Introduction

Over the years, there’s been a lot of celebrity beauty brands created, and the number is still growing. Fenty Beauty cosmetic brand is one celebrity beauty brand that has had great success since it started. However, when you look at Fenty Beauty’s history, their success can be attributed to their uniqueness. 

The celebrity attached to this popular cosmetic brand is the famous singer, Robyn Fenty Rihanna, or simply, Rihanna. Her cosmetic brand has emphasized diversity in the beauty world. As celebrities try to expand their reach using their names and fame in the fashion industry, Fenty Beauty is one celebrity-backed brand doing something different.

She didn’t rely on the fact that she was a star to sell her cosmetic brand. Rihanna created her products to satisfy a wide range of customers. An interesting thing about Fenty beauty is that it puts into consideration every possible skin color, providing a variety of shades to match them all. Fenty Beauty has created a great solution when it comes to beauty in the fashion world.

Therefore, in this article, we’ll be discussing the Fenty Beauty History case study. This way, we’ll get to see how this brand began and what drove the success they’ve had so far.

• Fenty Beauty History – How it Started
• Fenty Beauty Brand Identity – What are they Known For?
• The Fenty Beauty Marketing Strategy

Fenty Beauty History – How It Started

Rihanna created Fenty Beauty on the 8th of September 2017 when she was 29. Rihanna named the brand “Fenty” after her surname. The music star’s goal wasn’t just to start up a beauty brand but one so unique that it would positively change the beauty industry. She created Fenty Beauty to ensure the inclusion of all skin colors, moreso ensuring the inclusion of deeper skin tones. 

Before establishing Fenty Beauty, her solo company, she worked in partnership with MAC cosmetics and even released some products through Parlux Ltd, a company that deals with beauty products worldwide.

The popular Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey (LVMH) luxury company has many brands, and Fenty Beauty isn’t an exception. LVMH owns 50 percent of Fenty Beauty as the parent company. However, Rihanna owns the remaining 50 percent.

The “Rihanna’s Fashion Week.”

Interestingly, the launch happened on the day the New York Fashion Week was happening. The launch of Fenty beauty was just a day after fashion week began. The 2017 New York Fashion Week started on the 7th of September and ended six days later.

Nevertheless, Rihanna saw an opportunity to display her product lines on a runway show, and so she did. However, she teamed up with Puma to display her first-ever makeup line alongside Puma products. It was like a Fenty-Puma show. 

That year’s New York Fashion Week just seemed as if it was an avenue for Rihanna’s beauty brand to be born. One would think that it was Rihanna’s fashion week instead. Since then, the brand has risen to great heights globally.

Fenty Beauty Stores

Fenty Beauty products are available online and in over 17 different countries around the globe. In the US, the products are only available at Sephora. However, aside from Sephora’s physical stores, their products are also available online on both the Fenty Beauty and Sephora websites.

Initially, you could only find Fenty Beauty Products in just one shop in the UK. This was the Harvey Nichols department store. However, this changed as Boots UK stores became one of the stores that sell these products.

The brand also established stores in Saudi Arabia. It was a favorable market that brought in lots of profit due to the country’s high demand for cosmetics. Consequently, the brand has a total of about 1620 stores around the world. 

The Brand’s Original Lines (2017 – 2019)

After the birth of the brand, they began to release several products. One of them was the Red Stunna Lip Paint which came out towards the end of 2017. 

This was an original makeup line by Fenty Beauty. Some other lip paints came out in different colors like chocolate brown, peach nude, black, and baby pink.

The brand also introduced body lava. This was Fenty Beauty’s first body product. The brand also created the kabuki brush to apply the body lava, which was a separate product. 

The “Fairy Glittery Pom Pom” is another product they introduced. It was the only product that had rose gold filters in it that looked great on any skin color.

At the beginning of 2019, Fenty Beauty released some of the big products that are still popular and widely used today. The first was the Pro Filt’r Instant Retouch Concealer, which was introduced with 50 different shades to suit different skin tones.

Afterward, the brand introduced the famous Pro Filt’r Foundation with 40 different shades. However, the brand improved by adding ten more shades to the foundation later on.

The idea of adding more shades to the foundation was to make its number of shades match that of the concealer. That’s 50 shades each for both the concealer and the foundation. Moreover, it made more shades available in the foundation to match more skin tones.

Another of their products that came out was the Pro Filt’r Instant Retouch Setting Powder. This powder is available in 8 different glowing shades.

In addition, they released more beauty tools. Some of them were blending tools like the Lil Precision Make-up Sponge Duo 105 for applying setting powders. Other blending tools Fenty Beauty released were the super-soft precision concealer Brush 180 and the Powder Puff Setting Brush 170.

Fenty Beauty Brand Identity – What are They Known For?

The primary thing contributing to this brand’s success today is its unique offers that differ from other cosmetic brands. It is rare for cosmetic brands to release an entire collection of shades at once. 

The range of shades Fenty Beauty offers has made them not just popular but unique in fashion. Moreover, they went as far as including the albino community by creating shades that’ll match their skin. This alone raised so much praise for the brand. 

What’s more interesting is Rihanna’s idea of including shades for darker tones, pretty pale tones, and in between all at once. Regardless of their skin color, every woman could find a shade that matches their skin. 

It helped to address the situation in the cosmetic industry where there were fewer shades made for women with dark skin tones. Darker women seemed to be left out when it came to beauty products. 

Interestingly, darker colors sold pretty fast for Fenty Beauty. The brand’s solution and their success with it made so many other cosmetic brands borrow their ideas. These brands had to include more shades for darker-skinned women in their collections.

A fantastic thing about Fenty Beauty products is that they considered tones when creating all of their products. Not only does the brand create concealers or foundations to fit all skin tones, but also other kinds of items like primers and lip balms.

Their entire product line targets a larger market in the cosmetics industry. Moreover, this has given Fenty Beauty a unique identity – a brand image that can’t be matched. This is why the brand’s tagline “beauty for all” carries it so well. 

Fenty Beauty Marketing Strategy

Accessibility and Affordability

Fenty Beauty has online stores where anyone can freely get the cosmetics they want. The brand isn’t limited to a particular geographical area. Countries with no physical stores selling Fenty Beauty products can always order their products online. 

In addition, their pricing is also reasonable. Though Fenty Beauty is a high-end fashion brand, they still keep their prices a bit lower than their competitors in the cosmetics industry, thus tapping into a broader market. 

Target market

Interestingly, this cosmetic brand targets a lot of people. Perhaps, the brand is just for everyone! They’ve created products intending to meet a wide range of customer needs when it comes to cosmetics. 

You can easily see their innovative ideas when you look down the Fenty Beauty history. Most brands view cosmetics as items only women can use. However, Rihanna’s brand originally made products specifically for women, but men are now on her list too. 

So, aside from including all kinds of skin color in production, she included both genders. Today, Fenty Beauty has unisex fragrances and skincare goods that work pretty well for men and women. 

Conclusion

Throughout Fenty Beauty History, it’s been thriving not just because of the quality of its products but also the innovative ideas they’ve incorporated. These ideas are so unique that they have given the brand a distinctive identity. Her innovative inclusivity has ensured that women and men around the world have access to makeup products that suit their skin tones. This sets Fenty Beauty apart from other cosmetic brands in the industry. 

The brand has achieved so much by doing what many similar brands fail to do. As many brands failed to include a range of shades that fit various skin tones, Rihanna succeeded in including them all.  Fenty beauty has generated so much revenue that it has made it a more successful brand than any other celebrity brand. It is also a cosmetics brand with high standards, especially with regard to customer satisfaction. Fenty Beauty has set an example for other growing cosmetic brands.

In addition, the cosmetic brand has received many awards for its ideas and solutions. Rihanna not only made a name for herself in music, but so much of her success has come from Fenty Beauty. According to TIMES magazine, the brand was among the best inventions that happened in 2017.