Fandom: the community or subculture that surrounds a tv show, movie or book.
For years fandoms have congregated to celebrate and discuss in local bookstores, coffee shops, Internet chat rooms, waiting in long lines at movie theaters or crowded around television screens. More recently, fandoms have successfully started making their way into a territory many never expected they would go: the beauty aisle.
Pop culture, movie, book and fairytale makeup collections have been popping up left and right over the past several years. And beauty consumers cannot get enough.
Storybook Cosmetics is a makeup brand focused solely on these types of makeup collections. Earlier this year, Storybook launched a Wizardry and Witchcraft eyeshadow palette that fans started pre-ordering three months in advance. The brand also launched Wizard Wands (aka makeup brushes) to accompany the palette, some of which are currently sold out on the brand’s website.
Storybook’s most recent palettes include the Mean Girls Burn Book Storybook Palette and the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Storybook palette. According to its Instagram, upcoming projects include a Hunger Games collection, a dragon collection and a palette inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Lorac Cosmetics has also jumped on the movie-themed bandwagon with its Disney Beauty and the Beast and Disney Pirates of the Carribean collections. In 2015, Covergirl launched a Star Wars collection. All the way back in 2010, MAC debuted its Venomous Villains Collection featuring Cruella de Vil, Maleficent and The Evil Queen from Snow White.
As this trend continues to grow and the launches get buzzier, pop culture makeup collections are proving to be a fun—and lucrative—way for brands to appeal to consumers by letting their fandom flags fly.
Bésame Cosmetics, a luxury vintage makeup brand based in California, recently teamed up with Disney to commemorate the 80th anniversary of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" with the Snow White 1937 Collection. Global Cosmetic Industry talked with Bésame’s founder, Gabriela Hernandez, about why pop culture themed makeup collections are so appealing to today’s beauty consumers.
For those unfamiliar with Bésame Cosmetics, can you explain what being a luxury vintage makeup brand is all about?
Gabriela Hernandez (GH): Bésame is a company based on things that have to do with history or things that have stories. We're more storytellers than we are makeup manufacturers. We like to transport people back to a different time or to different characters and how they were interpreted during that time.
Bésame recently launched the Snow White 1937 Collection. What was the thought process of choosing Snow White specifically? Why Disney?
In your opinion, why are pop culture/movie/book themed cosmetic collections so popular right now? Why do they appeal to beauty consumers?
Would you be open to the possibility of other collections similar to the Snow White 1937 Collection? Is this something Bésame fans seem to be interested in or excited about?
GH: The response to this collection has been tremendous. We have sold out of the book and other products in the collection are close to being gone as well. I didn't expect this kind of response at all when I started working on this. I'm surprised people are such hardcore fans of Snow White.
