Are beauty products inclusive enough in 2023? The founder and creative of Creative Jam shares her thoughts on how brands can improve.
After what was arguably the most inclusive and progressive New Zealand Fashion Week in the event’s two-decade history, with the highest number of disabled models ever booked to grace the runway, a spotlight shines on the need for these trailblazing steps to become the norm, both in Aotearoa and abroad.
Sixteen per cent of the world’s population lives with a disability, and according to The Ministry of Health NZ, almost one-quarter (24 per cent) of New Zealanders have some form of long-lasting impairment. Fashion and beauty marketing is certainly working towards more inclusivity in terms of featuring models and ‘real people’ of different races, ages and abilities in campaigns, but when it comes to the products themselves, are they inclusive enough?
In January this year, the world’s latest cosmetics company, L’Oreal, unveiled two new technology prototypes for people with limited hand and arm mobility: HAPTA, a handheld makeup applicator designed to help the 50 million people around the world who live with limited fine motor skills to apply lipstick at home; and L’Oreal Brow Magic, the first at-home electronic eyebrow makeup applicator that provides users with customised brow looks in seconds.
Estee Lauder, the world’s second-largest cosmetics company, has also launched its voice-enabled makeup assistant, an AI-powered tool for the blind and visually impaired. The app offers audio feedback on foundation, eyeshadow and lipstick application in real-time, guiding users through their makeup application process and recommending touch-ups if needed along the way. At this point in time, both L’Oreal and Estee Lauder’s technologies are being trialled in the US and UK, and are not yet available in New Zealand.
For those not part of the disability community, these apps and innovations may at first seem trivial, but for visually impaired businesswoman Laura Feavearyear, the thought of having an app at her fingertips that helps her to be more independent is a game-changer.
“When you spend a lot of your time relying on other people to do everyday tasks for you, you don’t feel like you’re fully a person, if that makes sense,” she says. “So being able to get up, do makeup, get dressed, get in a car, take your son to daycare, go to a meeting, come home and not have to ask anyone to help you with something is just the most wonderful feeling in the world.”
Laura was born with bilateral coloboma, a condition that affects both eyes and causes the image to get lost as it is processed through to the back of the eye. Her vision isn’t blurry, but some shapes, she says, are not recognised. She can’t read street signs or a newspaper and can’t drive. Despite having been through two rounds of cataract surgery, her vision isn’t able to be corrected with glasses or lenses.
When purchasing beauty products, Laura tends to go off what a trusted friend recommends, or she’ll visit a skin specialist to be prescribed her skincare. Her vision isn’t clear enough to confidently apply makeup herself, so she often seeks help from friends or asks her husband to give her feedback on her application skills — something that an AI-powered app could also assist with. This year, she has been setting aside time every week, with the help of YouTube videos that guide those who are visually impaired, to learn how to do her makeup herself.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.“We’re all pretty as we are but to be able to put makeup on and look the part gives you that extra boost of confidence as a businesswoman,” says Laura, who is the creative director and founder of graphic design company Creative Jam. “It’s literally been me sticking an hour in my diary during the week to sit down and work out how to put makeup on.”
As a graphic designer who creates packaging for FMCG brands, including those in the beauty space, Laura says there are a number of things that brands can do to help make it easier for the visually impaired to be able to choose and use their products.
“One of the main things is to consider how the packaging is laid out with the size of the information, and whether there’s any room for something like braille or large prints, or even a QR code that could be scanned,” she says.
French beauty company L’Occitane has, since 1997, been printing braille on many of their products and there’s a service through Blind Low Vision NZ that can translate text into braille for brands and the general public. Adding a QR code to packaging not only means that you can send the user to a website for more information rather than using a small font, but brands can link to information about application and ingredients with a video or voiceover for those with low vision.
“Social media would [also] be a great place for people to create more accessibility by having a video on how to use a product that has a voiceover that’s really simple, or large texts on posts and things like that, because it’s not just the packaging that people with low vision will be able to access,” adds Laura.
“[I’m always] talking to clients these days about how we can make things accessible. As the world gets a little bit more accepting of everybody in every shape and every size, it’s nice to know that I’m in a career where I can help make some change.”
