Hello, everyone. Welcome back.
Thank you so, so much for joining me.
Today it's a discussion time. No, what's it...
A think piece.
Let's talk about this, right?
Because we're in this thing, beginning of the year 2023.
I think we've all had,
we've all had enough of brands, influencers.
Yes, I'm an influencer, but I can say we've had enough.
What else have we had enough of?
James Corden.
We've all had enough.
I wanted to talk about things that brands
just need to stop doing in order to
sell their products to us in 2023.
We are all wise.
We are all capable of seeing through marketing
tactics and other tactics and things, and stuff.
And I think we should talk about it.
Most of these are my feelings.
But I did also ask over on my Discord
what people didn't like, and the ones that I
agree with, I want to touch on also.
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The first thing we need to talk about
going into 2023 is the term "clean."
Clean beauty, clean makeup, clean artistry
is something that I don't
think we are no longer falling for.
There are some people that love that term clean.
I only eat clean.
I only wear clean.
I only clean my house, clean.
And there's a lot of
misinformation behind the term clean.
The term clean has no meaning.
There is no meaning to the term clean
when it comes to labeling your brand as such.
Clean is down to your interpretation.
And I brought this up when we were talking about Haus Labs.
Which, by the way, love the brand
Haus Labs, I think they have some incredible
products, and I choose to use them often.
But they have this phrase, clean artistry, which
I don't like because it doesn't mean anything.
And then people's kind of reply to that was like,
yeah, but they explain what they mean by clean.
But by saying what they mean by clean, further goes
to show that there is no exact meaning for clean.
People can make up what they want.
It could mean that they pack their
packages around spinach and vegetables, clean packaging.
They don't need to justify or
explain what they mean by clean.
There is no set meaning for it.
So when people are like, can
you recommend some clean things?
I can, but it doesn't mean anything.
I can recommend clean makeup brands, clean
skincare brands, but it means absolutely nothing.
So please, please don't be dragged in by
that clean lifestyle when it comes to makeup
and beauty, because it really doesn't mean anything.
Which then brings us on to fear mongering.
Fear mongering has been going on...
It happens with everything.
Politics.
Why do I keep doing these lists?
But there's a lot of it in skincare and a lot of it in makeup.
Now, people will say things like parabens, fragrance,
people will fear monger around fragrance.
People fear monger around all this stuff.
One, there's still preservatives in your products.
Every single product you have has a preservative in it.
In terms of makeup, and things like that, it has to.
Otherwise you'll have it for a week
and it'll smell and taste like crap.
But it kind of goes alongside the
clean movement where it's kind of like,
no nasties, no additives, no preservative.
Wait, that's food.
No, you know, all this stuff.
And it's like, there's no reason
to be scared of these things.
There's no reason to be, you know...
Or all natural ingredients.
There are man made versions of natural ingredients
that have been made to have control.
So it doesn't damage you, it doesn't damage your skin.
They're perfectly safe.
But there's this fear mongering thing that man made
things are bad for you, that they're going to
ruin your skin, that it's going to clog your
pores, that it's going to do all this stuff.
Even, like, products that stain the skin, some people
are like, oh, it's really terrible. It's annoying, yeah.
It's annoying.
But it's not the worst thing that can happen.
Brands want to kind of like have you in their safe space.
Oh, what's happened to my lips?
I've got nothing on my lips.
There's some brands out there that are creating a false
safe space in their brand, you know what I mean?
And by creating this false safe space, they're putting fearing
you that other brands are either lying to you or
trying to get you to use something that's going to
eventually make your skin peel off or your face fall out,
or your tongue swell in your mouth.
And of course, there are brands out there that
are absolutely terrible, like that Trisha Paytas skincare, for
example, that shouldn't be on the market,
that is burning your skin and is doing whatever, allegedly.
But at the same time use common sense.
And...
yeah.
Let's move on to petty, right?
This is something I don't like
and this doesn't mean anything.
It's not like any... I don't know.
I really like creativity, being an artistic person whose
career started in editorial, in fashion, in makeup.
I really love creative experiences and I love, you know,
creative products, and I like to
buy creative things and all this stuff.
So when I see...
I'm getting a bit bored of the,
people standing in a group of people holding the product
and there's one person here, one person here, one person
here, one person here, maybe one person in the middle and they're all like...
It's really [__] boring.
I miss the days where makeup brands
used to do really experimental or really
artistic or just interesting advertisements.
We are in this stage where a lot of
brands are incredibly, amazingly inclusive, and they have different
types of people, all genders, all races, all kind
of people we see in our everyday lives.
There's no reason why you can't have a
diverse brand and create something really artistic rather
than just having them stand in a group.
You know.
Like it's, like... I don't know.
I don't know how to describe it.
Real skin texture, right, for example.
But why can't we have that in a really
amazing editorial image and yes, budget and yes, this.
But I mean, green screen, you know.
Artists.
People, things.
It's a really petty thing for me,
but I'm so bored of just seeing
groups of people smiling and holding something.
Like what... how does that...
If I wanted to have a photo shoot for a brand,
right, say it was my own brand, I would want to
express the feeling of that brand in my images.
Standing against a plain backdrop, smiling in a group of four
doesn't... I don't get what your brand is.
I don't know.
It's really petty, but I'm just kind of bored of it.
And a lot of people do it and it's just kind of...
Like, oh, yeah, everyone's together and it's fun.
Okay.
Okay, now this is another really petty thing.
I'm laughing because it's so stupid, but we
have this thing at the moment, right,
of everyone releasing a lot of stuff.
There's a lot of stuff brands are releasing.
And I feel like if you're going to add on to
your brand, if you must release something...
I like releases.
I wish some brands would go slower,
but I do like new makeup.
I wish people would think about it a little bit more and think...
the things we're releasing, are they needed?
Are they new?
And what I'm going to lead that into is accessories.
People releasing eyelash curlers and sharpeners
or people making something a part
of their brand that everybody has.
Disposable cotton pads, everyone's doing them.
We're trying to be like earthy and
keep everything down to a minimum.
So why are we building on top of
basic accessories that everyone probably already has?
Everyone's going to go out and buy cheap anyway
because they don't need that
particular sharpener for your pencil.
They can buy a bigger one or they can buy
a small one, or they can pull out the one
in the bottom of the pencil and it's fine.
But I just don't see the point in accessories
like that, really basic ones, being released anymore.
You know, let Tweezerman do it.
Let them... Tweezer?
Is that the brand?
If, again, if I'm going to have...
and I always think about it, what would I do if I had a brand
and they were like, you need to... let's do a lash curler.
I'll be like, why?
Because you can literally go to like Dollar Tree
or Poundland and buy a lash curler that's going
to do pretty much the same thing. Let's be real.
I've never used a lash curler.
That might be a lie.
I've never been completely blown away by
a lash curler and thought, wow, this
is some next level lash curler.
It's always done the same kind of thing.
So I just feel like that's not really necessary to do.
So when I get packages from brands
and it's like, oh yeah, and here's
a pencil sharpener, I'm like, okay, great.
Let me add it, let me add
it to my cave of pencil sharpeners.
Now, this is the one that's actually quite
popular in terms of something people don't like
from brands, and that is brands referring to
their customers as Babe or Hun.
This one really gets me.
This one really irritates me.
And if they're trying to be like, friendly and
your best friend, but also there's a level of
professionalism that I still think needs to be intact.
So when I get a message from a brand that's like, hey,
babe, it's like, I don't know you, I don't know you.
Imagine going to going just to a regular store, right,
and you're at like, a grocery store and you're checking
out your food, and a person behind the cash desk
is like, hey babe, check out our deals here hun.
You'd be like, who the [__]...
Who talks like that to a stranger?
Like, I get it as a term of endearment
to a friend, a colleague or something like that.
Or maybe you're just that kind of person that you
work in customer service and you're like, hey babe.
Which is cute, which is nice.
But in a newsletter or in a promotional offer or even in a business
offer, babe and hun just doesn't work for me.
And you know what as well, there's something really
strange, and I think I've said this before about
someone younger than you calling you hun.
It just gives me cringe a bit. I don't know.
Okay, so this is going to be our last one.
And this is something that happens a lot.
And I think I've touched on it very lightly before.
But brands deciding that they have gone viral themselves.
They haven't given the power to the influencers or
the consumer, and they've made it gone viral.
The brand is like, our new viral something.
How is it new today and viral?
Tell me.
How is it, how are you sending over the
brief and being like, we want you to
try our viral powder released next week.
When did it go viral then, if it hasn't been released yet?
And people are like, viral something.
It's a very good and effective marketing technique at the
moment to say something has gone viral because people
then want to buy it.
So their content, in turn, goes viral.
When actually that product hasn't gone viral.
So brands are very much aware of what
they're doing when it says it's gone viral.
But please don't. If a brand is saying
one of their products has gone viral, right?
And you are, let's say, on the beauty side of
TikTok or shorts or YouTube or Reels, and you haven't
seen that product, it has not gone viral.
If a product goes viral on TikTok, you will
know about it because you will see it everywhere.
If a brand is like, this has gone viral, and you
haven't seen it, or maybe you don't see it for the
next three, four days, it hasn't gone viral.
Don't buy into that instant need to want
to buy something viral, because it isn't. It isn't.
And even some influencers as well.
Remember in briefs, when they're given a job,
it says, mention that this has gone viral.
Just double check. If you don't see it anymore,
it hasn't gone viral.
Well, okay.
That was some really petty things.
Let me know below if there's anything that annoys you when
it comes to brands trying to sell you stuff or getting
your business or whatever, I would love to know.
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and I will see you very, very soon. Bye.