Rihanna: Pop princess to fashion and beauty mogul

Sophie Aurangzeb on 14 November 2022

Rihanna. For most of us, the name triggers echoes of the iconic early 2000s songs that we all know and love. Her empowering pop music has an undeniable universality about it, guaranteeing everyone up and dancing at a party. But more recently, Rihanna has become known for much more than her brilliant music. Six years (and counting) without a new music release and Rihanna has still managed to remain hyper relevant. Becoming a pioneering figure in fashion and beauty, her empire has allowed her to maintain her space in popular culture. 

Being surrounded by makeup throughout her career, Rihanna saw a huge gap in the market for base makeup which correctly matched deeper skin tones. The lack of products available for people of colour was problematic and astoundingly ignored. As a black woman herself, Rihanna was extremely aware of these issues, and so in 2017 Fenty Beauty was born.

Priding themselves on inclusivity, Fenty Beauty released a foundation which had 40 different shades in their first drop, which has since expanded to 50 shades. Rihanna put long-standing, established beauty brands to shame, paving the way for inclusivity in the beauty industry.

Image Credits: @fentybeauty on Instagram

Fenty Beauty completely changed the game, shaking up the beauty scene from their initial launch. The few cosmetic brands who continue to only stock a small shade range are simply regarded as tone-deaf and undoubtedly make fewer sales than those who followed in Fenty’s footsteps. This change was overdue. It would not be an overstatement to say that Rihanna single-handedly transformed the beauty industry. Using makeup, Rihanna addressed the deeper-rooted issues present within Western culture more broadly. She put a spotlight on the blatant exclusion of black people from the world of makeup, illuminating the fact that this acted as a microcosm for their dismissal from other realms too. 

Sophie Aurangzeb tracks the career of Rihanna, pop star turned beauty industry giant.

Following the complete success of Fenty Beauty, Rihanna’s mission of inclusion and black visibility didn’t stop there. In 2018, Rihanna announced the launch of her new lingerie brand Savage x Fenty. Recognising the unrealistic beauty standards upheld by the fashion industry and perpetuated by mainstream lingerie brands, Savage x Fenty was designed to make everyone feel empowered.

Image Credits: @savagexfenty on Instagram

The runway launch show at New York Fashion Week showcased a range of women which (unlike most runway shows) placed an onus on representation. When asked how she came up with the concept for the show, Rihanna said:

‘I wanted to include every woman. I wanted every woman on the stage with different energies, different races, body types, different stages in their womanhood, culture. I wanted women to feel celebrated and that we started this shit. We own this. This is our land because really it is. Women are running the world right now and it’s too bad for men.’

Rihanna’s mission to make beauty and fashion accessible to everyone is impactful and ongoing. She is using her platform to undo the damaging work of centuries of over-exclusivity in the fashion and beauty industries. She has redefined what it means to be an empowered woman. In 2021, Forbes named Rihanna the ‘wealthiest female musician in the world’, estimating her net worth at $1.7 billion. Rihanna has become a billionaire through her choice to utilise her fame to promote inclusion and include minority groups in conversations from which they have previously been ignored. Rihanna emulates a feeling that she is rooting for everyone. Regardless of your race, gender, sexual orientation or body type, you are never made to feel as though Rihanna’s products aren’t for you. 

No thanks Estrid, we’ll reclaim our own body hair

Fern McErlane on 9 July 2021

‘Hey friend,’ the email read. ‘I’ve got a super-smooth surprise for you.’

It was from Estrid, one of the many ‘revolutionary’ feminine hair removal companies springing up recently. You may yourself have spotted their pastel-pink razors plastered across Instagram or creeping into your DMs.

The offending email was infantilising, playing on Gen-Z terminology to hook in a customer – “we’re like you!” the email screamed. Between liberal rainbow and heart emojis, they denoted themselves as a ‘female-first razor brand that celebrates inclusivity, body positivity, and equality’. They even offered a free razor, all for the low price of an #ad on your personal Instagram account. Now that all sounds good in theory, doesn’t it? But how exactly do they fit into a new era in which empowered personal choice shapes consumerism?

Image credit: Harper’s Bazaar 1922

Though body hair removal has been practiced by women for centuries, only more recently has it become a ‘necessity’ through social stigmatisation. The first female-specific razor was introduced to the market in 1915 by Gillette – the Milady Décolleté. Beneath this flowery name lay the new implication that body hair was unsanitary and unsightly, with shame functioning as a vehicle to further this new industry. Thus, the war against female body hair was born.

Feminine razor and hair removal companies have built their empire by creating a problem and inspiring insecurity. Women shouldn’t be hairy, they told us. Women should be smooth, sleek, sexual. This message stuck, for the most part, until very recently when self-empowerment and body positivity movements changed the game. Body hair removal brands now occupy an uncomfortable space, and have quickly changed tack, with new businesses bubbling up to fill the emergent market gap.

Image credit: Fern McErlane

Gillette now gleefully crows ‘Say pubic!’ on their social media, openly celebrating hair-down-there, and shares ‘feminist icon’ Ruth Bader-Ginsburg quotes. It’s a far cry from the ‘embarrassment’ of female body hair that they previously shilled. Estrid’s Instragram account is flush with carefully curated, aesthetically pleasing images, and memes likely created by an underpaid intern. They do raise valid points surrounding the necessity of vegan, cruelty-free, and sustainable products (something that in my opinion they should focus more upon). Yet, there is no admission from Gillette, or any other brand in the industry, of their part in creating the body hair stigma that they now “fight” against. In the era of real body positivity movements, it cloys of corporate desperation. More importantly, there is an unspoken unwillingness to take the blame. Should we let the same businesses that shamed and politicised our bodies now encourage us to choose for ourselves? It’s important to remember that as appealing these new brands may be, they’re not your friends. They’re selling you something, be it a product, or an idealised lifestyle (attainable only by using said product).

So, to these companies, my takeaway message is: back off. If we want to seek you out, we will. You don’t get to offer us a choice that was our own to make in the first place.

(But thanks for the free razor.)