skin (if possible). And then, you see, you will be called again to appear in commercials, like Brooke Shields for Calvin Klein (the last time she did the same thing 37 years ago) or Julianne Moore for L'Oreal Paris. You will be able to become famous on Instagram and inspire millions - like 64-year-old Lyn Slater (643K followers) or 90-year-old Baddy Ruth van Winkle (3.8M followers). Baddy, by the way, is partnered with Sephor and got2 Hair Products. Or maybe they will even be invited to the Dolce & Gabban advertising campaign - as a happy old woman in diamonds.
Therefore, now we are fighting two sworn enemies.
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Pavel Parshin
One is old and well known: harsh environments. She throws pollution and toxins at us. We - dodge and apply a thousand and one anti-pollush. It does not matter that scientific medicine denies the concept of "toxins" if we are not talking about poisoning the body with poisons, and knows nothing about "skin intoxication." Skin detox is our everything. (As well as detoxifying the body through fasting.) In Asian countries, the "fight against the environment" took on how exaggerated forms, which contributed to the development of a new industry - the production of fabric face masks. Now they can be bought in any tent and for every taste - red, pink, with bunnies and piglets. In Europe, everything is not so bad (or good), but all the means to fight the environment are supplied to us without delay. The choice is wide: anti-pollution facial spray, Chanel, Skin Oxygen line, Biotherm,Essential Energy line, Shiseido, Universal Cream, Filorga.
The second enemy is relatively new. This is the scary blue light that gadgets emit. It has an indisputable (from the point of view of cosmetics manufacturers) advantage: it poses a danger to everyone who uses mobile phones and computers. That is, in the short term, for 98% of the world's adult population.
Can you imagine how great it will be if all these percentages buy all these creams ?! The first to defend us from the new enemy were Dr. Sebagh, Payot with Blue Techni Liss, Uriage with Age Protect and Babor with Perfect Glow ampoules.
In fact, with blue light, we are still being offered to fight with an increased dose of long-familiar antioxidants. Well, we are in favor. Destroying excess free radicals is always a pleasure. What are we going to fight in a quarter of a century? We will live and find out. One thing is clear: with such an industry, we will surely defeat everyone.
Text: Yana Zubtsova
Photo: chanel.com, theordinary.com, elemis.com, limecrime.com, babor.ru, Getty Images
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