The Growing World of Fast Beauty
By Hannah Schmidt-Rees
The makeup and cosmetics industry has grown incredibly over the past few years, transforming from a slow monopolised industry to a majorly saturated market, with new products launched every day.
Like I said earlier, the makeup industry has transformed from a monopolised market, ruled by brands like Loréal, Revlon and Maybelline, with small launches every six months to a year, to a saturated market, with a plethora of new products launches by a large number of large and small brands.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite grateful for the evolution of the makeup industry. The influence of social media and the internet/e-commerce allows for independent entrepreneurs to launch their own brands, infusing creativity into the market. I’m glad that the commercial makeup market, (as opposed to the market for professional make-up artists) has grown to embrace creativity, bring more colour to the idea of women embracing makeup to express themselves. Oppose this to the monopoly of the makeup industry before this, brands like Revlon and Maybelline have control over the market, releasing whatever products they wanted without any competitors.
Brands like ColourPop and Makeup Revolution are now becoming the makeup equivalents of fast fashion brands, with ColourPop being one of the most significant. Like ZARA, ColourPop uses a vertically integrated business model (meaning that every product is designed, manufactured, packaging and shipped from ColourPop owned facilities, as opposed to outsourcing it to third-party companies. This means that ColourPop can find trends and launch new products every week in time, for incredibly low prices. The production of makeup has decreased from two years, to six months to 12 weeks.
“It’s all about applying the fast fashion model to beauty.”
This is obviously dependent on the brand and the product, but the cost of producing cosmetics (especially on a large scale) is incredibly low. Like fashion, many makeup brands have a markup of anywhere from 100% to at least 700%. Unlike fast fashion, who’s behind-the-scenes showcase of excessive markup has become known to many customers, the makeup industry often goes unnoticed, until now.
Another aspect of ‘fast beauty’ that often goes unnoticed is threat to intellectual property. Brand Makeup Revolution has recently been caught for copying other brands products for lower prices, mainly Kat Von D’s Shade and Light Palette and Charlotte Tilbury’s lipsticks. Even Tatcha’s lipsticks were copied by brand Too Faced. The complete saturation of the makeup world causes price to be favoured instead of originality, meaning that certain brands be undermined by their cheaper competitors.
Makeup, like fashion, is a product of the crossroads between creativity and commercialism. A product needs to be creative enough to inspire consumers and cause a want to buy, but need to be realistic enough to the customer to create a ‘need’ to buy. This explains why; yes there is a large amount of incredibly unique and creative products, but yes, there are so many neutral brown eyeshadow palettes that I want to claw my own eyes out every time I see a new one.
In relation to fast fashion, brands used limited edition and short sale times to increase customer’s need to purchase a product for a ‘fear of missing out’. This caused a vast increase in the consumption of makeup, mainly more than the average person needs.
In addition, the rise of the beauty influencer has dramatically revolutionised the industry, with makeup brands choosing to sell their products through a representative, using a friendly face as a way of promotion. Like the rise of the fashion influencer/blogger between 2005 and 2016, the beauty influencer is now a major point-of-sale for beauty brands, available for both small and large cosmetic brands. This creates a quicker connection between brands and customers, ultimately increasing sales. Even with the rise of the beauty influencer comes with the rise of PR. It’s weird how the makeup industry has solely pioneered the idea of PR for product advertisement? With every product that is released, a PR package is sent out, mostly with excessive makeup (way more than one person needs) and wasteful packaging.
So, if the world of beauty if becoming like the world of fast fashion, what can we do about it?
Similar to the fashion industry, the beauty industry uses a lot of packaging, namely about 120 billion units per year. Many of these packaging components are made from glass or dense plastic, proving difficult to recycle, especially with remaining cosmetic product.
An answer to fast fashion is the reusing and donation of clothing to further its lifecycle. But you can’t really apply this idea to makeup. Why? Hygiene. Unlike clothing, makeup has a ‘best before date’, meaning that it has a certain amount of time before it expires. This mainly applies to liquids around the eyes (mascara and eyeliner) and complexion liquids (foundation and concealer), however most powder items may never expire and last for years. It’s mainly deemed unhygienic for makeup to be resold, which isn’t good for sustainability. But if you have something that still seems fine and you’ve barely used it, please donate it, gift it; extend it’s life and give someone else something special.
On another note, I know it’s difficult to when you’re so invested in online makeup content, but maybe let’s all make some better decisions about our makeup purchases. Do we need every single hyped-up eyeshadow palette? Every single different colour of lipstick, even ones we probably won’t wear. If you remember my post about sustainable fashion, we need to ask ourselves more questions before we buy makeup. Will you actually wear it? How often? All of us, as consumers have so much power over the industry. If we slow down our purchases, brands will notice. If we turn our focus towards sustainable/ethical makeup/skincare brands, other brands will notice. We can change the industry towards a more sustainable future, we just have to put our money where our mouth is and let the industry know.
Wanna try some sustainable makeup? Why not try out; EcoTools, Axiology, Elate Beauty and Keeping it Natural.
On another note, women have always had an interesting relationship with makeup. Starting in the Egyptian and Grecian period, used by the highest class to show their wealth and influence, makeup began as an indicator of status. In the 1800s, the rise of film caused the rise of makeup within society, further becoming commercialised for the everyday woman. After this point, makeup became a point of interest regarding to feminism, transforming from a tool to constrain women, to a way of liberation, both in the ways of wearing makeup, or choosing to go without. Even the recent rise of men in makeup, has led to the standard of makeup as a tool for expression for all gender identities and sexualities.