Each year, more than 120 billion units of packaging are produced by the global cosmetics industry, and each year 120 billion celebrities trademark their names to start a beauty line. Or at least it feels like that. Regardless, the beauty industry has a plastic problem. And celebrities have a beauty-line problem.
It makes sense—who better to sell beauty products than the world’s most beautiful people? You can only make a living by looking hot and exploiting common people’s insecurities for so long before deciding to really capitalize on your God/Dr. Garth Fisher–given gifts by selling products that give consumers the false hope that they, too, could look as flawless as you.
About 95 percent of plastic packaging is thrown out after one use cycle. (This is an actual statistic.) Even worse, we have been programmed to believe that things like putting on a single-use face mask at the end of the day is self-care. Waste is something that should be of the utmost importance when we shop for beauty products, but also: we’re only human! We seemingly can’t resist the temptation to look like celebrities who are hot enough to have beauty lines.
You can only make a living by looking hot for so long before deciding to really capitalize on your God/Dr. Garth Fisher–given gifts.
The unfortunate truth is that no Allure beauty-award product is going to make us look like Zendaya. So the celebrities must be stopped.
We’re good on makeup lines, skin-care “must-haves,” and life-changing hair products. The formulas are all the same, and we’ve invented, like, six new colors over the last thousand years, so I really can’t imagine anyone bringing anything new to eye shadow, no matter how many Instagram followers they have.
So as Kylie Cosmetics continues to fill up our oceans, it’s time for celebrity beauty shamans to start thinking outside the box. Like Lily Allen selling sex toys outside the box. If you’re a famous person who believes there’s absolutely nothing else for you in this world besides beauty (or alcohol or tie-dye merch), have no fear: there are plenty of things you can do to expand your brand that won’t end up in a landfill or ocean.
1.
Weed
Weed is great for your likability rating. Seth Rogen just launched his cannabis company in the U.S., and this is the nicest Twitter has been to a white guy since those two days after meme star Ken Bone first appeared on TV at 2016’s second presidential debate (and before we found out what kind of porn he watched).
Weed is grown and then smoked, leaving almost nothing behind except for some bad ideas scribbled in a notepad. Plus, it just became legal in New York. Not that laws apply to you. Celebrities love New York! It’s the city they live in to signify they are more down-to-earth and chill than their L.A. friends!
The marijuana business is a particularly good route to take if you’re a Disney star trying to rebrand. Olivia Rodrigo, I highly recommend this in a couple of years. Would definitely try your weed.
2.
Fortune-Telling/Astrology Reading
If you’re good at being famous, I’m going to go ahead and assume people are almost always buying your bullshit, so why not feed them some real bullshit, like astrology? If I’ve learned anything from the continued success of Co-Star, the personalized astrology app dealing in real-time horoscopes, it’s that the public will believe readings written by anyone because we’re obsessed with hearing about ourselves. If you’re a beloved celeb or, even better, a celeb that is beloved ironically, this is the route for you.
3.
NFTs
If you’re a cool celebrity, like the college-educated or the type the Internet favors, this is your next business move—in a few years, because I heard the carbon footprint is huge, but they’re working on it. I am too stupid to understand what an NFT is, and I refuse to join Clubhouse, so I probably never will. What I do know about NFTs is that they are making people a lot of money, and that a lot of the time they are just pictures that you can’t hold or hang on your wall.
So with that I’m also going to suggest any celeb who secretly had a baby over quarantine find a way to sell those pregnancy pics as an NFT. Why not actually make some money from your photo announcement and even that first breastfeeding pic? It doesn’t have to stop with social media’s praising what a beautiful new mommy you are—your baby can now have a purpose outside of Instagram. What a time to be alive.
4.
Gwyneth Paltrow–Size Sunscreen
If you feel you must do skin care because you genuinely have nothing else to offer this world, how about a sustainably packaged mini-sunscreen containing only the amount that Gwyneth Paltrow suggests you need on your face, “where the sun really hits.” The amount is so little that your company will barely cause any waste. Just make sure it’s reef-safe.
5.
A Production Company
If you feel like every actor under the sun has a production company, it’s because they do! This is a strong choice if you are not a big enough celeb to have a product and want to be taken seriously. From my little research, it seems that in order to have a production company all you need is to have acted in one project. Find a goofy, semi-ironic name, or just throw random words together, like every writer on Twitter’s username, and say you have stuff “in the works.” It’ll pass for totally legit.
6.
Natural Deodorant
I’m 10 years into my quest for a zero-waste, all-natural deodorant that works, and I have not found it. Everyone thinks they found the one that works, but I either end up smelling like whatever sandalwood is, mixed with my body odor, or rosewater seagrass, mixed with my body odor. Why does no one make anything we actually need? Is it because celebs don’t want us picturing them smelling bad? Hailey Bieber, please drop whatever Bieber beauty line you just trademarked and make Bieber Pits happen. We will support you.
7.
Use Your Car Collection for Uber Pool
This is only for celebs with multiple cars; i.e., all the Kardashians and Jerry Seinfeld. If you don’t have a large car collection but have a large property, may I suggest biodiverse farming? I personally would travel to Montecito for Oprah’s peaches.
8.
Biodegradable Coffins
A cool route to go in if you’re a musician. Doing something that is good for the environment but also has death vibes is very rock ’n’ roll—and of the moment.
9.
A Waste-Free Skin-Care-and-Beauty Line
How about instead of shaming celebrities for their bodies or out-of-context statements in interviews, we shame them for producing more waste in the world? All anyone (a celebrity) wants is to be loved (not get in trouble), so why not take advantage of that?
If you start a skin-care or beauty line that is not waste-free in 2021, you should know the consequences at least as well as you can anticipate the response for posting a picture of yourself with an unrealistically bent fence in the background. You could be the celeb that not only monetizes off people’s trying to look better but also makes a bar of face wash or shampoo that is actually cool, that actually works, and that people can actually afford.
We aren’t royals. We don’t need a tiny little plastic spoon in a tiny little plastic container of serum that also comes wrapped in two layers of plastic. Calling all moral celebrities! Shailene?! We are ready for your raspberries wrapped in edible paper for lipstick.
Cazzie David is a columnist for AIR MAIL and the author of No One Asked for This
