The Every Body Campaign—Beauty As a Force for Good
For decades, the retail landscape has transformed, having to reckon with its impact on the environment, health, and safety. Often, it has symbolized the political conversation and represented a way to vote with our dollars. This has never been more true than with the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Abortion rights became front and center on the ballot, and the beauty industry started to pay attention.
Women primarily drive the beauty community, and new beauty players feature women and BIPOC founders at the helm who are passionate about supporting human rights and vulnerable communities. And so, reproductive justice has become a part of the discourse more powerfully than ever, with the beauty industry primed to influence its direction. Because the Skindie team wholeheartedly supports a woman's right to choose, we wanted to devote this issue to The Every Body Campaign. This outstanding effort deserves more awareness and support from the thousands of us who love beauty and spend our hard-earned dollars on it.
What Is It?
If you're not yet aware, Lany Cowell, founder of minimalist fave Saie Beauty created The Every Body Campaign. The coalition includes 35+ beauty brands that support reproductive justice. For a limited time, they're donating 100% of proceeds from select, bestselling products (all in limited edition packaging) to the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, a national non-profit organization working with BIPOC communities since 1997 to improve access to abortion. You heard right – 100%! That's a whole pie chart – consider us impressed. To make a purchase, follow the campaign site to view available products (the site will direct you to each brand's product website).
Featured Brands
In addition to Saie, popular brands that are a part of the campaign include Glow Recipe, Herbivore Botanicals, The Inkey List, Josie Maran, Live Tinted, Nécessaire, Pacifica, Tenoverten, and Topicals (you can find a comprehensive list of participating brands here). We applaud the diverse representation of mass/luxury brands that offer ways to support the cause at various price points, the inclusion of BIPOC and women-founded brands, and the well-curated product assortment of real bestsellers.
With so much to choose from, we're highlighting a few brands that showcase this campaign's depth and breadth and may help you consider supporting the cause. A key call-out here – Skindie has always stood behind the science of skincare, and many of the brands featured in this campaign market themselves as "clean." While we're skeptical of any claims and language that create fear-mongering, we support empowering consumers, leveraging our purchasing power in a conscious, intentional way, and advocating for fundamental human rights.
Founded by Kendra Kolb Butler, Alpyn's products feature wildcrafted ingredients from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and a proprietary ingredient complex known as PlantGenius™, which includes wild arnica, wild chamomile, borage, calendula, and sage. We've found their products to consistently offer a pleasing sensorial experience, with rich, creamy textures that work for all skin types. When we think of natural beauty, this is one of the first to come to mind.
Some of you may be surprised to see this brand, which is precisely why we decided to mention it. Not only has the brand made a successful foray into skincare (we love the Holy Hydration! Face Cream), but their products continue to go viral by offering near-prestige quality at very affordable prices (hello, Halo Glow Liquid Filter, which we only just got our hands on). We think it's important that traditionally considered "mass" brands meet the demand for vegan and cruelty-free offerings and show support for issues such as reproductive justice. Some big brands shy away from taking a stance, but e.l.f has stepped up to the plate here. It doesn't hurt that the product featured for the campaign is the uber-popular Power Grip Primer ($10), which offers an inexpensive way to support the cause.
This brand's namesake founder leveraged her pastry training to transform cocoa butter into stone-shaped, solid moisturizers. The waterless formulas allow the brand to reduce waste through sustainable, plastic-free packaging. We especially love the product chosen for this campaign, the Sex Stone ($45), which doubles as a lubricant/body moisturizer/just-for-fun source of pleasure. Thumbs-up for including a product that represents the hugely-welcome trend of sexual/intimate wellness as a form of self-care.
We like Kinfield because of its broad offering in the body category and its legit focus on sustainability – they've worked toward reducing packaging waste by shipping all their products in reusable product bags (who needs boxes, anyway?). If that isn't creativity and forgoing pretty packaging to maintain your mission, we don't know what is. They also participate in 1% For the Planet, a global network of partners that addresses the most pressing environmental issues.
Founded by seasoned industry exec Allie Egan, this brand has led the way in hormone-based skincare and wellness supplements. We appreciate how its mission focuses on researching hormone health and changing the narrative around "hormonal." Not only that, but it donates 10% of its merch sales to organizations like the Black Women's Health Imperative. We're very curious about the biomimetic technology behind their Bioevolve Serum ($85) – stay tuned if it makes it into our cart.
W3LL People claims to have been making plant-based cosmetics and skincare "long before it was cool," and they're not wrong. The brand has remained authentic, innovative, and reliable as a veteran in a sea of clean beauty newbies. We know folks who have been partial to their sensitive-eye-friendly products, so the Power Palette Eyeshadow ($22) is the perfect pick for an everyday palette.
And finally, the next time you see us on IG (we promise to be back soon), we'll have this cool Maude SexEd hat ($35) alongside our Skindie cap. So that's our round-up of brands and products to keep on your radar if you consider participating in the campaign – and we sincerely hope you do. In totality, the Everybody Campaign is asking the beauty community to engage and become advocates in a way that goes beyond just what we put on our faces and bodies. It's about respecting our bodies, our selves, and our rights.