3 good reasons for beauty brands to use blockchain

In the world of beauty and fashion, creative collaborations are everything. Look no further than New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has collaborated with several iconic beauty brands over the years—including the time it released a specially designed Estée Lauder eyeshadow palette for the art institution’s 150th birthday.

A good collaboration in any industry pushes boundaries, and inspires customers to experiment with new ideas and forms of self-expression. So it’s no wonder that skincare and makeup brands are entering Web3 with the same aspirational energy that the beauty industry has always served.

Through new forms of digital artistry and cutting-edge technological innovation, today’s leading beauty companies hope to reach Web3-native consumers, create meaningful experiences, and perhaps even clean up the supply chain.

Yann Joffredo, Global Brand President at NYX Professional Makeup, said the L’Oréal-owned cosmetics brand has always championed inclusion through collaborations with independent content creators, bloggers and makeup artists. Joffredo sees Web3 as the next evolution of this mission, with the added benefit of connecting with new audiences.

“As the brand continues to evolve, it’s important to advocate for that same representation in Web3,” said Joffredo. “Additionally, we understood the untapped territory of beauty in the metaverse.”

In early 2023, NYX launched GORJS, the world’s first beauty-focused Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) to spotlight creators building beauty experiences within the Web3 ecosystem.

“GORJS integrates Web3 artists and beauty enthusiasts to lead the cultural conversation around what digital makeup artistry will be in the metaverse and beyond,” said Joffredo.

Joffredo also said that openness and self-expression in the metaverse is a natural extension of NYX Professional Makeup’s brand values, adding that digital spaces offer beauty enthusiasts unique opportunities to express themselves and interact with products.

More poignantly, digital spaces can also provide physical security in the midst of a politically polarized physical world. Last year, NYX partnered with inclusive avatar company People Of Crypto (POC) and The Sandbox, a user-generated virtual environment, to launch a week-long Pride Month celebration. The event featured gender non-conforming NFT avatars donning makeup styled in a pixelated, or rather “voxelized,” fashion using colors representing the Progress Pride flag.

In a recent panel at the augmented reality (XR) industry conference, AWE Live, NYX’s vice president of digital innovation and e-commerce Maya Kosovalic spoke about how the Pride event heralded a more immersive digital future: “Self-expression is really the core tenant of future gaming platform experiences, which are no longer single, solitary game loops, but very immersive, engaging social experiences where younger generations can engage with friends in real life.”

Celebrating one’s personality and identity through leather and digital goods, she added, is what makes Web3 so interesting for both beauty and fashion brands.

Also on the panel was Agustina Sartori, senior innovation director at the American beauty store chain Ulta Beauty. “Beauty is a way to be yourself and be who you want to be,” she said. “Why shouldn’t we care about the same in the digital world?”

According to Sartori, Ulta Beauty has been experimenting with digital activations on Roblox since 2022. Roblox is a popular user-generated gaming platform that does not use blockchain or cryptocurrency, but still appeals to big brands interested in building virtual worlds for customers. Ulta’s virtual Roblox world is called “Ultaverse”. In May, Ulta Beauty partnered with cruelty-free eyeshadow brand Urban Decay to host a virtual party inside the Ultaverse. Makeup influencers Emmy Combs, Leilani Green and Manny MUA hosted the event, which drew about 500,000 visitors to the platform, Sartori said.

Ulta Beauty was also one of the first beauty brands to announce its participation in the upcoming Metaverse Beauty Week, which will take place from June 12-16 in three different metaverse environments (Decentraland, Roblox and Spatial). Interested participants can learn how to set up the necessary crypto wallets and create their first avatar by reading the instructions on the event website.

Finally, blockchain offers potential solutions to one of the most consistent challenges facing the beauty industry: greenwashing. Amid increasing market pressure to be cruelty-free, eco-friendly and natural, clean beauty brands have been on the receiving end of increased scrutiny in recent years.

It is almost impossible for consumers to track their favorite brand’s ingredient purchases. But now there are many supply chain-related use cases for blockchain – most of them still new. The blockchain-based platform created by French luxury skincare company Clarins allows customers to track their products’ manufacturing journeys on chain. By scanning a QR code on each package, people can trace the origin of the ingredients and learn about how the product was made and even packaged.

Another way blockchain can help increase trust issues is by weeding out counterfeit products, which are a growing problem in the world of “superfakes”. Luxury fashion giant LMVH launched a blockchain to prove the authenticity of Louis Vuitton bags and perfumer Christian Dior.

Unrelated to supply chains, other blockchain experiments by beauty brands include experimental bitcoin “cash-back” programs that incentivize consumers by rewarding them with satoshis for each purchase.

As we see in all facets of Web3, the beauty industry continues to experiment with how to most seamlessly use new technology to create lasting impact among existing and emerging customer bases.

“This is a process and it will take time,” said Leya Kaufman, chief brand, publisher and senior vice president of sales at media company Coveteur. “We need to cultivate and engage audiences in this new arena while maintaining our core consumer base,” she said.

Together with leading Web3 infrastructure provider, MoonPay, Coveteur partnered with haircare company Wella Professionals to launch The Wella Generator, a gamified digital competition hosted on the Ethereum blockchain.

“It was important to us to create a program that was seamless for existing and new Web3 users,” said Kaufman, adding that the partnership with MoonPay made this vision possible.

Despite the growing pains, as digital identity becomes an increasingly important factor in our lives and our personalities, it makes sense that people want to feel good about how they look and act, both on-chain and off-chain, and it looks like blockchain is very on-trend for beauty brands in the future.