Holding beauty brand names up to the mirror
It’s been ?? weeks of sheltering in place, and we’ve all spent a little more time with ourselves than we ever wanted. Some of that time has been spent in the bathroom, starting at the mirror, wondering — has that freckle always been there? Is it possible to over-tweeze? Is glittery eyeshadow still a thing? How old is too old to wear that?
Even when we have nowhere to go and no one to impress, the beauty industry remains resilient thanks to a boom in self-care and DIY products. In between moments of self-pampering, many of us have also been cleaning house — and we’re now intimately familiar with the contents of our bathroom drawers.
I dug through the abyss of samples and half-empty (sorry, I mean half-full…things are great!) bottles of product and it sent me down a rabbit hole of cosmetic naming. Since we’ve got nowhere to go, let’s organize our drawers by name, shall we?
The call of nature
Cosmetics is a hugely crowded industry and “natural” brands make up a huge part of it. What “natural” means, ingredient-wise, is hotly debated — so I’m just talking about the front label. These names make us feel like we’ve stepped into a garden of healing and eternal youth.
Herbivore Botanicals
Earth’s Nectar
Farmacy
Isle of Paradise
Moon Juice
Naturally Serious
Earth Tu Face
The old guard
So many of us grew up around these brands, and in turn, became loyal to them. For new cosmetics brands breaking into the market, these are their white whales. Unfortunately, no new brand comes pre-loaded with multigenerational love. The best solution is to avoid zeitgeisty naming trends and build something that will still feel relevant in 2120.
Rimmel (est. 1834)
Kiehl’s (est. 1851)
Shiseido (est. 1872)
Maybelline (est. 1915)
Revlon (est. 1932)
Estée Lauder (est. 1946)
Clinique (est. 1968)
The no-nonsense
There’s something nice about the simplicity of these names. They feel clean without outright saying “we’re clean.” It’s probably because they’re mostly short or common words — the trademark dream. Some attorneys out there deserve gold stars for somehow making these words protectable.
Milk
Philosophy
Verde
Origins
Benefit
The Ordinary
Verb
The namesake
Plenty of celebrities and makeup artists have seen success by simply putting their own names on their products. Why spend a big marketing budget on trying to explain that it’s you? At A Hundred Monkeys we often compare brands to people, and in this case, these people already come with a huge following.
Fenty Beauty
Laura Mercier
Kylie Cosmetics
Bobbi Brown
Iman Cosmetics
Tyra Beauty
Anastasia Beverly Hills
The not-my-namesake
Some household names have chosen not to have their names in our households. It’s possible they saw the potential to reach more people this way — by not alienating anyone who isn’t already a fan. That, or they realized how fun (albeit difficult) naming a company can be. When you’re a celebrity with a powerful legal team, you might just have a better chance of trademarking the name of your dreams.
Haus Laboratories (Lady Gaga)
goop (although honestly at this point it’s pretty synonymous with Gwyneth Paltrow)
KORA Organics (Miranda Kerr)
Pattern Beauty (Tracee Ellis Ross)
The Honest Company (Jessica Alba)
Flower Beauty (Drew Barrymore)
Rare Beauty (Selena Gomez)
The wild cards
By now it’s clear that standing out in this industry is really hard. These brands get some kudos for being risk-takers and using language that doesn’t scream “beauty” (even if the trademark landscape forced their hand a bit). If and when we can shop in stores again, these names will continue jumping off the shelves.
Drunk Elephant
Uncle Funky’s Daughter
HoliFrog
Juliette Has a Gun
Urban Decay
Captain Blankenship
Grown Alchemist
It turns out, the names that grace our bathroom cabinets have gone through a lot to get there. Beauty brands face all of the typical naming challenges (like figuring out who they are and how they’re different) while also weathering a severe trademark storm and then hoping people will actually put these products on their skin.
Luckily, a name does not a brand make. There are plenty of other brand elements to help people decide which glittery eyeshadow is best for an exciting night in.
