Health & Beauty

Brands are gradually breaking away from the traditional market's gender mindset, trying to attract consumers who self-identify as men or take the masculine route through packaging and advertising.

For many years, the beauty and personal care industry in the mass market has been gender-biased and established "routines", such as heavy dark blue razors and slim pink razors, as well as dark green rosin deodorants and pastel floral fragrances. Antiperspirant and so on. Although there is little difference between the products (a razor or a razor), the target group can be clearly identified from the packaging.

But everyone loves beauty. You will find that more and more young women who are obsessed with skin care are keen to share their skin care experience with her girlfriends and partners. There are also many male beauty bloggers doing makeup on YouTube. Tutorials, and the audience is still a broad range of male compatriots. Traditional gender boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred. At least one obvious trend is that beauty brands are moving in the direction of developing neutral products and adopting neutral packaging.

Moreover, the advertisements of most emerging brands can reflect the recognition and support of the diversity of race and gender, and the packaging is also avoiding the traditional limitations. Larissa Jensen, a senior beauty analyst at the market research firm NPD Group, said: "(These products) are more inclusive and touch the concerns of current young consumers, such as'sustainable','genderless', and so on. From the perspective of young consumers, this is more like a sport."

Nowadays, popular brands in the Z generation (Pew Research Center defines them as people born after 1997), such as Milk Makeup, Glossier and Fenty Beauty, have adopted different styles of spokespersons in their advertisements. Shanghai interacted with customers, and launched a variety of color blocks to cater for different skin tones, and used neutral colors in the packaging, such as gray, white, light pink, nude and silver. Laura Kraber, co-founder of We Are Fluide, a unisex cosmetics brand founded in 2018, said: "Our packaging and product development have always tried to be less masculine or feminine, because our philosophy is that gender is more like a constellation. , Not two levels."

Moreover, compared with older consumers, young consumers have a more vague understanding and definition of gender. In 2019, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of 10,000 Americans and found that about 59% of Gen Z said that the form asking for a person’s gender should include options other than “male” and “female”. The proportion of the first generation (22 to 37 in 2018) is 50%, and 37% of the baby boomers (54 to 72 in 2018) also agree with this view.

According to data from NPD Group, although overall sales of cosmetics have declined, sales of skin care products have increased. Larissa Jensen said: "For men, there are not too many obstacles to skin management."

The representative that makes good use of this trend is the Canadian skin care brand the Ordinary, which Larissa Jensen calls "the ultimate genderless skin care." The price of the Ordinary's essences, creams and acid skin care products ranges from US$5 to US$20, and the neutral packaging has also been carefully designed. Nicola Kilner, co-founder and CEO of Deciem, the parent company of the Ordinary, said: “The Ordinary’s ads or social media have never shown professional models or spokespersons. Instead, they use their own employees. Because we feel that our employees represent Our audience: diverse, passionate, love skincare, and ultimately return to human nature."

In addition to color, packaging is also becoming minimal. Larissa Jensen said: "When it comes to skincare packaging trends, it may no longer be pink, black or blue. It should be very clean and very simple."

Steve Seeley, president of Elitefill, a packaging company specializing in cosmetics and skin care products, said: "I think this may be Apple's concept, that is, to convey your message basically, simply and clearly. I think the purpose of the brand is simple: tell what it is. Do it, and then let the product speak for itself."

In addition, the types of products that can be sold to male customers and customers who self-identify as men are also very simple at this stage. According to NPD data, the faster-growing products include liquid foundation (or concealer, etc.), lip glaze, lip balm and eyebrow products, which are all used to create natural makeup.