The world of beauty has changed beyond recognition over the last ten years. Successive revolutions changed the way consumers see makeup and approach shopping, completely subverting the status quo and creating a new one on the way. Watching the new launches of cosmetics, we realized there is another new trend: product development increasingly seems to consider the needs of makeup artists, even when production is actually destined to the consumer market – us, mere mortals who think we really need those 23 palettes and 8 kinds of blushes – and to be sold at perfume stores.
Here are some examples of what we mean. Think of the “brush-mania” that was kickstarted by a beauty guru just a few years ago, that got so many of us to ditch our sponges and buy large sets of 45 brushes, thinking we really needed them. We bet that was neither the first, nor the last impulse buy you made after watching an online video, right? Yes? We knew it! Since the start of the Internet era, tutorials on YouTube became numerous, and the number of beauty lovers just increased along with them – also fueled by new, daily input from social networks and blogs. We lived our whole lives without highlighters, and at one point, boom! Two tutorials can be enough to make it impossible for us to consider life without them. Words like contouring, strobing and glossing all assumed very concrete meanings, making the cost of our shopping lists equal our New Year’s budget.
Do we all want to be like makeup artists, or at least have the same range of products as them in our beauty arsenal? According to Jane Richardson, NARS International Lead Makeup Stylist, many seem to aspire to just that. When we asked her our questions, Richardson added that access to online content probably made consumers a lot more creative than they used to be, a very exciting fact. Brands want to ride this trend, creating products that are very close in quality to professional ones, but that are actually conceived for those who wish to explore the universe of beauty, independently of their level of proficiency with makeup.
You know what? This trend actually also has a very positive side to it, actually, it has two. The first is, products that are designed for professionals are compacts and travel-friendly, saving space in your suitcase for anything else you might need (shoes, right? We’re talking about shoes.) The other thing is, these products will help you make smarter, more economical choices: it’s not so hard to understand that it is a lot cheaper to buy a palette with 6 brushes, or 22 eyeshadows, rather than single colors. Have a look at the gallery to see our shopping tips 😉
