June | Beauty Brand We Love
Meet the skyrocketing beauty brand preaching inclusivity
Born out of Milk Studios, Milk Makeup as effective as it is enticing
Anna-Marie SolowijMilk was inclusive pre-cliché, a brand for all-comers, all colours. Its sass and attitude resonates across generations bored with the platitudes of beauty marketing. The result is a range of 27 makeup items and 28 skincare units with best-sellers including Sunshine Oil, a roll-on hydrator; Kush High Volume Mascara with cannabis seed oil, and Vegan Milk Moisturizer, a blend of ‘mylks’ with hydrating and moisturising benefits. In prototype-style packaging that appeals to function freaks as much as design nerds, it’s no wonder Milk Makeup is as popular with Boomers as Gen Z.
Born in 2016 out of Milk Studios, New York’s leading creative space for shoots, shows and parties, Milk Makeup took inspo from its clientele and was shaped as a brand by beauty and fashion editor Zanna Roberts Rassi with creative director Georgie Greville.
Milk was among the first to tout ‘clean beauty’ formulas, omitting questionable ingredients, and that list now numbers nearly 100 (for context, the US Food and Drug Administration has just 11 banned cosmetic ingredients, while the EU and UK take a more precautionary stance with 1,300 restricted or prohibited ingredients). The brand, stocked in Sephora in the US, carries the Clean Seal, the retailer’s strict formulation charter.
As it is for many brands, packaging is a work in progress: orders are shipped in sustainable, recyclable boxes and bags, minus leaflets and outer packaging where possible. They’re working towards making refills – Sunshine Skin Tint SPF30 refill reduces plastic by up to 66%, while replacing virgin plastic with post-consumer resin across as many products as possible is in the works. From its see-through packaging to online full-disclosure stance, transparency isn’t just a token gesture for Milk Makeup.
Available at cultbeauty.co.uk