The beauty industry always has something new up its sleeve, and it’s getting hard for college students to catch up with the newest trends and viral products. What the students don’t know is that the market’s oversaturation is all due to college students becoming the newest generation of beauty influencers and trendsetters.
“We think college students are the future leaders, and so for us, it’s really important to embrace that community,” Tarte Cosmetics’ Vice President of Global Marketing and Events Donna Kirkland said.
LYS Beauty’s Founder and CEO Tisha Thompson said sometimes, young people experience breakouts and putting harsh products on their skin too early can damage their skin.
“I experienced cystic acne at that time (around college), and so I really wanted to make sure clean beauty was something that I introduced (into her brand),” the CEO said.
Thompson said LYS Beauty allows for a better transition into beauty for a college student because it has skincare in their product formulations since skin undergoes its own metamorphosis during the general age range of college students.
iNNBeauty Project’s Account Coordinator Pamela Tartt said iNNBeauty is for everyone and proves it by including ingredients such as bio-retinol, vitamin C, ceramides, peptides and most importantly, SPF.
“The Mineral Sun Glow has blue light protection. I know all the kids are on their phones and on their computers, so that will protect them,” Tartt said.
The account coordinator said college students can get stressed sometimes, and acne occasionally follows, so beauty brands appeal by creating acne serums.
“We even have retinol in some products, and college students can use it starting at 18,” Tartt said. “We have a really good acne serum. If you get hormonal acne, put it on at nighttime. The next morning, the blemish comes to a head.”
Thompson said LYS Beauty evolves with the newest beauty trends by keeping the products quick, fast and easy while staying affordable.
“When I was in college, I did not have a lot of time to focus on doing my makeup. I like things that are quick and fast. All of our products do more than one thing, so I think that is something that’s good. It also helps with your budget because when I was in college, I did not have a lot of money, so it’s the best thing for the pocket of a college student,” Thompson said.
Kirkland said Tarte is a digital-first brand, so they use artificial intelligence to adapt to a lot of new innovative technology.
“I think AI is a really important tool that I think college students are now in the precipice of taking classes for and understanding what that technology does, but I think it’s going to weave itself into all industries, not just beauty,” she said.
Kirkland said as college students progress in their education journey and career, AI is going to become more intuitive and a bigger tool to round out what students want to study.
“Tarte uses AI for a number of things. We use it to inspire us from our packaging to our messaging to writing our job descriptions. We use it quite a bit, but we find that it is something we use to help inspire us, to spark creativity and to think outside the box. It’s a really cool tool; we want to see where it goes,” she said.
Kirkland said Tarte has an internship program that runs every semester, and in the summers, as well as a mentorship program that pairs college students one-on-one with senior executives at the company.
“Many of our students who graduate out often come back and have full-time positions at Tarte,” she said.
Thompson said LYS offers internships and hires several entry-level positions, allowing college students to get their foot in the door of the industry.
“I would definitely recommend anybody who’s interested in getting into beauty to either intern or go work for a beauty brand or work at a beauty counter,” Thompson said. “That’s how I started, and I was able to work my way all the way up and see everything. Then, I was able to start my own brand.”
Kirkland said Tarte partnered with Sports Illustrated to visit and celebrate some of the colleges that entered the Big 12 Conference for the first time, but being a brand so heavily inspired and enforced by social media makes it important for Tarte to know what drives the beauty industry.
“We do so much with college students,” Kirkland said. “We work with them quite a bit. We appreciate their energy, their innovation, their creativity and all the things that they bring.”
