Pandemic Beauty & Predictions

So I apologize up front , but I'm keeping it real here. That's how it is. Okay. Let's get right into it on this episode, which is episode 100, by the way. Cheers. Yay. We are going to talk about how the beauty industry was affected by the pandemic, but also how it has, or is recovering from the pandemic are now three years into this thing and we

are still calling it a pandemic. Has it downgraded yet? And what is the criteria to downgrade it? I have no idea, but we sure have been through a lot. Have we not? We have been scared. We have adapted. We have helped out and we learn are new ways of doing things just like everyone else. And the same goes for the beauty industry. Man, back then when the pandemic first hit, I, it was all new to everyone. And I know I was personally how I personally adapted my life. Really wasn't that interrupted.

I continued you to work, go to work, be around people. And same with my husband, our lives wasn't that disrupted in the beginning of the pandemic, we lived our lives as usual. We had certain jobs that allowed us to do that, but I did stop wearing makeup. When we started having to wear masks, I thought, well, what is the point of wearing makeup with a mask? I just started a new job and we were in training when the mask mandate came into effect. And fortunately I still had some hair at the time.

I have alopecia. And since then, all of it has fallen out. But back three years ago, I still had some hair, enough hair where I could pull it back and toy ponytail and still covering , uh , still cover up the growing bald spots on the sides. So I wore ponytail, my glasses and a mask.

I quit wearing makeup and it made me wonder how the beauty industry was affected back then, because I think a lot of other people probably probably limited their makeup as well for a while , but they seemed to have adapted quite nicely. And I barely noticed I was going through menopause at the time I was going, I was sweating, being uncomfortable hair, falling out and being off about having to wear masks. And I quit caring about my appearance.

So apparently I did not handle it well but now that we are three years into this, a lot has changed for me and the beauty world. I now wear a full face of makeup, false , a eyelashes, sometimes a wig, but most days I go out completely bald. I like my bald look. It doesn't bother me at all. And the business of

glamor certainly has adapted as well. For example, from an article@morningbrew.com , they talk about the new buzzword omnichannel meaning are using all available and created, even created new streams of revenue by integrating all the ways to shop. For example, social media commerce, their social media certainly picked up. They created curbside pickup and also they started creating new ways of doing a creating revenue avenues.

For example, they put shops inside other shops, such as Alta going inside of target and Sephora going inside of Kohl's. They also did odd pairings like elf pairing with Dunkin donuts, who would've thought, who would've saw that coming. And of course, promoting indie beauty and lifting up the black owned cosmetic businesses as well.

And let's not forget about the environment with the more conscientious consumer, wanting to know more about what they are buying like the who, the what , the, where the, how beauty brands certainly picked up on that and ran with it with the new clean beauty movement. We've come a long way, baby. Because back when I was a teenager in the early eighties, we didn't care about products. We didn't care how they were made.

We didn't read what was in our Aquanet or how our electric blue eyeliner was made. And we certainly never knew the political views from the CEO of Love's baby soft . Those are just so 'em examples. So I mentioned indie beauty startups earlier, and maybe some of them are new , not new startups , but a ton of indie beauty brands seem to have burst upon the scene overnight. And I like it. I love choice.

Sure. It can be overwhelming sometimes, but it is good to have choices, not to mention how much fun it can be to try them all this flood of independent beauty brands makes me wonder what will happen to the big brands,

the luxury brands I know where I live Chanel and lame packed up their lotions, potions and makeup brushes to high. Tell it out of town while I was researching for this episode, I came across an article from happy.com, H a P i.com that had a list of up and coming beauty brands to watch in 2022. Yes, I know it's April already, but here are just a few that they listed.

sundry.com , S U N D R E e.com founded in 2021 by two besties that share the same first names when they also shared and swapped homemade serums. Their goal is to encourage a commitment to health insight and out new can find them online@sundre.com, 13 lu.com and JC Penneys , and also 1% of their sales go to the mental health coalition. Next founded in 2000 fifteens Myrick beauty is a self-taught makeup artist.

Love it already when they are self taught and paid no mind or attention to industry norms. Why have I not heard of her before? Because she also led product development for some of the most successful launches, like kiss lashes my favorite, by the way, and benefit cosmetic brow collection. She had me when she said that experimenting with makeup should not limit anyone, no matter race, gender or age and personal styles should not limit anyone from discovering their signature.

Look. You can find her products. ATSA Myrick , beauty.com and in Sephora, others that were mentioned in the happy.com article R and I'm just gonna list them off kind of quickly here. Um, S I , I , a cosmetics founded in 2019 and stocked at S I I , a cosmetics.com and select independent beauty supplies stores. Colonel Smith founded in 2018 , uh , obvious for ha obviously for hair founded and you can find them, you can find them@carlsmith.com , Alta and Amazon.

Then there's, Viga more atmore.com and founded in 2016 as a beauty wellness brand that approaches hair care from the inside out. Also in Sephora. Then we have Kaar beauty also@itsnamesakedomaindomainmannakaarbeauty.com was founded in 2012. It is a luxury beauty line, but you can also find them in Alta. Some of , most of these I've never heard of here is I think the last one is Saint more . Maurice , M O R I Z. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, you can find them@stmoriztan.com .

Obviously they're a tanning , um , product they were established in 2007. It is a UK based maker of skincare driven salon quality, self tanning. You can find this brand in Alta JCPenney target and Amazon. Okay. One more. I think Merlo skincare@merloskincare.com founded in 2001. So they're not really that new , uh , is made in the USA product and family run celebrating 20 years of innovation. They can be found at Amazon and at Walmart.

So there you go, according to happy.com some of the up and coming brands of 2022.

So since we are talking about up and coming brands and looking towards the future from premium beauty news.com, that was dated February 8th, 2022 , when they give us five predictions to look forward to number one, sustainability, again, as discussed before the consumer is more than a smart consumer, they also are now mindful of their environment and want to know who the, who, the, how the, what this will get more and more climate based conscientiousness.

So number two, from color to joy spotting, what is joy spotting? And this simply means that beauty will go beyond the color of skin, but it will mean , uh , you can create without being judged, just be you and break those beauty standards. Number three, look for more inclusivity beyond skin tones. I never really thought about blind people wanting to wear makeup, but they do. I understand that now that I , I think about it and if I was blind, I sure would like to look my best as well.

Number four, from scarification to augmented under skin . Now , uh , what does this mean? The , think about the technology and think about, look how quickly we've advanced since the internet, an email, the speed of cell phone upgrades is the new speed of light. It seems like. So it only goes to figure that we see the tech advances in skincare and makeup too . Look for hybrid products like the line between skincare and food will kind of blur.

And they are already having makeup power that contain probiotics and last but not least number five, we are going from home spas from the pandemic. Remember our, you know, self care home spas that we did. We're going from that to temporal beauty technology, which are science, backed products, temporary treatments that can, you can apply yourself instead of going to get a lip injection. You can glide your collagen on over your lips in a gloss.

And it , um, goes from long term commitments to temporary thrills with devices like L'Oreal conic, a hair color device that lets you apply color with less mess

and more consistent basis, or give yourself temporary and fake tattoos with the handheld printer tattoo printer. And speaking of tattoos, let me go off script for a little while with some odd and unusual celebrity tattoos. All right . We're going off script here. All right . So for the first one is Grimes. Now I had never heard of Grimes before. That is a person. She is apparently Elon Musks. I don't know, former girl, friend or current girlfriend. I'm not sure.

I think she has two children with him, but they had a picture of her with her tattoo. It looked like it was on her whole back from her shoulders down to her, the beginning to her lower back. And it looked like children scribbled all over her back. Would it look like no kidding? And she said it was supposed to look like alien alien, alien drawings or something, but it looked like a two year old , took a crayon to her back and just scribbled all over her back.

Okay. I guess, you know, to each of their own, and then there's machine gun Kelly . Now I don't, I , I don't know machine gun Kelly. I mean, I mean, I don't know who he is. I've heard the name, but I don't know what he does. My first assumption is that he is a rapper with a name like that. I guess he has. I think he has the most unusual and freaky, scary tattoo of them all .

And all it is is a red line that goes up and down on the front of his throat, but it looks like somebody slit his throat open, going up and down and just a little thin line, but it looks so real. It freaks me out when I see the picture of it. Okay. So if you guys know who machine gun Kelly is, you know, hit me up on Twitter and let me know who he is. And then there's Steve O do you remember Steve O from or whatever?

I guess he loves himself so much that he felt the need to put a portrait of himself on his O back. That is just bizarre to me, but okay. Whatever. And last but not least , let's talk about Keisha. Now, does Keisha, when you see pictures of her, does she always look like she's drunk stoned or hungover? I mean, is that the look now these days, I don't know her tattoo and this had to have hurt. I don't know how they did this without her. Slobbing all over herself.

She has a tattoo inside of her lower lip that says suck it . Okay. Those are my, I can't even , I don't even know what to say about that. I think that's an odd place to have a tattoo that says, suck it . First of all, to have a tattoo that says, suck it at all is not good. And to have it inside of your mouth. Okay. Whatever, I think in an interview, she said she did it for her haters that, you know, had doubts about her. And so she wanted that to it's like , why are you addressing your haters?

But okay. Whatever, Keisha. All right . So that is my off script part of the , um, podcast. Uh, we've gone on for 15 minutes now. So that is probably enough. Uh, I appreciate y'all . I hope you are enjoying this little podcast. I know I am enjoying doing it. And if you could go gimme a review , uh , subscribe or better yet, just tell one other person about the podcast and have them listen to it too. I'm just trying to grow my audience here . Grassroots effort here.

And , uh, thank you for listening. I appreciate it . And have a good week .