Rihanna Is Finally Blessing Us With Fenty Skin [UPDATED]
She's making summer 2020 less bad.
Attention Rihanna fans and Fenty Beauty fans (that's just about everyone, right?): Fenty Skin officially has a launch date. And it's soon — July 31, to be exact.
On Tuesday, the singer/designer/beauty disruptor announced the forthcoming launch of her long-awaited skin-care line, a brand separate from the existing Fenty Beauty color cosmetics range, with its own dedicated Instagram handle and website to make that ultra-clear. Finally, a bright spot amidst the dismal, can-you-believe-this-shit? darkness of 2020.
Rihanna posted a video of herself, fresh-faced, going through the steps of her skin-care routine, on Instagram on Tuesday. "Ima try my best to be humble about this but, @fentyskin is coming July 31st exclusively at FENTYSKIN.COM!!" she wrote.
While the details of the range have not yet been announced, from the video teaser, there appears to be a creamy cleanser, some sort of hydrating essence or serum and a moisturizer. (Also, according to Rihanna, it's totally fine to leave all your rings on while you're doing your full routine — something that seems quite brave to me, a chronic ruiner of nice things.)
There are also indications that, in true Rihanna form and like Fenty Beauty before it, Fenty Skin seeks to be an inclusive game-changer in its category. When a fan tweeted asking if Rihanna would be creating a separate skin-care range catering to men, the star responded to indicate that her products are for all people: "Whoever told you skincare has a gender, LIED to you!"
Rihanna has been teasing Fenty Skin for quite awhile now. She most recently spoke about it in an interview with British Vogue when she appeared on the magazine's cover last March. She hinted that getting skin-care formulas up to Fenty standards hadn't been easy: "Skin care, it's the truth. It either works or it doesn't. There's nowhere to hide."
She's not wrong: Consumers are arguably more educated than ever on the subject of skin care and if there's any lesson to have been learned from Kylie Jenner's foray into the category via Kylie Skin, it's that just because people are committed fans of a celebrity or of a color cosmetics line doesn't mean they'll automatically buy into skin products from the same brand. (Critics were quick to criticize Jenner's skin-care offerings, a walnut scrub in particular.)
Fenty Skin will make its debut exclusively on FentySkin.com on July 31, where fans can also sign up now for email alerts to stay in the know.
UPDATE, Monday, July 20, 8:47 a.m.: Over the weekend, Fenty Skin released campaign imagery and videos to tease the upcoming product launch. The short film — aka the closest thing we will get to a Rihanna music video anytime soon — shows Rihanna hanging poolside with a crew of gorgeous, dewy-skinned people. The video also touts Fenty as "The New Culture of Skincare."
While the visuals don't reveal much about the specifics of the product formulas, they do reveal just how inclusive Fenty Skin will be and underscore the fact that it is genderless, with none other than A$AP Rocky and Lil Nas X serving as two (of many) faces of the brand. "That's right baby...@fentyskin is for my fellas too! No matter who you are, you deserve to have great skin!" Rihanna captioned a campaign photo featuring herself alongside A$AP Rocky on Instagram.
The campaign also features a slew of big-name talent: Halima Aden, Paloma Elsesser, Jazzelle, Tommy Genesis, Asianna Scott, Eniola Abioro and Renell Medran, among others.
On Sunday, Rihanna posted a photo of herself from the Fenty Skin campaign on Instagram, glow-y skinned as ever, with a caption about what went into creating the Fenty Skin lineup.
"I've been working on @fentyskin for over 2 years, perfecting formulas and creating packaging that is kind to our planet!!" she wrote. "Formulas that work, and work well with makeup!!! Everything starts with the foundation that is your skin and we all know how obsessed I am with beautiful, healthy skin- so whether you want to wear makeup, or no makeup at all, there’s always glowing skin underneath."
While the names of the products have yet to be released, internet beauty sleuth @TrendMood1 screen grabbed images from the campaign video to examine, concluding that the three-product Fenty Skin lineup includes "Total Cleanser," "Fat Water Toner" and "Day Cream with SPF." Promising, intriguing, exciting things happening in the skin-care world (if not the actual world) right now.
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