As a young female, I often find myself strolling down the aisles at Sephora, checking out the endless array of new makeup products, swatching colours, and seeing what new technologies companies market to appeal to our beauty needs. I’m no stranger to bizarre makeup trends, but when I came across a particular product and scoffed at its ridiculousness.

Two Faced Selfie Powder

Marketers have been appealing to women’s insecurities, fantasies, and aspirations for a very long time. But how can some yellow powder make you look like an instagram filter? Who would believe this marketing mumbo jumbo? I recently read an article in the New York Times, “Makeup for the Selfie Generation” by Courtney Rubin and it made a little more sense. Products such as Too Faced’s Selfie Powder and the “iPhone Test” are representative of technological and social age we live in. With the immense influencing power of beauty bloggers, instagrammers, and Youtubers, the performance of a product in front of the lens is more important than ever. Cosmetic companies not only have to test makeup under normal conditions, but make sure that their products “play with light, offering photo finishes or airbrush effects that claim to make wearers camera-ready.” According to industry experts, this isn’t a passing fad. So you can prepare to see more hashtags on the shelves and photo-ready powders.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/fashion/selfie-new-test-makeup.html