Beauty and wellness have gradually merged in recent years as consumers continue to look for wellness practices in new corners of their lives. Now, some beauty brands are harnessing what benefits beauty can have on emotions, identity, and mental wellness, transforming traditional products and beauty-talk etiquette into a movement of self care.

Beauty as an emotion is a really cool thing to see come alive for people.

Stephanie Lee

Founder and CEO of Selfmade

Selfmade, a psychodermatology brand, is paving a new way for brands and consumers to talk about beauty. “[Selfmade uses] psychodermatology as the window into our emotional world,” Selfmade founder and CEO Stephanie Lee tells VML Intelligence. “We’re using our skin as data points into our emotional world in order to truly take care of ourselves in a deeper way.”

Each of Selfmade’s products is paired with a core behavioral concept – a direct correlation meant to evoke a new beauty prescription for consumers, and “to change the definition of 'what is beautiful' to 'feeling beautiful,’” Lee says. “Beauty as an emotion is a really cool thing to see come alive for people.”

Beauty, to me, is a feeling.

Kyle Leahy

Glossier CEO

Glossier CEO Kyle Leahy spoke to Glossy about the brand’s approach to beauty. “Beauty, to me, is a feeling. I have a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old. I [think about] how I want them to feel in the world, how I want them to feel about themselves, how brands can play a role in elevating confidence and how a beauty company, in particular, can help drive that.”

Neuroscents are on the rise, created purposefully to invoke feelings from those who indulge in them. A candle by Boy Smells and Kin Euphorics was created and released in March as part of a “mood-boosting” collection called Emotional Illuminations. Each candle, when paired with a dedicated nootropics-infused beverage from Kin Euphorics, “leads [the consumer] toward a desired emotional, psychological, spiritual and physical place,” Boy Smells cofounder Matthew Herman said in an interview with WWD.

I love to create worlds.

Isamaya Ffrench

Isamaya Ffrench spoke about creating beauty that inspires others on The Glossy Beauty Podcast. She said: “I love to create worlds. And I love for them to be highly stylized…so that people can literally step into a world and feel inspired.”

...clients are starting to understand the connection between beauty and feeling beautiful and their overall well-being.”

Cindy Deily

Sephora’s VP of skin-care merchandising

“We’ve definitely seen a shift from beauty as purely an aesthetic to viewing it as a form of self care,” Cindy Deily, Sephora’s VP of skin-care merchandising, said in an interview with Well+Good. “Beauty and wellness are absolutely intertwined, and we’re seeing that clients are starting to understand the connection between beauty and feeling beautiful and their overall well-being.”

Main image of Selfmade founder and CEO Stephanie Lee, courtesy of Selfmade.

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