Toxic Masculinity called out on Twitter

For the longest of time, men have had a complex relationship with wearing makeup. Egyptians used to rock a smokey eye, the Greeks were big fans of eye creams, and way back in the 18th Century, having alabaster skin was a must. This, however, all came to a decline as society started to become more and more rigid about how masculinity is defined. In recent times, men wearing make up has started to become a growing trend once more. Whilst this is essential in eliminating harmful gender stereotypes, recently, a men’s makeup brand has been widely criticised on twitter for propagation of fragile and toxic masculinity (Zambarakji, 2019).

After the company, called War Paint, released their video campaign which was captioned “We couldn’t find a makeup brand formulated specifically for men’s skin; so we created one.” The short clip shows a heavily tattooed muscular man coming out of the shower and applying the company’s products before putting on a skull ring. Since then, Twitter went wild, and the company received several angry comments from people who have criticised the company for its use of hyper masculine imagery. It is also worth noting how the advert barely focuses on the actual makeup products and focuses on the man’s physique. The packaging of the makeup products is completely black with large white text on them, further tapping into fragile masculinity by wanting to spare men the embarrassment of purchasing something pink (Lorenz, 2018). Some of the comments said:

“This is stupid. Toxic masculinity is stupid. Grow up and go to Sephora.”

“There’s already makeup for men. It’s the same as makeup for women.”

War Paint replied to some of the criticism and they said that their aim is to have makeup become gender neutral, and for that too happen, male-specific brands need to be created. This however is very contradictory within itself as creating a gender specific brand to follow a gender neutral agenda is rather counterproductive and it just doesn’t quite add up. The brand also released a statement; both on their social media and their website, explaining how men’s skin differs to that of women and therefore they need specifically tailored products. This statement, however, has probably made War Paint’s situation worse as there was a massive backlash on twitter mostly from make up artists and professionals who have said that this is false and misleading (Young, 2019).

The problem that many have regarding this brand is not that they launched gender specific makeup, in fact, this has already been done by major brand such as Chanel; launching Boy de Chanel, and Tom Ford with their on male beauty range, and they were all showered with positive reactions. The issue with this brand is mainly their marketing strategy and their packaging promoting toxic hyper-masculinity. Even though the brand’s efforts to eliminate the notion that makeup is just for women should be acknowledged, this is not done in an effective manner as it simultaneously does a great deal of damage by propagating toxic masculinity (Levine, 2019).

Author: Thomas Camilleri

This blog is a project for a study unit: MCS 3953, University of Malta.

References:

Levine, N., (2019), The Internet Is Accusing This Makeup Brand Of Promoting ‘Toxic Masculinity’. [online] Refinery29.com. Available at: [Accessed 16 January 2021].

Lorenz, T., (2018), Twitter Is Baffled Over War Paint, A Brand Selling ‘Makeup For Men’. [online] ELLE. Available at: [Accessed 16 January 2021].

Young, S., (2019), Men’s Make-Up Advert Criticised For Promoting ‘Toxic Masculinity’. [online] The Independent. Available at: [Accessed 16 January 2021].

Zambarakji, A., (2019), Is 2019 The Year Men’s Make-Up Goes Mainstream?. [online] British Vogue. Available at: [Accessed 16 January 2021].