Skims Have Released Shapewear...For Your Face: Why You Should Fear the Facewrap
The beauty industry is ever evolving into something more dystopian than before, and nothing supports this more than Skims' new shapewear…for your face. It does beg the question, what on earth is going on here? Whilst it feels like the lack of self-awareness couldn’t run any deeper, the way Skims – and every other beauty company owned by the Kardashians – is run is deviously clever and intricately thought out. The way the Kardashian family operates is, in itself, very much like a business. As we all know, businesses profit from insecurities and the needs or wants of consumers. It’s here that the Kardashians have the perfect set-up. They double up as influencers and businesses in one. They have a huge influence online; the entire Kardashian family combined has an online reach of 1.55 billion people. Exposure means having a voice and influence over people, which, in the case of the Kardashians, means they can set beauty trends and standards, then sell products that encourage the masses to follow them. They’ve created a foolproof system which allows them to stay consistently ahead of the competition.
Let’s talk sleepmaxxing. For those unsure of what this word is, sleepmaxxing was the once moderately healthy trend of trying to improve our sleep quality by buying blackout curtains, eye masks, and white noise machines. As always, when beauty companies and TikTok get a hold of something, this trend has now been beautified into what has been rebranded as the ‘morning shed’ or ‘looksmaxxing’. Uncomfortable-looking heatless curl hair rods, oily overnight hair and face masks, lip stains, detox patches, and, of course, the latest addition, the facial wrap, have all become a part of this nightly routine. Skims ‘face wrap’ gives you ‘strong, targeted compression for shaping and sculpting’, for the meagre price of £52. The timing around this release wasn’t an accident; with influencers around the globe seeming to compete for the title of craziest ‘morning shed’ routines on TikTok, the trend has become a viral beauty sensation. Young women all over the globe are creating their very own sleepmaxxing routines to glow up overnight and become a new, snatched version of themselves. The Kardashians, as we all know, are clever when it comes to business and marketing. If there’s a new viral trend, they’re going to be all over it. Face wraps had already broken into the market before Skims however. The brand Skin Gym realised its ‘Morning Shed Chin Strap’ months before, which has apparently sold out and been restocked a couple of times now, clearly showing the product's popularity before Skims stepped into the face wrap scene. However, Skims had something that no other brand did: Kim Kardashian. Consumers trust faces they know; this is why you see the Kardashians plastered on every TV, ad, billboard or magazine. Their presence in people’s daily lives makes them feel like a trusted source…Dare I say, a friend? There’s a reason the face wraps sold out instantly.
In an era of ‘clean beauty’, we’re all about fresh faces, no-makeup-makeup, and natural ingredients. Skims’ new face wrap is clearly heavily influenced by this. It’s influenced by the world of plastic surgery. Clean beauty now equates to affording plastic surgery to look effortlessly beautiful 24 hours a day. Face wraps have historically been used for post-surgery compression, for both medical and aesthetic procedures. Ever wondered why the Kardashians have been relatively hush-hush about their plastic surgery? It’s because if consumers knew what procedures they were having done, they might finally realise that it’s not the products they sell to you that make them look the way they do, it’s the millions they spend on plastic surgery. However, the majority of Kim K fans aren’t wealthy enough to be splashing out up to £800 on dermal fillers every 6 to 12 months. She knows this, and she also knows that if she labels her product as a ‘face wrap for shaping’ rather than a ‘post-surgery compression wrap’, she’s going to appeal to a much wider audience. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work…“It can give the jawline a slightly more contoured look for a short time,” said Dr. Konstantin Vasyukevich, a facial plastic surgeon, noting that “the effects only last a few hours at most.”...what matters is people believe it will. Not only that, but the consumers who can afford plastic surgery may also see the appeal in it. Whilst it doesn’t have the anti-bacterial element that real face wraps supplied by doctors have, at least it’s infused with collagen! You couldn’t make this up.
Let’s revert back to my point about the Kardashian family running like a business. In business terms, Kris Jenner is the holding company, and her daughters are the subsidiaries. The relationship between them is in many ways transactional; It’s no secret that she's known as their ‘momanger’. In fact, Kris Jenner has been on the record saying she takes 10% of all of her family's business profits. Forbes writes in this profile piece, “According to multiple industry sources, Jenner, who sits on the board of each of her kids’ businesses, gets 10% of gross revenue from every product, TV show or modelling gig in which her family participates, in exchange for helping build out staffing and supply chains.” Kris doesn’t run her own business; her primary job is to own and control her daughters’. If she benefits from their profits, she’s going to encourage them to make as much money as possible, much like a holding company would with its subsidiaries. This kind of relationship threatens to be a confused one. This is an important context to have when discussing how we’ve got to the point of seeing facial sculpting wraps on the market. The Kardashians are more business than family. They’ve managed to balance themselves precariously on the line between influencer and businesswoman; The ultimate ‘girlboss,’ you might say. This gives them the fantastic advantage of being able to set trends, a huge percentage of which come from general aesthetic insecurities. There are new ones every day…too fat, not curvy enough, hair too fine, hair too kinky, lips too skinny, nose not small enough, jaw not sharp enough. Have I hit on yours yet? When someone has the power to set new beauty standards, but also has the money to be able to place themselves as the goalpost for them, then we have a problem. This worsens, however, when these same people are the CEO’s of businesses that produce commercial products claiming to ‘fix’ these insecurities. Especially when these products don’t align with how the makers ‘fixed’ these insecurities on themselves. For those of you thinking this is a bit of a reach, there’s plenty of proof out there of them creating drama that they can market off of. Is this not the same thing? As this BBC article put it, ‘the fact is, the scandal shifted units.’
Influencers influence people to buy products; it’s kind of in the name, but I think we forget it sometimes. They’re not there to be your friend. They’re there to influence you and to get paid by beauty and cosmetics companies. In fact, it’s not abnormal to have parent and subsidiary companies in the beauty industry; “The industry is moderately concentrated, with the top four players — L’Oréal, Estée Lauder, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever — holding nearly half (48.9%) of the market share.” This is an interesting statistic when you consider that the top 7 major leaders in the beauty industry (the four above included) own 182 beauty companies. And most
of them are names you will know, most likely use and hear influencers repping on your TikTok feed. It’s a small world, huh? The Kardashians' own beauty empire is just a reflection of the larger beauty industry as a whole.
Business models will continue to work as they do while capitalism runs this world. Making money will always be at the forefront of company decisions and marketing. The Kardashian’s business-influencer-family structure sets them up perfectly in this capitalistic society. Face Wraps were around before Skims released one, but they were just another step in a beauty routine. Once Kim Kardashian released hers, they became the step in the routine. Once again, the Kardashians have arrived on a trend, largely set up by themselves, and conquered the market by supplying the products to help people follow this trend. The public loves them because they aspire to be them, and the beauty companies love them because they make them money. Welcome to the world of capitalism!
Written by Shan Victoria
