Toxic Masculinity - L'Oreal Makup Ad

Beauty blogger Gary Thompson is a makeup artist and blogger, from Birmingham, who has accumulated thousands of followers on social media where he uses his online presence and platforms to share his makeup knowledge and express who he is. His mission is to encourage men and women to be who they are and wear makeup how they want to, as a tool how they want to, for everyone not just a selected gender by marketing companies that abide by out of date gender expectations.

Although this has shown a good reception by the viewers it can also be seen as not progressive enough, people often commented on how he was un-noticeable in the ad; yet does that simply show the way that people views and expectations are changing, so seeing a male in this type of ad is not as much of a shock as it would have been to previous target audiences.

Adrien Koskas, general manager at L’Oréal Paris UK said: “We are very aware that the cosmetics market is growing and that more guys are using makeup and making makeup blogs. This campaign shows we are listening to everybody, different characters with very different stories.”

The brand has taken into consideration the changing state of the makeup industry, with more male makeup experts in stores, creating blogs and inspiring and leading the industry. But their views are not reflected in the rest of the branding packaging and marketing from the brand, as can be seen below, the brand is still almost solely focused on a feminine market. This is evident in the colours that have been used such as the pink tones, which is then highlighted in other areas of that particular product such as the main type that is included. This is then further reinforced by the use of female celebrity models. Is it any wonder that these products are seen to men as feminine based, and only for female use when that is all that can be seen from the marketing teams of the leading brands and in stores, online and any other relevant sales media, to the extent where the packaging itself even has female stereotypical colour aimed designs.