Cultural Jam – Too Faced Cosmetics Ad
Original Ad
Too Faced is a popular beauty and cosmetics brand marketed towards young women with their vibrant colors, fruity scents and appealing packages. Although the brand claims to liberate from the “too-serious-state of the beauty industry” using unapologetic glamour and femininity, this advertisement of their “natural” collection clearly illustrates the unrealistic and idealized version of what a “feminine” woman should look like after using their make-up products. Putting “natural” in a large cursive font, it is almost ironic for Too Faced to advertise for their “natural” collection given the evident traces of eyeliner, perfectly shaped brows, unnatural glow on the cheeks and shoulders, and most of all Photoshop retouch.
More importantly, this advertisement confines the societal image of an attractive young woman into one specific appearance when everyone’s diversity and uniqueness should be celebrated. The underrepresentation of women of different skin and eye colors shows the lack of racial diversity in this advertisement. The gold choker also attempts to elevate the “class” of this woman, which associates using this brand with higher class. The eeriness of this advertisement comes from how Too Faced tapped into their consumers’ insecurities beyond make-up. The pink background, pose of the young lady and the lace borders sexualize the young woman and serve as subliminal “navigation” to their consumers of what a “natural” beauty should look like, when that image is non-existent in real life. Even after they purchase all the make-up, they will realize that they still don’t look like the girl in the advertisement, which will in turn affect their confidence and worsen their insecurities like a vicious cycle.
Jammed Version
My jammed version of this advertisement intends to reveal the “unnaturalness” in the advertisement in a raw and unfiltered way in hopes to admonish the young consumers who have fallen into the traps of the beauty industry. I first disclosed the deceitfulness of this brand by changing its name from Too Faced to “Too Fake” while pairing that with changing the slogan from “It just comes naturally” to “It just doesn’t come naturally”. While it might seem obvious since the girl in the advertisement was clearly unnatural, I hope to invoke some reflections within the consumer’s mind since we are often numbed to seeing the perfect image in a beauty ad without questioning its authenticity. I also made the girl’s skin even lighter and the added phrase “can’t you see?”, which serves as a rhetorical question to see if people actually notice how unnatural the skin color looks. By exaggerating her skin colour, I hope for the consumers to questions how distorted our standards of beauty have become.
By advertising their products as “natural”, Too Faced targets the guilty mentality of their consumers since they internally realize that wearing make-up is fake and unnatural. In a perfect world, most women desire to wake up flawless without putting on any make up or having the need to conceal any blemishes. This “natural” collection by Too Faced justifies wearing make-up for consumers. Since it is “natural” make up, wearing it is almost like not wearing any make up at all, which mimics the scenario in the perfect world. Overall, my jammed version hopes to subvert the effort of this brand trying to trick their consumers into thinking buying their make-up will make themselves “naturally” pretty. The reality is, no matter how little make-up you put on, you will never be as natural as yourself without any make up on. To empower more women, we need to first be authentic to ourselves and admit that fact that wearing make-up will never be natural and that we should embrace our natural selves more often.
References
Too Faced Branding Statement: https://www.toofaced.com/about-the-founders—story/about-founders-story.html/
Original Image source: https://vergecampus.com/2018/05/top-10-cruelty-free-brands-in-sephora/