CoverGirl Is Getting a Makeover—and It's a Good Look
The year was 1999, I was 15, and Brandy had just been named as the newest spokesmodel for CoverGirl. The actual news wasn’t quite on my radar, but when I started to see her face even more—on covers of magazines like Seventeen and Teen People (I subscribed to both) as well as on drugstore aisle makeup kiosks—the impact was even more lasting. At that age, I didn’t really have the words to voice how important it was to see someone like Brandy fronting the same brand whose dinged-up pressed powder compact I carried around with me everyday, but I knew that it felt good. Her long, swingy box braids were much cooler than my puffy curls, but the fact that she was up there repping a makeup line where I could find a shade that worked for my brown skin made me feel like I was a part of it all.
In the past few weeks, CoverGirl has brought on a slew of new faces that took me right back to that memory. Issa Rae (of HBO’s Insecure), Maye Musk (model and mom of tech mogul Elon), chef Ayesha Curry, fitness trainer Massy Arias, and motorcycle racer Shelina Moreda are the latest unexpected, yet highly empowered women to join its roster of CoverGirls. Rae and Musk have especially hit home for me. There’s no one funnier than Issa right now. And while I can’t quite freestyle rap my anxieties in front of the mirror like she does on the show, she’s still made herself wildly relatable. Seeing her sign with a major beauty brand felt like one more point for Team Be Your F-cking Yourself. And then Maye, at 69 and eternally elegant, felt like a huge breath of fresh air in our increasingly ageist culture, where many of us feeling eye-rolling-ly too old for whatever 30-Under-30 list is circulating at the moment (can we just stop doing those already?).
Then today, CoverGirl went one step further in changing the conversation. It’s dropping its old “Easy, breezy, beautiful CoverGirl” catchphrase in favor of one with a decidedly stronger stance: “I Am What I Make Up.” The brand’s short film featuring these women, as well as longtime CoverGirl Katy Perry, feels like a pivot in the right direction; its shift from sugary-sweet messaging to including more real women of substance feels incredibly needed—and incredibly now. Its point is loud and clear, makeup is for everyone.
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All that said, this isn’t a complete aberration for CoverGirl; it has a long tradition of casting not just faces but voices: Think Queen Latifah and Ellen DeGeneres. Last year, the brand named YouTuber James Charles as its first male spokesperson, and Nura Afia, a Denver-based beauty blogger who wears a hijab, became the brand’s first Muslim ambassador.
Other major companies have also made efforts in broadening the types of people we see: Estée Lauder’s recent campaign features ballerina Misty Copeland, Maybelline brought on male beauty blogger, Manny Gutierrez, and L’Oreal Paris’s current stable includes icons Helen Mirren and Jane Fonda. It’s a movement across the board.
Brandy made a 15-year-old-me feel good at the time; I’m even more excited about the impact these new CoverGirl women will have on the rest of us.
Related Stories:
–Exclusive: Chef Ayesha Curry Is the Newest CoverGirl
–CoverGirl Just Named Issa Rae As Its New Ambassador
–CoverGirl’s Newest Face Is 69-Year-Old Maye Musk (as in Elon’s Mom)