British Vogue - 09.2019

T

here’s a certain type of

person who is earnest,

joyless, often weighed

down by the need to

right perceived wrongs in

women’s conduct. Their favourite

online interjection goes

something like this: “Why do

you feel you have to wear make-

up? It’s so fake. You’d look and

feel much better if you weren’t a

slave to the slap.” I know, because

as a beauty columnist and author,

I’ve been on the receiving end of

it since the birth of social media.

I used to get annoyed and

defensive. Now my response is

as well-versed as their point

is ham-fisted: I love make-up.

I mean really, really love bold lips,

a big old smoky eye, a smattering

of spangle and enough mascara

to sink a battleship. Not all at

the same time, or even every day

• just whenever I want to feel
  extra powerful, in command and,
  as my grandmother used to say,
  “ready to go on an adventure”.
  A passion for surface does not suggest lack of depth.
  Hyper-feminine or casually androgynous, super-sexy or
  politely prim – make-up gives me life. I would lie in the
  middle of the road to protect my right to bear lipstick. The
  right shade has the power to provide many of us with added
  backbone for a work presentation, a frisson for a night out.
  But make-up brands must now bring even more to the
  table. The customer wants to play – joyfully and guiltlessly


• and demands both style and substance at once. La Bouche
  Rouge, a French company selling vegan lipsticks in hand-
  embossed refillable tubes, donates 100 litres of drinking water
  to a developing country for each one sold. Avon, through its
  predominantly female force of local consultants, has set up
  more women in business than any other organisation globally.
  It’s a boom time for female entrepreneurs, too. Marcia
  Kilgore of Beauty Pie and Emily Weiss of Glossier worked
  hard to cut out the middleman and build their own online
  communities, enabling luxury beauty to be more affordable.
  The industry has been further boosted by the major financial
  success of formidable, inclusivity-focused female entrepreneurs
  such as Rihanna of Fenty Beauty, Sharmadean Reid of
  Beautystack and the global cosmetics juggernauts that are
  Huda Kattan and Charlotte Tilbury, the latter of whom has
  pledged £1 million from the sale of her Hot Lips lipsticks
  to the charity Women for Women International, to help
  women rebuild their lives after war and acts of terrorism.
  Thanks to the democracy of the smartphone, there are
  now thousands of make-up artists showcasing their talents

to the world, sparking a beauty revolution. For every

Kardashian-wannabe with fiercely strobing cheekbones,

there’s a goth, Harajuku, kogal, steampunk and drag king

or queen mining their make-up bag, creating a face and

discovering his, her or their online beauty tribe. And they

matter. Illamasqua, Jecca and Milk have embraced gender-

fluid models, geeks, outsiders and hipsters. Mac’s What’s

Your Thing? campaign is an exercise in multi-ethnic, multi-

generational, multi-gendered casting. Even heritage houses

are tiring of classical notions of beauty – Gucci’s Alessandro

Michele has relaunched the house’s once impossibly

glamorous make-up range with a gallery of so-called “misfits”

with crooked teeth, bleeding lipstick and eyeliner.

On a smaller scale, but inspired by the sea change, top

beauty PR Jo Jones and I set up Beauty Banks to collect

surplus toiletries and redistribute them via food banks and

homeless shelters to people living in poverty. In just over

a year, Beauty Banks has some 50 public drop-off points

across Britain. We’ve seen countless end users get back the

dignity of cleanliness and self-care. Beauty products can

change how we see our lives, our job prospects, ourselves.

Feeling clean and presentable should be considered a

basic human right.

There are still several miles to go for the industry, and

make-up can only truly call itself “empowering” when its

senior executives, product designers, marketeers and

financiers represent the diverse community they promise to

prettify. Everyone must have a seat at the dressing table. n

Make-

up gives

me life.

I would lie

in the road

to protect

my right

to bear

lipstick

Make a metallic eye

super-modern with

Charlotte Tilbury’s

Colour Chameleon in

Amber Haze, £19. Tweed

jacket, £4,475, Chanel.

Poloneck, £91, Hanro.

For stockists, all pages,

see Vogue Information

BEAUTY

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