Fashion Nova Is Barreling Into Beauty
Fashion Nova is turning its attention from fast fashion to fast beauty. On June 14, the home of that knockoff Miu Miu set will launch NovaBeauty, a whopping 48-piece collection of lipstick, lip liner, and lip gloss.
"Beauty is an integral part of the Nova look," Fashion Nova CEO Richard Saghian told WWD. According to the executive, makeup — particularly lip gloss and lip liner — is the most-requested category from customers over the past two years.
NovaBeauty will range from $10 to $12, a price point comparable to most drugstore-stocked brands. WWD reports that the line will expand via "frequent drops," a model that mirrors Fashion Nova's approach to clothing (a nightmarish strategy, at least from a sustainability standpoint).
The announcement of NovaBeauty points to the continued rise of "fast beauty," a genre used to describe brands that develop and release products at lightening speed in order to stay on top of trends. Some examples of prominent fast beauty purveyors: ColourPop, Makeup Revolution, and Kylie Beauty.
Fashion Nova isn't the first fast fashion retailer to cash in on cosmetics. In 2021, Zara launched a collection of lipstick, blush, eyeshadow, and nail polish. Swedish giant H&M has offered makeup, hair care, and beauty tools since 2015.
While some purport that the production of fast beauty results in less waste than fast fashion, the ultra-low prices of, say, Zara's $9 nail polish and Fashion Nova's $10 lipsticks encourage a buy-try-throwaway mode of consumption. It goes without saying that buying a cheap product (most likely packaged in plastic), using it a handful of times, and discarding it isn't exactly eco-conscious.
Fashion is facing a "slow" reckoning, but what about beauty? The same intention we put into our clothing purchases can — and should — extend to our makeup bags, too.
