Maybe she’s born with it— or maybe, as per an announcement from Maybelline New York yesterday, he is. On the company’s Instagram handle on Thursday, Maybelline named YouTube and Instagram star Manny Gutierrez one of the faces of its “That Boss Life” mascara campaign. The Southern California make-up artist’s appearance in the campaign marks his debut as the historically female-targeting brand’s first male ambassador, according to the Guardian.
With more than two million followers on his YouTube channel and three million followers on Instagram, Gutierrez has been named one of the stars in a movement of “beauty” boys, or male-identifying digital personalities who make videos that show them applying blush and concealer to themselves and others. In her coverage of the announcement, Racked writer Cheryl Wischhover noted Gutierrez’s selectionseemed to be an indication that big beauty brands were finally recognizing consumers’ interest in buying products from people who look like them. “So many women (and, yes, boys) have told me over and over again at beauty shows like Generation Beauty and Beautycon that they love these beauty stars because they can relate to them,” she wrote.
But the news may also be an indication that Maybelline is simply responding to market trends. The male grooming market has been growing stateside in recent years: In 2014, the Fashion Institute of Technology reported that it was worth $5.7 billion, a figure that had grown 5 percent since 2009 (globally, it had grown 23 percent). And Maybelline is only the latest major, historically female-targeting cosmetics company in the United States to announce it’s employing a dude: Last October, competitor Covergirl named fellow social-media favorite make-up artist James Charles its latest model.
In the “That Boss Life” campaign video released Thursday, Gutierrez prepares himself and two women to go clubbing by convincing them to apply Maybelline’s gold-plated “Colossal Big Shot” mascara in a cab. Gutierrez hasn’t needed Maybelline so far to be a big shot — his presence on social media has done that — but the video’s dénouement, seeing him and his friends gain access to an exclusive club simply by batting their well-primped eyelashes, feels apt.
