Celebrity skincare is the new celebrity perfume.
It’s the new, dumb, ubiquitous trend that every vapid celebrity in recent years is cashing in on. As a result, the market is now saturated with substandard, overpriced face crap fronted by dermatologically unqualified celebrities including Scarlett Johansson, Florence Mills and Brad Pitt of all people – yes, Brad Pitt whose trotting out a $300 moisturizer despite his admittance to not having a skincare routine, (and his skin looking like bovine leather because of it).
It’s exhausting to witness, especially since skincare, as opposed to perfume, is medical. The skincare industry, as a whole, is run by dermatologists and medically trained cosmetic formulators, who have spent years and years studying how to develop products with medical benefits like preventing skin cancer, prolonging skin elasticity and treating serious conditions such as melasma, eczema, psoriasis etc.
Criminally high markups of beauty products and a sudden surge in sales post COVID are the primary reasons why celebrities are choosing to put out skincare lines as a means to diversify their stream of income.
But given that none of these celebrities are medically trained, the poor receptions given to their products (and some of the attacks have been deservedly savage) aren’t the least bit surprising. What more than likely happened is that these celebrities teamed up with cosmetics companies who, knowing full well that slapping a mega celebrity’s name on a product would boost its sales regardless of whether or not the product is good, developed cheap, basic lines with criminally high markup.
What these deceptive cosmetics companies don’t seem to grasp is that thanks to the advent of the internet and the plethora of information at the general public’s disposal, there are more conscious consumers now than there ever was before.
“Celebrity skincare is the new celebrity perfume in Hollywood and Bollywood is stupidly following suit.”
People aren’t as gullible and they’re not above verbally thrashing celebrities online if they think these celebrities are trying to deceive them with buying their bogus shit.
Of course there are exceptions to the rule. Rihanna, whose billion dollar cosmetics company Fenty Beauty revolutionized the makeup industry in 2017, also developed a skincare line that has been lauded by dermatologists and estheticians alike. Likewise, the surprisingly business savvy socialite, Paris Hilton, astutely hired three Nobel Prize winning chemists to develop her line.
But those are just two of the now deluge of celeb-fronted skincare lines.
Much to our chagrin, Bollywood is now following in Hollywood’s drunken footsteps (shocker) with Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra, both of whom I used to have tremendous respect for, launching their own skincare lines. The former released the pseudo-Ayurvedic skincare line, 82°E, last month while the latter releasing the hair care range, Anomaly.
Their peers are likely to follow suit.
As expected, the female entertainers’ products haven’t gone down a storm with consumers, one of whom tweeted that Padukone’s skincare range is “unaffordable” while another derisively tweeted, “overpriced and basic.”
Celebrities are often called out for not being in touch with reality, for being tone-deaf. Padukone releasing a $50 moisturizer in a price sensitive, Third World country like India is not only tone-deaf but is an unsound business decision as well especially since the Indian market has dermatologist-led skincare lines, like Dr. Sheth’s products, that are likely more efficacious and cost a fraction of the price.
Chopra’s haircare range hasn’t fared better with Dr. Vanita Rattan, a popular British cosmetic formulator, lambasting the products calling them “drying”, “harsh” and “not well formulated”.
I’m all for Bollywood celebrities being inspired by their sister city counterparts but if there’s one trend in Hollywood that Bollywood celebrities should never entertain the thought of, it’s the launching of skincare lines. It is a huge misstep that will not only subject them to public scrutiny in the short term but will more importantly, scar their incredible legacies.
