Good for her!
Amber Rose, Donald Robertson team up for new Flirt Cosmetics brand
Controversy comes to the house that Estée built. The Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. is using not one, but two digital influencers to launch its splashy, new repurposed brand, Flirt Cosmetics, Monday evening.
Donald Robertson — or “Drawbertson,” as he’s known on Instagram by his 179,000 followers — is creative director of the company, and Amber Rose is the face of it. Together, they will reveal Flirt Flashes, the first product to debut under the Flirt Cosmetics brand, a stand-alone company that is not affiliated with Estée Lauder.
According to the brand, the mission is to “bridge the gap between beauty and the massive entity that is social media,” and thanks to Rose’s 12.1 million Instagram followers and a direct-to-consumer e-commerce model, this could become a reality.
This marks the first time the beauty giant will introduce a brand born online with e-commerce as its only sales channel with two influencers at the helm.
The brand held a launch event at The Box on the Lower East Side Monday night, where
John Demsey, executive group president at the Estée Lauder Cos. Inc., Robertson and Rose got on the stage usually reserved for burlesque performances to introduce the concept to guests.
Demsey called Flirt Cosmetics an online brand created for a “new generation” that’s powered by social media. After reading a cover story on Rose, he immediately had Robertson link up with her on social media — the artist’s forte. (He introduced friends Ashley Hicks and Katalina de Solis on Instagram last year; they got engaged after two weeks and he officiated the wedding).
The rest was “social media history,” according to Demsey.
“When he [Robertson] approached me with the idea I was like, I’m tatted, bald headed, I talk about sex like really raunchy — but I’m very sex positive — but I just speak my mind. Are you sure you want me for your brand? I’m not sure. I have SlutWalk and s–t,” Rose said with a laugh, quickly adding: “It’s the perfect match. I am their modern-day woman. My 12 million Instagram followers get it.”
Roberston pointed out that the brand will roll out a series of “hit products” versus a “big dump” of SKUs, or stockkeeping units, all at once. The intention is to get a hero product out there and have people reviewing and using it before unveiling the next item, he explained.
He likened Flirt Flashes to a “staple gun for the eyelashes but without the staples and the gun.” But the handheld device actually looks like a Wite-Out dispenser that lets the wearer control how many and where they want to apply their lash buds, which each contain three little clusters of lashes.
“It’s for people who aren’t super hardcore makeup, but who want to be able to apply these things….It’s hard to come up with new stuff; you are jaded people. What are we going to do, come up with an eye palette and wow you?” Robertson said.
He added: “I’m sure if you don’t have eyelashes, Amber has a million uses for this for you.”
Estée Lauder doesn’t seem to be irked by the fact that much of Rose’s celebrity has been criticized for being of the unsavory variety. She’s made headlines for exchanging insults and obscenities with ex-boyfriend Kanye west via Twitter and was embroiled in a long-standing feud with West’s current wife, Kim Kardashian (the two have since buried the hatchet).
She’s also been vocal about “slut shaming,” and hosted her own SlutWalk in October — the event sold out by drawing several thousand attendees — to raise awareness for sexual violence, victim blaming and gender inequality.
But above all else, she’s a digital influencer with millions of Instagram followers, which appears to ***** any fight with West or Kardashian.
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http://www.latimes.com/fashion/la-ig-flirt-cosmetics-20160816-snap-story.html