Covergirl cosmetics shook the beauty world in October when they hired the first-ever-male beauty brand ambassador, James Charles, a 17 and a high school senior, has been in the makeup industry for a year before getting the call from Covergirl. He signed on to be a part of their lash equality campaign featuring their new So Lashy mascara, promoting equality and inclusive beauty.
Charles started as a hairdresser and, while feeling constricted creatively, started playing with makeup. He started posting his looks on Instagram (@jamescharles) and almost immediately started gaining traction. The photo below marks his one year progress.
“Never in a million years would I have ever imagined to be here from posting pic on the left. It’s crazy to see how much I’ve improved and grown as both a person and artist. I’ve had so many amazing opportunities and met so many amazing people in the past year,” he wrote. “400,000 people in one year. Thank you all so much I can’t even begin to explain how much you all mean to me. Imagine where we’ll be in another year?” -@jamescharles
Now James has over 1.5 million followers and just a week ago, on February 7th, he opened an online clothing line, sisters-apparel, featuring his catch-phrase “I’m shook”.
Another male brand ambassador storming the scene, Manny Gutierrez, just landed a spot with Maybelline in their new Big Shot campaign last month. Popularly known as Manny MUA on instagram (@mannymua733), Manny has over 3.2 million followers on instagram and over 2 million on youtube. Manny has been a big promoter in the male beauty community, facing constant fire in the form of social criticism and hate. Through his Youtube channel and social media outlets he aims to empower others, encourage them to do what they love and screw the haters.
Maybelline has been promoting beauty not only beyond gender, but also beyond race and body size. In the Big Shot campaign Manny is seen alongside Makeup by Shayla (@makeupshayla) who is challenging the beauty standard and promoting that beauty knows no size or color.
Both James and Manny posted this photo together with the caption, “Easy breezy beautiful and we’re born with it”. Maybelline teased fans earlier this month by tweeting and asking followers which artists they would like to see featured next.
A common misconception is that boys have to be gay to do makeup, the truth is that beauty and self expression are genderless and know no boundaries.