July Newsletter: Universal Design

Beauty News: Universal Design in Beauty and Wellness

Following macro skincare/beauty trends lately has been deeply uninteresting. Fast beauty is reaching a feverish peak, with celebrity-backed, over-packaged newness that hasn’t felt new for a long time.

Selma Blair signing on to Guide beauty as the creative director feels like a genuine and exciting partnership that stood out to me in this current climate.

The line focuses on innovative design for people with fine motor difficulties using the philosophy of Universal Design:

a theory that factors for those with the greatest needs with the idea that it leads to better design for all.

This article in Vogue outlines the partnership between Blair and founder Terri Bryant.

The products and tools are both visually stunning and incredibly inventive. It’s pretty rare to see innovations like this that expand the physical accessibility of beauty- Selena Gomez’s (who experiences arthritis in her wrists) circular caps come to mind, or Patrick Star making palettes easy to open with long artificial nails that inadvertently also appeal to people with visual impairments.

It’s not surprising that design focused on expanding inclusiveness in all directions is where the most interesting and exciting innovations are bubbling up.

Links:

A song to do your skincare routine to.

Get this extremely cute book by Very Good Light’s David Yi out of the library. It profiles historical and contemporary men and their beauty and grooming rituals in a breezy and light tone.

Am I getting too off-topic to suggest that you make this Nigella Lawson egg recipe? Its really, so good.