A lot of the most tender, intimate moments of my life have happened in the aisles of Sephora. I’ve met girlfriends on first or second dates there as an excuse to bond with them over perfumes and serums (if only so we can hold hands while we “test the products”), I went with my best friend’s mother for her 70th birthday to help pick out skincare for her retirement era, and I later went with a friend who had recently begun transitioning to help pick out her first full-coverage foundation. Sephora is a place where life decisions are prepared for with free samples and perfume testers lining our pockets. It’s where we come out powdered and perfumed, ready for whatever life decides to throw our way.
Sephora knows that it is a comfortable space for the cosmetically inclined, and for the past three years it’s been building up what it means to be that kind of community space through its store programming. In 2016 Sephora launched complimentary in-store classes for those experiencing major life transitions, Classes for Confidence. Up to this point, those classes have focused on workforce re-entry and beauty in the face of cancer, with participation from community organizations around the country. In June 2018, Sephora will launch a series of in-store programming around the country for the trans and nonbinary community, hosted and developed by transgender Sephora cast members. On Tuesday, May 22, the first preview class will be held in New York City.
“This is the third curriculum we’ve rolled out, and we couldn’t be more excited. It’s been two years in the making. It’s one of the initial programs we wanted to design, but we wanted to make sure we did it right,” says Corrie Conrad, Head of Social Impact and Sustainability at Sephora. Conrad has been spearheading the programming since joining the company a few short years ago. These classes and Sephora’s entrepreneurial bootcamp fall under her purview. “We held focus groups and worked with our employees experiencing their own gender journeys to help determine class content, sensitivity training procedures, and to help figure out which stores would make the most sense. The trans and nonbinary community is a beloved part of our community and we want to be allies. That’s the point of all our programming: Whether you’re entering the workforce or questioning your gender, that’s a major life transition. We want to be there for you.”
Dominique Anderson, a Color Consultant at NYC’s 34th Street location, is one person in the queer family within Sephora that has helped inform this new programming. “There was a time that I felt as a trans person I had no idea where I fit into beauty. I’d walk into certain cosmetic stores and feel out of place and hesitant to approach anyone. It was when I began shopping at Sephora that I knew it was a place where I was free to be myself. Sephora welcomed me with open arms and it’s why I work at this company. During these classes, I hope to teach clients tricks that I use myself to soften up features and achieve certain looks. I want to instill confidence in my clients so that when they walk out of Sephora, they feel comfortable letting the world know who they are.”
Besides in-store classes at 150 locations, there will be a series of video tutorials on Sephora’s various YouTube channels led by Sephora’s trans Beauty Advisors. Topics will cover color correction, smoothing the skin, and other topics suggested during focus groups with trans members of the community. If you’re an ally hoping to help support the program yourself, there’s a specific product line you can pick up next purchase that directly funds the programming. The SEPHORA COLLECTION Retractable Brush ($24.50, in store and online) and the Sephora Stands FEARLESS lipstick ($12.50, in store and online) both directly fund the community programming.
To see a company cater to the trans and queer community not as token models in one-off beauty campaigns, but in centering us as essential to their community is a relief. By employing trans people and providing them resources through which they can help themselves and their customers, they’re showing that beauty and politics are linked, all the time, and sometimes wonderfully. Having the trans community direct and build the programming nationwide is the only way to make such a program thrive, because there are so few spaces by us, for us on a national scale. Given this year has already proven to be one of the worst so far on record for trans people in the U.S., and particularly for trans women of color: To have one of the biggest beauty companies in the world hold space for marginalized people is pretty powerful.
Arabelle Sicardi is a genderqueer beauty writer. They write about beauty and power for magazines.
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