There are probably plenty of other things that Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik — the super-couple behind yesterday's controversial Vogue cover story — swap beyond clothing (none of which, for the record, have anything to do with gender-fluidity). We can only guess, but judging by their shiny, long hair and eternally bronzed skin, we'd say styling creams and self-tanner are high on the list.
Makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury seems to agree, because she created a bronzing tinted moisturizer that suits both sexes. Because as she says, the glow you get from sex, love, and romance knows no gender. "Gigi and Zayn are the ultimate golden celebrity couple," she tells us. "They look so natural, flawless, fresh, and modern. I wanted to capture their glow DNA — that just-woken-up look of sexy youth — and give it to both women and men."
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So how does it work? In the tube, the Charlotte Tilbury Unisex Healthy Glow looks white. But rub it onto skin and the encapsulated bronze pigments will burst, adjusting to your own natural skin tone. I can personally attest that, on my olive-toned skin, it gave me a straight-off-the-yacht tan. It camouflaged redness so well, I skipped foundation for the day day.
But yesterday's conversation around Vogue got me thinking: What makes a beauty product unisex, exactly? After all, the word itself has been around since the launch of the unisex fragrance CK One in the early '90s, and the idea of genderless beauty has only grown since. Fast-forward to the present day, and people have begun tossing traditional gender norms out the window — with more brands like CoverGirl tapping male bloggers for advertising campaigns, for example, and men openly wearing makeup in the workplace. There's been a full-blown cultural shift in how we view gender in regards to makeup, fragrance, and grooming.
So while the word "unisex" might not mean anything in terms of what the actual tinted moisturizer does, we think the cosmetics companies willing to take on outdated beauty standards deserve to be celebrated — and you can still bet I'll be bringing a tube of this stuff to my brother, too.