Metaverse mania may be on the downslide for traders and speculative investors, but the development energy behind it still bubbles — and beauty brands like Fenty Beauty are now lavishing in the froth.
On the heels of Decentraland, Roblox and Spatial’s first Metaverse Beauty Week earlier this month, Fenty Beauty, Fenty Skin and Fenty Fragance revealed Tuesday that they too will be stepping into the virtual world with a new, limited-time activation going live on Roblox.
Running from Friday through July 30, the Fenty Beauty + Fenty Skin Experience will feature interactive scavenger hunts, mazes and other opportunities to learn about the inspirations and ingredients of some of the company’s most popular products, including Fenty Skin Melt Awf Jelly Oil Makeup-Melting Cleanser, Fenty Eau de Parfum and Fenty Beauty Gloss Bomb Universal Lip Luminizer.
But it’s not just a digital tourist attraction. While fans can gawk at the brands made famous by billionaire recording artist Rihanna, there’s more beyond the skin care and fragrance worlds to a virtual beauty lab. Here, visitors can cocreate a physical product, as in a customized version of one of the company’s top-selling items, the Gloss Bomb Universal Lip Luminizer. (Rihanna calls it “the OG Fenty Beauty lip product.”)
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Consumers can choose the ingredients, effects, bottle, lid and applicator, as well as name their own shade, and then send it on to a virtual retail display called the “Sephora Experience.” The public can view what other users created, vote for their favorites and take part in weekly Fenty avatar accessory drops. From the finalists, Rihanna will pick one winner to inspire the next Gloss Bomb, which will hit the market in 2024 on the brand’s website and Sephora online. Fenty Skin is exclusive to Sephora.
“Beauty experiences are meant to be fun, so I’m excited to provide everyone, everywhere, a glimpse into our world and a new realm of amusement with our makeup, skin care and fragrance,” Rihanna said in a statement.
She may have the time to develop more fun projects, now that she has stepped away from her position as chief executive officer of lingerie brand Savage x Fenty. The intention certainly seems evident, with the celebrity and beauty mogul filing trademarks for downloadable virtual makeup and cosmetics, among other things, last year. Of course, Fenty wasn’t alone. Beauty giant L’Oréal filed 17 metaverse-related trademark applications. At the time, it looked more like vague enthusiasm, rather than concrete strategy.
Early on in the metaverse craze, fashion’s opportunity seemed more apparent. Apparel and accessories brands latched onto specific areas like avatar-wear, digital artwork, NFTs and digital twinning, referring to the practice of pairing physical products with virtual versions. But the beauty industry struggled to understand its place in these virtual realms — probably because a tube of mascara hardly seems as exciting as a million-dollar tiara, angel wings and other fanciful flights of real or imagined fashion. Beauty companies spun up immersive 3D stores featuring 2D product listings or gave away NFTs symbolizing flagship products or brand themes. But it was always hard to convey something as personal and individual as real-world beauty inside the metaverse.
Now Fenty’s Roblox lab might check some of those boxes. The company described it as “the opportunity to cocreate a physical product from the digital experience and bring it to life beyond the metaverse.” In other words, this is akin to beauty’s spin on twinning, bridging the physical and virtual worlds, except with a contest angle built-in to prompt engagement.
Whether this approach gains traction remains to be seen. But for a viral sensation that champions inclusivity and the democratization of beauty, allowing individuals to customize product appears right on brand. If the concept takes off, it’s not hard to imagine the metaverse becoming the equivalent of a giant beauty lab.
That should suit companies like Fenty, as the lab concept works in multiple ways. For visitors, it’s a place to experiment and feel like part of the brand’s family. For the company, it looks like a potentially valuable product development test pad that can keep a finger on the pulse of what Fenty’s digital-native, Gen Z customer base wants.