Peter Minkoff is a lifestyle writer at Queer Voices magazine, living between Australia and Europe. Besides writing, he also worked as a freelance fashion stylist for many magazines. A true craft beer and soy latte aficionado, he loves spending his days at the beach and visiting second-hand stores on a daily basis. Follow Peter on Twitter for more tips.
With the empowerment of LGBT individuals, some of their long-time suppressed needs and desires are coming out too.
While makeup, for example, was once reserved only for women, “extravagant” rock stars and performers of the masculine gender, the beauty industry nowadays is trying hard to bridge the gender gap it once supported.
“The industry needs more creativity,” cosmetic mogul Jeffree Star claims in his great interview for “Out” magazine. “It’s time for new blood, new faces, and it’s different evolution.”
So what is this beauty industry (r)evolution we’ve been talking about?
Value of Diversity
Visibility in the beauty industry is shifting, trying to embrace new consumers – new blood and new faces. Brands attempt to be more inclusive when it comes to people of different ages, cultural backgrounds, body shapes, gender identities, and presentations.
One of the beauty brand giants, Sephora, has been among the first ones to try to support individuals during significant life transitions.
Sephoras’ Bold Beauty Classes for Confidence has tried to empower many queer individuals, offering makeup classes for non-binary and transgender people in the US.
For those on more distant locations, Sephora’s YouTube Channel now includes many great how-to videos, led by expert transgender beauty advisers, with a lot of useful application tips.
These classes give students skin-care advice, also teaching them the best ways to cover their unwanted facial hair and skin blemishes, as well as how to accentuate the desired facial features.
With the tips coming from the real-life experience, high-quality makeup, and long clip in hair extensions, trans-gender, and non-binary persons can now easily transform their look, and let their inner colors shine whenever they desire.
Makeup Has No Gender
Even though makeup is still mostly advertised by a white, cis woman, many beauty brands, such as Milk Makeup, are trying to blur the lines with their campaigns, addressing the needs of people with fluid gender identities.
A makeup brand Fluide is founded to cater to the needs of trans and non-binary customers, creating a haven for queer people in beauty, so that they can choose and buy their makeup without any shame.
A unisex brand Jecca is keeping its offer small and simple so that it can easily be applied even by those who never touched makeup before. The products of this brand can be purchased in Walmart, for even greater convenience.
Through his collaboration with Morphe, Jeffree Star made his unique collection more accessible to the crowds, offering it at a lower price. He does his best to keep his cosmetic line close to the audience he targets – you can hardly find Androgyny eyeshadow or Blood Lust Crownhand Mirror elsewhere on the market.
Getting Involved
However, beauty brands are not only trying to be more inclusive and diverse with their products and their campaigns, but they are showing their support to the LGBT community in other ways, too.
Elite Beauty Society is, for example, showing its support to diversity in the beauty industry, donating a share of its policies to PFLAG, It Gets Better and Trevor Project.
Beauty brands, such as Milk, Fluide, Sephora, and Urban Decay, are showing their support for empowering the community financially as well.
The brush brand Moda is donating $2 from the sale of every Rainbow Brush Kit to combat LGBT youth homelessness, starting from June 2019, whole year-round.
By standing true behind what they believe in, these companies are not only making the lives of many queer individuals easier but also building and strengthening their brands and their consumers’ loyalty.
But the beauty industry still has a long way to go when it comes to bridging the gender gap. It seems that the beauty industry has double standards when it comes to the LGBT community, as when it comes to their presentation, queer women rarely receive the same kind of attention as queer men.