In 2016, Victoria Beckham dipped her fashionable toes into the world of beauty with a small but beautiful collaboration with Estee Lauder. It was a runaway success – pretty much selling out everywhere. Three years on and she’s back in the beauty business. This time however, its with her highly anticipated standalone beauty brand, Victoria Beckham Beauty. And take it from us, it is worth the wait.
The beauty offering from the designer (read our full review HERE) is every bit as covetable, chic and considered as hereponymous fashion line. But this is just the beginning. Expect lips in October, skincare in November and in the months to come, a full beauty and wellnessoffering that will take every woman’s beauty regime to the next level. Because this very much is a female championing brand hence the co-founder and CEO aka Victoria’s partner in crime, is Sarah Creal, a former beauty executive at Estee Lauder.
Glamour UK spoke exclusively to Sarah to get the lowdown on the hottest beauty launch of the season. From environmentally conscious formulas to championing ageless (not anti-aging) beauty, here is EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW about Victoria Beckham Beauty…
1. It’s the beauty brand of the future…
The way Victoria and I started talking about this was, ‘How do you envisage this company and what would our ideal beauty company be in 10 years? What would it look like?’ It would be clean; it would be sustainably sourced with sustainable packaging. The ingredients would be ethically sourced. It would have an offering for all skin tones. And if we can’t be there on day one, at least we know where we are going.
2. It’s for women who love beauty…
We wanted this to be something which came from two women who love beauty and wear make-up. We had a great time working together and we had a joint vision of ‘what is beautiful.’ This (line) is not about , ‘I just woke up like this.’ There is effort being made and there’s joy of actually putting on ‘a little something, something,’ and feeling great.
3. It has a strong self care message…
It’s not about putting on makeup and being objectified in a static position by the male gaze. Historically that is what beauty brands have been based on. We wanted to create a range that really fuelled our customer’s life across makeup and skincare, and ultimately for someone who wants to take care of themselves. This is something that stemmed from Victoria; she cares for herself; she cares for her family and it translates into the little details of the products, too.
4. It’s #Notperfect…
NotPerfect means formulations, packaging and the way we need to start looking at ourselves. We are trying very hard to be environmentally conscious however it is a work in progress. The industry is not as far along as we would like and the whole circle of supply makes it challenging but we are trying. For instance, In EU standards there are around 1300 ingredients you can’t use. On top of that list there are twenty ingredients we could use but we didn’t use. That’s because we read a lot of literature over whether ingredients were safe or not safe. If there was any doubt on ingredients, we didn’t use them. That was our strong vision.
5. It’s focused on sustainability…
The line uses minimal plastic. The compact has no plastic in it whatsoever and that is a fantastic development. Again, it’s not perfect and there are certain things we can’t avoid like plastic pumps but we have our eye on the prize to make things refillable or reusable without adding to the stream of material creation. All the cardboard is 100% post-consumer waste board. Right now, in the industry, you might order a product that is 100% organic and it arrives covered in plastic. We want to streamline the packaging – the compact is smaller than a credit card and we don’t want packaging filled with plastic and 100 times the size. We are looking at a 100% biodegradable pack out material that when you put it under running water it completely dissolves. I I hope we keep surprising people like that.
6. It is AGAINST anti-aging and anti anti-wrinkle messaging…
This was a very conscious choice. I am going to be 50 years old in November and Victoria is in her mid-forties and that’s nothing to be ashamed. . There is this underlying speak in the beauty business that you should just be forever 21 years old – that’s what women are dealing with. I want to be my age. It’s about owning your own experience, owning your own lines and realising that beautiful skin doesn’t mean wrinkle free skin.
7. It’s a beauty campaign with minimal retouching…
When you look at the imagery, we have captured it all extremely up close. And I thought, ‘Go Victoria! That is awesome!’ She hasn’t edited out her wrinkles. She does do a lot to take care of herself – you can’t just slap on a cream and say, ‘done,’ to get that kind of glow. You need to eat well, eat the salmon, eat the vegetables and the nuts etc. in order for your body to reflect your state of health.
8. It has been tested on every skin type… every skin type…
We are a small and mighty team of seven here in New York. Our head of product development went to a make-up artistry school here, in New Jersey, with the products completely blind. So, no one knew what the products were. They played with the products throughout the day and tested it on every skin type. And then we formulated it and created it, for EVERYONE.
Victoria Beckham Beauty is available exclusively on VictoriaBeckham.com now
