“[M]y skincare journey has been quite complex...some parts of my face are oily, some are dry, fatigue from travel, plus I have super sensitive skin, and chile now being in my 30s?!!”
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Rihanna, you ain’t tweeted nothing but a word—and spoiler alert: it doesn’t get better in your 40s. But the woman who once offered us a spot under her umbrella (ella, ella, eh, eh, eh...) is now hoping to cover all our skincare needs, as well. After announcing that Fenty Skin would be launching this Friday, July 31, the bad girl of beauty made a special appearance on the also newly launched Fenty Skin YouTube channel to discuss the inspiration and star ingredients that went into creating products for all skin types.
“One of the main things for me creating products for Fenty Beauty was making makeup that looked like skin because I believe that great skin makes great makeup, and so great makeup looks like great skin,” the megastar explained. “And so, the inspiration behind Fenty Skin was just creating that foundation—whether you want to wear makeup, light makeup, heavy makeup—whatever you prefer or are in the mood for, there’s always a great foundation underneath that, and that’s the inspiration for Fenty Skin.”
No doubt the upcoming product line will be every bit as beautiful and stylish as its founder, but Rihanna also promises that just like her, Fenty Skin will work, work, work, work, work, work. (Please forgive us; we can’t miss an opportunity to revisit that refrain—especially with no album announcement yet!)
“I wanted a product that just worked—I just wanted it to work,” she says. “I wanted the best ingredients and I didn’t want it to cost a lot...because I believe that that’s what people deserve: they deserve great product, great skin and it should not be inaccessible. I’m a woman of color and I have a lot of sensitivity in a lot of areas on my face so I get really picky with products and a lot of times I get scared and cautious. So in developing these products, I really wanted to make sure that it felt comfortable; [that] they were effective, credible for people who really know skincare but also, I wanted a product that worked. More than anything, that was just the most important thing for me: something that worked for everyone.”
Rih was especially thoughtful when it came to protection, creating a line that is both considerate of our skin and the environment. Her daily moisturizer, for instance, contains SPF, a component some of us melanated folk are sadly overlooking.
“A lot of people have their own ideas about SPF and who should use it and who shouldn’t but SPF is for everyone,” Rihanna declares—and we couldn’t agree more. Fenty Skin also boasts that it’s coral reef-friendly; not a minor concern as we should all care about the longterm impact on our shared environment.
“It was important to me that we formulated products that didn’t have any harmful ingredients and it was also important to me that we didn’t create any excess packaging,” Rih explained. “So overall, we’re using less packaging. we’re eliminating boxes wherever we could; we are using recyclable materials whenever we can, and we are also having refillable systems where you just buy the outside packaging once and from there you just keep refilling and you can recycle.”
You can also get a taste of where the Bajan beauty comes from, as her mostly all-natural brand features delicious ingredients like Kalahari melon (for hydration), fig (for antioxidants), quince (which conditions the skin—and is worth watching Rih’s video, just to hear her hilariously debate its pronunciation), and the Barbados cherry, which Rihanna fondly calls “the Bajan cherry.”
“It’s a very healing ingredient, it’s a brightening ingredient but it’s also very high in vitamin C; more vitamin C than even an orange,” she explains. “So that was very important for me to include for skincare because it’s something that I use—even if I go to Barbados and I get a cold, the first thing I do is have a Bajan cherry juice and you come right back to life.” Also included are what she calls “skincare gold standards” niacinamide (which reduces the look of dark spots) and hyaluronic acid (which plumps and retains hydration in the skin).
“I know my shit! Tuh!” says the multihyphenate mogul.
And if you’re a fragrance junkie like yours truly, Rih says the scents of Fenty Skin will “never [be] perfumey,” and will never contain more than one percent synthetic fragrance, which will be right on the label.
“I want you to always feel triggered and have an emotion connected to that experience, and it’s tailor-made for every product...the throughline for Fenty Skin is that the fragrance is always warm and clean...It’s warm and clean because it’s trustworthy; you want to feel comfortable but you also want to trust that is working...We’re a clean brand, we’re a very honest brand and we’re a very upfront brand and we try to give you guys the best of everything.”
Sold yet? This payday is already feeling a little lighter for us, proving Rihanna is definitely her own best brand ambassador. Hopefully, she’s got a solution for all this “maskne” we’ve been developing.
“Real talk, I’m so excited for everybody to try it—not just because I made it and because I would love you guys to get involved in it, but I think you deserve it,” she says. “It really works; it’s affordable, I made it best possible way I can—I put the best ingredients that I could, I put my love and my heart into it...now it’s your turn to try it, so you don’t have to take my word for it; you’ll get to see your results on your own.”
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