Anti-Diversity Bigots May Have To Stop Wearing Makeup Altogether
Given past troubles, beauty brands are not gonna be so quick to throw themselves on that grenade.
Over the last week or so, several companies and brands have announced their plans to reject diversity and embrace sexism and white supremacy — assuming that, because Donald Trump won the election, that’s the nation’s current vibe. So far, these companies include Meta, Walmart, Amazon, Ford, Lowe’s, Harley Davidson, Brown-Forman (parent company of Jack Daniels), John Deere, Tractor Supply, and, perhaps most egregiously, Target — which has vowed not only to stop considering diversity in the workplace, but also to stop its efforts to carry Black-owned brands. Unlike some of these other companies, Target has long enjoyed a rather liberal customer base, especially as opposed to Walmart, their prime competitor. But hey! I guess they don’t need us and won’t mind when we don’t shop at their stores anymore, especially all those mini-Targets they spent so much money opening up in affluent urban areas over the last few years!
Bucking this “trend,” several brands have stepped up to announce that they will be doing no such thing. This includes Costco, Apple, Pinterest, Bank of America, Delta Airlines, JP Morgan, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs — not to mention the many, many companies who so far have said nothing at this current moment, still have their DEI commitments prominently listed on their websites, and have spoken up for diversity in the past.
The latest company to come forward and say they have no plans to start embracing white supremacy any time soon is, e.l.f. cosmetics — which is not surprising given their history, but is still a huge relief to me, personally.
If you are not familiar, e.l.f. is a brand of very affordable (but also very high quality) makeup and skincare, usually available in drug stores (or in Target, though I won’t be buying it there anymore). It’s become incredibly popular, especially among those who do online makeup tutorials and reviews, over the last few years and has led to something of a drug store makeup renaissance.
Via CNN:
“There’s nothing wrong with being Richard, Rick or Dick, but we wanted to shine a light on ‘let’s give other people a chance’ because we’ve seen the benefits in our own business,” e.l.f. CEO Tarang Amin said in an interview last week with CNN. E.l.f is one of only two publicly traded companies with a board that’s more than 78% women and 44% people of color. […]
Amin was referring to the company’s popular “So Many Dicks,” campaign, which highlighted the fact that there are more men named Richard, Rick, Rich, or Dick on the boards of companies than there are members of some entire marginalized groups of people. That’s a good campaign!
E.l.f. has reaped the benefits of its strategy. The company has posted 23 consecutive quarters of sales growth, and its stock has increased by more than 700% over the past five years.
E.l.f. doesn’t have a DEI team, but its commitment to hiring a diverse workforce across gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality and other demographic lines has driven its success, Amin said. Around 75% of its roughly 500 employees are women and 40% are people of color. As part of e.l.f.’s diversity and inclusion strategy, the company also features transgender and non-binary models in advertising.
“Diverse voices actually help us because they’re bringing different perspectives,” Amin, 59, said. Companies that abandon their diversity efforts risk losing out on “incredible talent that has different points of view and that add perspective to a company.”
So weird how that works!
Personally, I’m a huge fan of e.l.f. products to begin with — not only are they extremely affordable, many of their products are as good or better than some of the more expensive brands. Their eyeshadows are highly pigmented and blendable, their brushes are my favorite, their Halo Glow is comparable to Charlotte Tilbury’s Flawless Filter, and their Power Grip primer is better than anything else on the market. They even have some things those brands don’t have, like a bright blue color corrector that has made finding a foundation or concealer I can wear without looking fluorescent orange a far less exhausting venture. It is, quite literally, not easy being green. Well, light olive, anyway.
(Don’t worry — we’re not suddenly doing sponcon now, I just really like their makeup.)
This is far from the first time the company has publicly touted the benefits of DEI. Last year, e.l.f. partnered with North Carolina A&T State University on a study that drew on five years’ worth of data to show that S&P 500 companies with diverse boards are more successful than those without.
The study found that companies with diverse boards had:
• 15% higher ROI [return on investment] than S&P 500 companies
• 50% reduction in earnings risk measured by EPS over 1 year of S&P 500 companies
• Women on boards correlate to better price-to-earnings ratios
• Boards with 3+ women and/or minorities have fewer lawsuits
Of course, as the authors of the study note, theirs isn’t the only one that has shown that companies that embrace diversity are more successful than those that do not.
You know, I was wondering why so many of the companies that were not being gross about diversity were banks, and I’ll bet you that last entry, the study that found that “board gender heterogeneity positively impacted performance of banks” just may have had something to do with it. (Okay, it has more to do with the fact that it was brought up at Davos, but still!)
E.l.f. is definitely doing well in this regard, but the fact is, over the last few years, beauty brands have found that diversity isn’t just the morally correct thing to do, it’s also very much where the money is. Rihanna’s Fenty led the way by bringing an incredibly wide range of shades to their foundation and concealer lines, and other lines, realizing that there was money to be made in acknowledging the fact that Black people exist and in many shades.
Additionally, for brands that have failed on this front, the backlash has been swift and terrible.
Now, people are very much paying attention to whether or not a brand has a wide spectrum of shades, whether their blushes can be worn by people of all colors, etc., and not doing this can definitely cause a brand to get the kind of “ick” factor that results in influencers not wanting anything to do with them.
For an industry that has not, in the past, done too great with inclusivity — and which has had an absolute fuckton of controversy in that regard — beauty brands have so far not participated in the so-called “DEI backlash,” perhaps only because they are heavily aware that coming out against diversity and in favor of white supremacy is just not a thing that will go over too well with their prime customer base. In fact, I would bet that even some of the worst-offending brands won’t even try it.
But that’s the benefit, really, of holding brands accountable. Vote with your feet, vote with your dollar, support companies that do well and be sure to let those that don’t know that there will be consequences.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
MAGA: "We love the free market! No regulations, no rules!"
Also MAGA: "If you don't cater *exactly* to our interests, we will use the state to cripple your business and ruin your lives."
The cognitive dissonance would be stunning if I thought any cognitive activity was occurring at all.
Please, let MAGAts stop using makeup. That way their faces can mirror their souls more accurately.