Jakarta's New Take on Beauty Standards
Jakarta. The Jakarta x Beauty 2018 event, following last year’s success, came to grace the capital with 60 beauty brands, 15 makeup artists, 20 beauty workshops and 20 beauty talk-shows at Senayan City Mall on Friday (04/27). Hosted by the Female Daily Network, the three-day event also invited 40 influencers who helped attract more beauty-fans.
Though women made up most of the crowd, there was a noticeable amount of men in attendance as well. Hanifa Ambadar, the chief executive of Female Daily Network, told the Jakarta Globe that it is more acceptable these days for men to mess around with makeup and skincare.
"Men are just like women, they have skin, they have skin problems and they want healthier skin and there’s nothing wrong with trying to find the right products for them." Hanifa said. She argues that men play an important role in the beauty industry, taking over a lot of beauty-related jobs, like hairstylists and dermatologists and have even opened successful beauty stores.
Fajar from Benefit Cosmetics still thinks there is room for improvement for the acceptance of men and makeup. He thinks keeping it natural will make men more inclined towards makeup. "For men, just the usage of concealer or powder is more than enough.” Fajar said, telling us that he mostly learned his skills from his job and from watching YouTube Videos.
Bayu, a product specialist at MAC cosmetics, told the Globe that he has been working in the beauty industry for a long time. Even so, if he did not work in this industry, he would be clueless. "Before I worked in the makeup and skincare world, I only knew one product and that was toner. I didn’t even know what a cleanser was." Bayu laughs. For those who made fun of him, he shrugs it off, "In my opinion, the most important thing is that my skin is healthy. Because as long as our skin is healthy, whatever makeup you put on will look good."
Over the past two years, there has been an increase in local brand launches. "That is what is exciting about the beauty industry," Hanifa says, adding that she sees potential in some of local brands to become big and eventually be acquired by a big beauty company. However, some of the other brands that clearly only follow trends lack vision and she does not think they will survive the tough competition.
Ina Balasong, the managing director of Kreasi Meluas and founder of Beauty Box, has high aspirations for smaller, local brands. "My aspiration for the beauty industry is that in the next five, six to 10 years, our local brands will go global. Others have to know that Indonesia is more than just unfortunate news," Ina said. Instead of products with catchy gimmicks, she wants local products to be known for their practicality and usefulness.
Forgotten classics like Purbasari and Ristra were present at the event, as well as new brands such as Goban Cosmetics and the highly sought-after By Lizzie Parra. With the theme #yourbeautyrules, Indonesia is moving towards more acceptance towards liberal gender and beauty norms. "I hope that in the future, when it comes to beauty, there is no standard. So pretty doesn’t mean just pale skinned people. Everyone is beautiful," Hanifa urges. Indonesia - or Asia in general - has struggled a long time with whitening products, but it is slowly letting go, and finally celebrating personal beauty standards.
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