Face off: Should celebs avoid beauty and stay in their lane?

Have we reached peak Celebrity Beauty Mogul? Alicia Keys, Millie Bobby Brown, Rihanna, Kylie Jenner, Jessica Alba, Kate Moss, Selena Gomez, Harry Styles, Cindy Crawford, Drew Barrymore, Idris and Sabrina Elba, Pharrell Williams – these are just a few superstars who own skincare or cosmetics companies.

Of course, some crash and burn – see Jessica Simpson’s edible cosmetics range – but some are stocked in high-end retailers such as Harvey Nichols and earn their makers millions.

The majority of Rihanna’s $1.4billion fortune is from her Fenty Beauty company, rather than her music. In 2018, Britney Spears was reported to earn $50million a year from her fragrance ranges.

But not everyone is here for it. The news that Brad Pitt is to launch a skincare line, the eye-wateringly expensive Le Domaine, is the final straw for a group of beauty insiders.

In an open letter to the Hollywood star, six entrepreneurs have accused Pitt and other celebrities of exploiting their fame to make money from, they believe, substandard, unoriginal or unnecessary products that undermine the beauty industry.

The letter was written and signed by Winnie Awa, founder of haircare platform Carra, Molly Hart, founder of lipstick brand Highr, Samantha Freedman, co-founder of beauty marketplace Elth, Jasmin Thomas, founder of skincare brand Ohana, and Megan Felton and Ksenia Eytan, co-founders of skincare destination Lionne.

It details the group’s frustration at the prevalence of inexperienced famous people launching averagely effective brands into a saturated market and squeezing out newcomers. It also calls for Pitt, and others, to invest in existing brands rather than compete.

‘There’s a huge lack of expertise and passion,’ says Felton about Le Domaine. ‘The “health expert” is in fact an expert in wine, not a chemist or skincare expert. Pitt himself admits that he is not a big skincare user and frequently refuses in interviews to walk journalists through his current routine or each product in the range. So why launch a range?’

‘The sad thing is Brad received incredible press,’ says Freedman. ‘He has taken the shelf space that so many thousands of brands have been vying for. This means that smaller brands get pushed out, even if their formulations are better.’

The group behind the letter insist it’s not blanket derision of all celebrity products and there are those who argue that celebrities have just as much right as any of us to do whatever they want.

‘We’re big fans of Honest Beauty from Jessica Alba,’ says Thomas.
‘I also think Rihanna’s Fenty range is fantastic. But each of these ranges came from a place of authenticity. They launched into a market they knew about, lived and breathed.’

But Freedman says when it comes to things like Le Domaine, do we really need what she calls another ‘pointless brand’?

‘Do they bring something new?’ she says. ‘If we all stayed in our lanes we wouldn’t grow as people,I get that but with Brad’s power he could have put his money and profile to a smaller brand, providing them with an amazing platform that they so very much deserve.’

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