Making sense of the many marketing buzzwords, active ingredients, and celebrity endorsements saturating the beauty landscape can be confusing, even for those fluent in makeup and skincare. WARE — a newly launched brand run by a board of six media and beauty industry pros — sifts through the noise and cuts to the chase by offering a minimal range of products that, simply put, make everyone and anyone look good.
"Our mission at WARE is to make cosmetically enhanced skincare for what we call 'non-makeup' people," says Thom Bettridge, one of WARE's board members (he's also the head of creative and content at luxury e-tailer SSENSE and Highsnobiety's former editor-in-chief). The creative director has always been fascinated by the unexpected relationships between products and people: "young people getting into watches, city kids getting into hiking gear, or dudes wearing skirts," he illustrates.
"I’ve spent much of my adult life following the latest in skincare, but noticed how for a lot of my friends and colleagues, the entire segment seemed confusing or alienating."
Indeed, traditional cosmetics don't resonate with a large swath of consumers. Everyone wants to look their best, but not everyone wants to accentuate their face with bright colors and glitter (perhaps not on a daily basis, at least).
Instead of pigment and shine, WARE's product range — currently comprised of SCREENCREAM, a moisturizer, and POREBOY, a mattifying complexion stick — utilizes tiny silica spheres to even out the complexion and curb oiliness.
"There’s no pigment in either of these products, so there’s nothing you need to blend. The microspheres in SCREENCREAM and POREBOY alter the way light hits your face... [they] diffuse light and give the surface of your face a matte, even vibe."
While Bettridge embraces shine now and then ("I love looking dewy on vacation," he says), he's not "trying to show up glistening everywhere." Unlike other skincare-makeup hybrids on the market, WARE doesn't use pearlescent finishes or glitter. "To compare what we’re doing to the world of apparel, we want to be that perfect pair of jeans that you feel like wearing every day," Bettridge summates.
So, what's next for the blue jeans of beauty? Bettridge can't reveal too much, but he offers a hint: "Think velvet bubbles."
