I’m a member of CEW, Cosmetic Executive Women, an organization that was founded in the 70’s to “promote the contributions of women in the cosmetics industry.” Their mission now includes “education, philanthropy and industry development.” (remember this, because I’m going to come back to it a little later!) It is a wonderful organization filled with women who have made incredible achievements and contributions to the cosmetics industry. I often get upset that I don’t live in NYC or LA where many of the incredible events that CEW puts on take place. For example, Christina Carlino, founder of Philosophy, will be speaking about building a beauty brand in Santa Monica on June 15th. Too bad I live way across the country! How I’d love to hear about her accomplishments and how she started from scratch and grew the business into a renowned beauty brand.
I could go on and on with wonderful things to say about CEW, but I have to speak up about something that I wasn’t so pleased with. Each year companies can enter products for the CEW Beauty Awards which “recognizes the most innovative beauty products of the year”. I had been waiting with baited breath for the announcements of the 2010 winners. First, I was curious to see whether or not there was going to be a new brand for young girls! (always keeping an eye out for competition!) Second, I was curious to see who was doing what in the natural space given all of the information that we’re now armed with and the dialogue about many of the toxic ingredients in conventional beauty products. So, when I go back to the CEW’s mission of “education and industry development” I have to ask myself why “natural” is missing from the education track. Maybe it’s not? Maybe I’m missing something? And, when I think of “industry development”, I think of progress. How is the industry progressing not only to expand as an industry, but to meet changing consumer demands in this new progressive environment in which we live. How is it responsibly progressing? Imagine my surprise when I saw the list. I checked out the finalists (not the winners) and saw that a couple of the biggies were on the list – Burt’s Bees (yay!), Aveda (LOVE!), Yes to Carrots. But, none emerged victorious. Now, I’m not a judge so I’m not privy to the judging criteria, but as far as innovation goes, in my opinion, these are the companies that are innovating. They are the ones who are creating products that are setting the standard for what I believe will be there norm in the future. That future may be 5 or 10 years off, but it is the future, nonetheless. Feel free to check out the site to see winners.
https://www.cew.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?webcode=CEWBAWList&Reg_evt_key=b70c321f-d7c7-4891-96e9-cbe19a3eff63
I’m disappointed because the CEW is made up on industry leaders, people who should be at the forefront of this conversation. Perhaps I should hop on a plane and fly to NYC or LA to see what the conversations are really about and voice my opinion. That’s how things happen, right? It has to start somewhere. If there are any women at Burt’s Bees, Aveda or Yes to Carrots who would like to join me, I’d appreciate the help!
Hopefully this post won’t preclude me from ever winning a CEW Beauty Award!
