Yeah, I know I’m ugly… I said to a bartender, ‘Make me a zombie.’ He said ‘God beat me to it.’ —Rodney Dangerfield
The beauty industry is under fire for tactics that are best described as downright ugly
Beauty is big business. Looking at revenue amounts for the billion-dollar industry don’t begin to fully embody the scope and reach of the behemoth that is Beauty. We’re surrounded by the messages, both pro, and con, on a daily basis. Regardless of one’s personal opinion, regimen, or gender, the onslaught of beauty-related messaging is downright ugly.
Consider, for example, that I can be sure that I will see a short video teasing some manner of beauty article every morning in my newsfeed. Today, it was Amanda Steele’s #GirlBoss Tricks to a Gorgeous Bold Brow on the Go published by Teen Vogue. The subject of the article, Amanda Steele, is a beauty blogger on YouTube. Beauty is one of the largest content areas on the video streaming site, rivaling gaming and music. There are teen beauty bloggers, black beauty bloggers, Latino beauty bloggers, Asian beauty bloggers, and even beauty bloggers for those who don’t like makeup. One might get the impression that people are a bit obsessed about beauty.
Then, people come along like Lena Dunham and Jemima Kirke who aim to upset the status quo by emphasizing a more natural, non-shaming approach to the subject. When this photo hit social media yesterday, the whole planet seemed to go rather berserk.
‘A love letter to themselves’: Lena Dunham, Jemima Kirke pose in lingerie campaign https://t.co/KWYEMJq6Yf @nparts pic.twitter.com/1DnvoTL6qh
— National Post (@nationalpost) August 25, 2016
Great for them, right? It’s wonderful to have role models not afraid to be themselves, but the attention they received shows just how ugly the beauty business can get.
This Gets Personal
Not wearing makeup has become a “thing,” a movement, a trend, even a form of self-righteousness. Leading the battle, at least from a public standpoint, is singer/songwriter/grammy-winner Alicia Keys. She made her #NoMakeup campaign public last spring, but her continued refusal to wear makeup even as a judge on the television show The Voice has raised attention for the topic yet again. Yay for personal freedom! Yay for not covering up! Congratulations on being naturally beautiful enough to not be publicly condemned!
So, this really gets at all those beauty companies who make billions of dollars selling makeup, right? Think again. They simply shift tactics. Sephora even started offering “No makeup makeup” classes in some of its stores. Not wearing makeup doesn’t mean one stops taking care of their face. In fact, if one’s personal genetics leave one prone to oily skin, patchiness, or other issues, getting a no-makeup look that is as attractive as Ms. Keys might actually be more work than not wearing anything at all!
Then, there’s the whole matter of shaming in both directions. Recent studies from the University of Chicago and the University of California, Irvine, show that makeup and personal grooming are the primary factors in determining a young woman’s salary. Her skills might make her employable, but how she looks, which includes how well she wears makeup, determines at which end of the salary range she starts. What is ultimately being said that if you don’t wear makeup, you’re ugly. If you wear the wrong makeup, you’re ugly. But by all means, be yourself. How the fuck is someone supposed to make sense of that mess?
Dangerous Beauty
Whether or not one wears makeup, one still consumes beauty products and that’s where matters really get ugly. We pay a lot of attention to things that are supposedly helping our skin. Exfoliants and moisturizers, creams and lotions, and myriad other products are used by both men and women in abundance. What we too often don’t realize is that those products, not the makeup, are what cause one’s face to break out or appear blotchy or have patches of dryness. Even more frightening is that regulation for these products is practically non-existent. Beauty companies can put just about anything they want in a cleanser or a skin cream, and they often do.
One of the biggest issues of late has been the presence of microbeads in a number of products, especially soaps, shampoos, cleansers, and toothpaste. While they are technically illegal in the US, if one is buying their beauty products online, which a lot of people do, the actual source of the product might not be disclosed. The results are about as ugly as anything you’re going to find. Not only are the microbeads bad for your skin, they’re even worse for the environment. Microbeads don’t break down and can be ingested by even the smallest of marine life.
The problem of microplastics is so ugly that Britain’s Parliament recently called for a worldwide ban on microbeads. While microbeads are a small portion of a much larger problem, they pose a most direct and immediate threat to the larger number of people because they can be ingested without the consumer even having a clue that they’re present. The long-term effects have not been studied in humans, but microplastics are even being found on the bottom of the ocean floor. There’s an environmental disaster larger than your face looming here.
The Spirit of Caveat Emptor
Beauty has always been an industry that enjoys extremely little oversight in the United States. While the EU, for example, has banned or restricted over 1,400 substances from beauty products sold there, the US only has a complete ban on eleven. Eleven. No wonder beauty companies like doing business in the US so much. Anything goes! Even worse, we are so gullible that once a company starts touting the beauty benefits of a product, consumers start flocking to it without doing any investigation. We just grab new products and start slapping them on our skin without so much as reading the ingredients list. When our skin breaks out, or dries out, or cracks open and bleeds, we might complain to our friends, but we don’t do anything to stop that product from harming others.
Back in the spring of 2015, Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced bill S.1014 – Personal Care Products Safety Act. The bill, in my opinion, is mild. It says, in part:
If the FDA determines that a cosmetic has a reasonable probability of causing serious adverse health consequences, it may prohibit the cosmetic’s distribution by suspending the cosmetic ingredient statement. If other cosmetics from the same facility may be affected, the FDA may prohibit distribution from the facility by suspending the facility’s registration.
One might have thought that the FDA already had the ability to stop dangerous cosmetic products, but it does not. Even within the definitions set down within this bill, were it to ever be passed, the FDA would only have to investigate four products a year!
Freedom To Be Stupid
Since being introduced in 2015, Bill S.1014 has gotten exactly one reading in the Senate and assigned to the committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Heaven forbid the US Senate to have a committee structure that makes a damn bit of sense. Since arriving in that committee, absolutely nothing has happened. There have been no hearings. No one has undertaken any kind of investigation. The United States Senate has done absolutely nothing. Beyond Congress’ current attitude of complete and utter obstructionism, the prevailing “wisdom” among our elected officials is that regulation takes away a corporation’s “freedom.” Since we now consider corporations as people, they are, supposedly, free to do whatever stupid thing they wish without government interference.
So, the beauty industry is free to be as ugly as they want. They can foist any ridiculous product on the market, including no-makeup makeup, and there’s practically nothing can be done to stop them. Sure, they claim to have the consumer’s best interest at heart. A number of them even signed on in support of Bill S.1014. Senator Feinstein’s website lists the following:
- Johnson & Johnson (brands include Neutrogena, Aveeno, Clean & Clear, Lubriderm, Johnson’s baby products)
- Procter & Gamble (brands include Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Clairol, Herbal Essences, Secret, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Ivory, Cover Girl, Olay, Sebastian Professional, Vidal Sassoon)
- Revlon (brands include Revlon, Almay, Mitchum)
- Estee Lauder (brands include Estée Lauder, Clinique, Origins, Tommy Hilfiger, MAC, La Mer, Bobbi Brown, Donna Karan, Aveda, Michael Kors)
- Unilever (brands include Dove, Tresemme, Lever, St. Ives, Noxzema, Nexxus, Pond’s, Suave, Sunsilk, Vaseline, Degree)
- L’Oreal (brands include L’Oréal Paris, Lancome, Giorgio Armani, Yves Saint Laurent, Kiehl’s, Essie, Garnier, Maybelline-New York, Vichy, La Roche-Posay, The Body Shop, Redken)
Yet, for all the talk, no one is actually doing anything to actively protect consumers. The entire beauty industry is bent on convincing us that we’re ugly, even while telling us that we’re beautiful from the inside out.
The Battle Is Yours
Fuck waiting on Congress to do anything. This battle is your own. Whether you wear makeup or don’t wear makeup is irrelevant. Everyone consumes some form of beauty product, whether it be soap or toothpaste or moisturizer. That means everyone is potentially at risk. The industry is not looking out for you. The government isn’t looking out for you. You have to look out for yourself.
Best line of defense: talk to a professional. I know Kat has a list of products she recommends as does Danelle French. Either of them will discuss the particular needs of your skin and help direct you toward products that are not likely to leave you in worse shape than when you started. Take control of the situation for yourself.
The world of beauty really is an ugly business that too often runs akin to the snake oil salesmen of the 19th century. Dangers lurk everywhere. Take care of yourself.
5 Things You Should Know: 12/21/2016
8:11:14 AM 12/21/2016
https://youtu.be/w1R_6E5YXRE
And A Happy Solstice To All
Hey there! Happy Winter Solstice! It’s the shortest day of the year, among other things, which means that from here on out the days start getting longer. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? We certainly hope it is. And we’re still looking at warming temperatures as we head toward the Christmas/Hanukkah weekend so hopefully travel problems will be few.
As we look at the news this morning, there is still a lot of clean up from Monday’s events. Police in Germany released the person they initially thought was the driver of the truck that slammed into a holiday market in Berlin and a manhunt is underway. Russia has doubled down on its relationship with Turkey. And officials in Geneva said that the person who shot up a mosque there was not a Muslim extremist. Those situations are likely to be ongoing for a while. So, our five things you should know this morning takes us in a slightly different direction.
And then things went boom
By now, if you’ve been on social media much at all, you’ve likely seen the video a passerby took yesterday as the San Pablito fireworks market in Mexico exploded yesterday1. While the site was a spectacular event to watch, the death toll in that chain reaction explosion now stands at 29, with 72 still being treated for injuries. Some of those injured have burns over 90 percent of their body.
There is no word yet as to who or what might have caused the explosion. Inventory at the market was higher than usual because of the upcoming holidays. The fireworks market is an integral part of the local economy and something that is carefully guarded. However, this is not the first time that the San Pablito market has gone up in flames. A similar incident in May of 2005 did a similar amount of damage, though fewer lives were lost in that explosion.
Amidst the chaos of the explosions and huge plumes of smoke, survivors ran for the nearest exit, many becoming separated from their families and leaving behind personal items such as cell phones. Relatives are still scrambling to find those who are missing. Sadly, explosions like this are all-too-common an occurrence in Mexico, especially around holidays and religious festivals. Yesterday’s explosion, however, was the worst the country has seen in several years.
Someone has to take responsibility
With tragedy inevitably come lawsuits as victims’ families look to hold someone, somewhere, responsible for the event that took the life of a loved one. Such is the case in Orlando as the families of three men killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting filed papers in Detroit federal court on Monday naming major social media companies Facebook, Twitter, and Google saying that the companies “provided the terrorist group ISIS with accounts they use to spread extremist propaganda, raise funds and attract new recruits.”2
While the grief of the families involved is understandable, one has to wonder if this is not yet again a case of an over-zealous attorney either trying to make a name for themselves or bilking the grieving families out of thousands of dollars in attorneys fees. The families would have to prove intentional and deliberate collusion on the part of the social media giants to win their case, something that is not likely to happen. Pile First Amendment arguments on top of that and the lawsuit is practically dead in the water before it ever starts.
While only Facebook responded to the lawsuit yesterday, the issue of shutting down the accounts of known terrorist cells has been a primary project for every social media outlet over the past couple of years. Twitter was very public back in August when it announced that it had deleted 360,000 accounts since mid-2015 for violating policies related to promotion of terrorism. All three companies, along with Microsoft, are part of a joint effort to prevent known terrorist accounts from proliferating online. Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act protects software companies from speech users post on their sites, making the lawsuit against them even more improbable.
Our sympathies are with the families of the victims, but this lawsuit is nothing but desperate foolishness.
American Apparel is dying
Anyone who once shopped the big malls across the country knows the name American Apparel. They’ve been a mainstay of malls everywhere for over 30 years. However, the retail market has not been nice toward mall-based chains and American Apparel has spent the past several months in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings trying desperately to keep the brand alive. Yesterday, however, a judge agreed to allow the store to close nine locations and approved a liquidation plan should a buyer not be found within a reasonable timeframe.3
The nine stores, which are among some of the brand’s highest profile locations in Atlanta and Dallas, may just be the tip of the iceberg. The entire chain goes up for auction next month, and Gildan Activewear has already set a starting bid of $106 million. However, Gildan is not required to follow through on that bid and analyst are pessimistic about any other buyers attempting to save all 107 locations.
What this means for shoppers is multiple rounds of clearance sales as the company begins divesting itself of as much inventory as possible. However, it is also a warning sign as other mall retailers are beginning to hire bankruptcy attorneys. Fast fashion retailers such as H&M and Zara have taken much of the fire out of mall stores and that entire sector of the industry has been in steep decline for five years now. Expect more fashion-oriented stores to fall over the next two years.
Bobbie Brown exits stage left
The beauty world was caught off guard yesterday as Bobbie Brown, founder of the incredibly popular Bobbie Brown cosmetics line, announced she is stepping away from the brand at the end of the year4. Ms. Brown did not say exactly what she was going to do next. She told WWD that the celebration of brand’s 25th anniversary was a milestone “that made me realize it was time to start a new chapter and move on to new ventures.”
The 59-year-old makeup artist certainly has plenty of options available to her as she has dabbled in a variety of closely-related ventures over the years. The brand itself is owned by Estee Lauder and will continue operating under Peter Lichtenthal, global brand president. Ms. Brown is known for being energetic and creative so it will be interesting to see just where she might apply her incredible talent next.
And Finally …
President Obama may have found something that the incoming administration can’t undo upon its arrival next month. Yesterday, the president banned new oil and gas drilling in federal waters in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, a move that, understandably makes environmentalists extremely happy5. The move protects nearly 120 million acres of coastal waters controlled jointly by both the United States and Canada.
Normally, we might throw some shade at the move on the expectation that the next president would simply revoke the ruling using the same Presidential power with which it was made. However, this is one instance where the ruling is almost permanent. The president utilized the little-known Outer Continental Shelf Act that allows presidents to limit areas from mineral leasing and drilling. If Mr. Trump attempts to reverse President Obama’s move, he could only do so through a series of lawsuits that would likely take longer to get through the courts than his administration would be in place.
At the same time, it’s not like anyone has been chomping at the bit to drill in the Arctic waters. Shell Oil was the last company to give it a try and they abandoned those efforts after a tanker lost several thousand gallons of crude thanks to a giant gash in its side caused by ice flows in the area. Drilling there is extremely expensive compared to land-based operations. Still, the American Petroleum Institute criticized the move. The president-elect’s transition team has not yet responded.
We’re running incredibly late this morning, so we’ll have to end the conversation there for now. As always, we hope you’ll stay warm and safe. Don’t forget to subscribe, and we’ll be back with more tomorrow.
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