Makeup You Can Live In

Review #20 - Merit 🌷

I’m not wearing it in this image so don’t bother

There’s no blush emoji (which feels like a major oversight) so this is what I’m going with.

Review #20 - Merit 🌷

What Is It

Merit makes minimalist, “well-edited beauty essentials” that “meet the reality of your daily routine.” They’re classified as clean, which by their definition translates to vegan, cruelty-free, and non-pore clogging.

Their big pitch is that all of their products are “impossible to mess up” — a pretty enticing offer to the amateur makeup user that is me. I hear quite a lot of buzz about their Flush Balm, so I decided to give it a whirl. We’re going with the shade ‘Stockholm’ as instructed by my lovely Sephora sales associate.

Brand / Aesthetic

Merit is what I would describe as a “Pinterest brand”, meaning their general aesthetic looks like it was made for mood-boarding.

Side note: there are a few genres within the Pinterest Brand category that correlate to specific search terms. I’ll probably make a silly little TikTok series about this one of these days…

The search-term subcategory for Merit and its clean beauty brand cohort? Minimalist Euro-Chic Aesthetic. (Real Pinterest heads know to end their search with aesthetic for the good stuff). If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you know the brands I’m talking about.

no names were named but

*Obama voice* Let me be clear, the term Pinterest Brand is not at all derogatory, especially those of the Minimalist, Euro-Chic variety. In fact, it’s where an embarrassing amount of my disposable income goes — just look through this newsletter’s archives.

I will admit that the Minimalist, Euro-Chic brands can easily exist in a big amorphous heap to the majority of people, myself included. Think about it like this: if my brain was a bedroom, all of these brands live on the chair. You know the chair. The one with all of the random clothing items that I will always procrastinate sorting through. I haven’t had the will to differentiate between all of these brands’ cream-colored packaging and virtual clutter, but I know the names and their hero products and I think that should count for something.

I’m dancing around the pre-existing bias here, but to put it plainly (no pun intended), Merit and its MEC (Minimalist Euro-Chic, come on) beauty brand cohort are all a bit… vanilla. It’s the neutral / muted color schemes, sans serif fonts, and varying degrees of silver and/or gold accents that lend themselves to a luxury-feel-without-the-price-tag aura. A visible resemblance to vanilla ice cream, in fewer words.

merit

A post shared by @merit

All of this being said, the more I deep dive into Merit’s whole deal, the more they grow on me. Perhaps its because they acknowledge their place in the larger ecosystem of made-for-Sephora companies. They claim to be “the antidote to the overwhelming world of beauty”, an ironic statement that got a chuckle/sigh out of me.

In all seriousness though, their copy is stellar; it’s as clean, sharp, and effortless as their products (allegedly). They maximize on their word choice without sacrificing personality. I’d say that copy is their secret weapon, a vital but easy-to-miss contribution to their biggest superpower: storytelling.

a brand that can pull off a classy pun is my achilles heel

Here is where I will go on a cringeworthy diatribe about storytelling, so apologies in advance.

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The reason why I love brands and the worlds they build for themselves is because, at their best, they tell a story that hooks you in and makes you excited to keep reading. I’ve always been one for telling stories (hence the journalism degree). For a little while there, I thought I’d be profiling creatives and thought-leaders and celebrities with long form pieces in a Conde Nast magazine. As I came to terms with the unglamorous realities of a career in publishing, I realized that marketing was pretty much the same thing, but with more creativity, more flexibility, and, let’s face it, more money.

I started saying corny things on job interviews like “I’m interested in telling brands’ stories” and “Brands now have their own worlds like the ones we see in books and movies. The fandoms we saw for Twilight and Harry Potter are now changing shape and building communities around brands like Glossier and Supreme.” I couldn’t believe the utter bullshit that was coming out of my mouth, but I also knew I wasn’t wrong.

At this point, I’ve either come to terms with my career in commerce-related creativity or I’ve completely brainwashed myself, since the same general concepts still float around in my mind. The best (read: my favorite) modern consumer brands have a story they want to tell and a world they’ve created around it. Phew.

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Where were we… oh yes. Back to Merit and their incredible storytelling.

Copy is a huge part of it. Phrases like “get compliments on your skin, not your makeup”, “well-edited essentials”, and “impossible to mess up” tell you exactly what you need to know. Their products are simple and easy-to-use, yet still sophisticated. Their customer is their equal, a woman like them who wants makeup that helps them feel confident and doesn’t require skill or effort.

copy collage!

There’s more to the equation than just copy, of course. Their visuals, partnerships, and IRL user experience (a.k.a. product itself) factor into the equation to create a relatively accessible brand that simultaneously exudes luxury.

Storytelling is going to the central theme of this one, if you couldn’t already tell, so I hope you’re not sick of it yet. We’ll touch on specifics later, but first I want to quickly flag the lack of celebrity founder that typically carries the plot.

Obviously, I did my research and I know that Katherine Power is a sort of IYKYK girlboss (even knowing her name signals a certain level of insider status in beauty and fashion to the average person). If you’re not familiar, just know that she’s got a pretty impressive resume with brands like Versed, Avaline and Clique Media (parent company of Who What Wear, My Domaine and Byrdie). While she’s undoubtedly a successful public-ish figure, the brand doesn’t rely on her persona to tell its story — a rare feat that earns them my respect in our oversaturated world of Celebrands (copyright still in review).

Merit still benefits from her clout and connections though, and they’d be stupid not to. Now it makes sense that Cameron Diaz and Jenna Lyons are friends of the brand, huh. And the Tove and Proenza Schouler partnerships, and the NYFW runway appearances. They may not be a Celebrand, but they’re certainly a Nepobrand. And hey, we still love them for it.

I guess that’s sort of how the fashion industry works as a whole, an industry that Merit is not shy about borrowing inspiration from. Just look at their seasonal campaigns and lack of exclamation points (a telltale sign). There’s no argument that Merit is a beauty brand, but I’ll just say this: if you told me last week that they were owned by Vogue, I would have definitely believed you. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea. Anna, you know where to find me.

Marketing

Broken record alert: rule #1 (well-designed products market themselves) has been accomplished.

But there’s a secret extra credit option here, which is the IRL user experience.

Similar to how a customer interfaces with the brand digitally (shoutout to my front-end peeps) but for the medium that counts the most — the physical experience. The way a new customer engages with your product for the first time is vital as it can greatly impact things like favorability, and even better, repurchase rate. If you’re in marketing, I don’t have to tell you the value of a loyal customer (and if you’re not, just know it’s the most valuable).

This can look like a unique unboxing experience, in-store merchandising, free samples with your order, etc. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that Merit was going all out in this department, so I stupidly picked up my Flush Balm from Sephora. Big mistake. Huge.

With every first-time purchase, Merit will send you their Signature Bag, a machine washable, somewhat stylish cross between a makeup pouch and a mini-tote.

merit

A post shared by @merit

I know, I know, I really fumbled the bag here (it was too easy!).

Moving on to the digital realm. Like I said, this brand is Pinterest-bait, so it would be a huge bummer if they didn’t make use of the platform. Good. In my opinion, more brands need to be on Pinterest. That’s another tangent that I’ll save for another time.

Pinterest can’t be anyone’s main platform much to my dismay, so they’ve got Instagram, TikTok, and — sleeper hit — YouTube down, too. We’re all thinking it. How are they crushing it on all of these channels? First: their social media manager(s) is a superhero and I commend them immensely. But on a broader scale, we’re looking at an overarching content strategy that’s fueling all of these conversations in parallel.

This is going to sound so stupidly simple, but the genius here is that their messaging is cohesive across all of their platforms. They take a campaign with a lot of meat — like a product launch or a collaboration — and scrape every little bit they can out of it, adapting it to each channel.

Take their partnership with Proenza Schouler, for example. For the fashion brand’s F/W ‘23 campaign, Merit was the makeup for the entire collection’s creative output, while Merit released a Proenza Schouler “re-imagination” of the signature bag.

merit

A post shared by @merit

This is a huge to-do, so they squeezed all the juice out of it by making content out of their BTS production process, fashion show footage, UGC, and stylized photography.

My favorite part of their content equation is the On My Way series, a video interview with friends of the brand about their getting-ready routines and creative processes. It lives on their website and YouTube (SEO ✔️), and adapts to TikTok and IG reels in shorter-form versions, too. For the Proenza partnership, they featured founders Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, (save for the YouTube part (they tried Vimeo on this one, don’t ask me)).

This is my version of making your money work for you. Or something like that. The moral of the story is that they’re capitalizing on the raw content and tweaking to fit the conversations and formatting specific to each channel. Take notes people.

merit

A post shared by @merit

Yes, this content strategy is important for maximizing ROI and all that crap, but it also comes back to today’s big theme which is — say it with me now — storytelling. Each product, each partnership, each quarter, actually, has a story to tell and utilizes these different channels and activations (my least favorite of all the marketing lingo) to tell it. I’d pay to see what a creative brief looks like at Merit HQ.

The most compelling story they tell, in my opinion (DUH), is the Five Minute Morning. On a basic level, the Five Minute Morning is a set of products they refer to as their “Core Collection”: The Minimalist, Flush Balm, Shade Slick, Brush No.1, Day Glow, Clean Lash, and Brow 1980.

But it’s so much more than just products. They’re selling you a routine, a one-stop-shop for easy-to-use makeup — the exact purpose of their company’s existence. It’s as if they bottled up their true essence (helping impatient, makeup-curious women like myself develop a simple, good-for-you morning routine). I cannot express enough how genius I think this is, mostly because it’s working on me as we speak.

Attention spans are dwindling right about now, so I’ll round this out with a good old-fashioned bullet point list of honorable mentions.

• This post is funny. Reviews can be great or incredibly dull on social, and this classifies as the former.

  merit

  

  A post shared by @merit

• Their quarterly campaigns around fashion week are a fun way to stand out amongst other MEC Pinterest Brands while contributing to a luxury halo effect.

• Their merch isn’t just merch and their partnerships aren’t just partnerships, they’re both useful. Hear that merch-haters? This partnership with Tove on another iteration of the Signature Bag is a great example.

  

  did somebody say CHIC???

• I love their contribution to the Kelly Rutherford resurgence.

• If Brooke Devard is in, I’m in.

  

  @merit"It's amazing how a single swipe of red lipstick can be so transformative." @brookedevard, creator and host of the Naked Beauty Podcast. We called it Power for a reason. Brooke wears —  Flush Balm in Rouge Day Glow in Citrine Signature Lip Matte in Power #meritbeauty #signaturelipmatte #flushbalm #dayglow #merit

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Efficacy

So it seems as though they won me over with the branding and marketing, but now we must decide if the blush is all it’s cracked up to be.

I should mention that I’m not a big blush wearer, so I don’t really have anything to compare this to, aside from the crumbly powder I bought from CVS when I was in sixth grade. I used to make myself into a human tomato, so once I realized how crazy I looked, I completely reversed course and abandoned it altogether. It’s left lasting scars, clearly.

So do I like the blush? Yep. I like it.

I think it’s fun to dab on my cheek and I appreciate how subtly it appears on my skin. It takes literally 1 millisecond to apply, and I feel like I know what I’m doing when I blend it in with the companion brush I previously bought at Sephora a few months ago (right about when I decided that having a makeup brush is an adult thing to do, even without a purpose for it).

artsy! xD

I still don’t feel like blush needs to exist in my daily makeup routine (my trauma is showing) but if Merit can get me relatively excited about a product I have no strong desire for, then I think they’ve done something right.

Overall Thoughts

What an arc. I went from being a Euro-Chic Minimalist Clean Makeup Brand skeptic to a Merit enthusiast. I hope you enjoyed coming along that journey with me.

Now that I know they can be trusted, I’ve got my eyes on the The Minimalist Perfecting Complexion Stick for my next concealer. Maybe I’ll wait for them to bring the Proenza Schouler bag back, though…

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

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In Other News…

• Maybe the fancy berry thing has legs, after all.

• Brand Hall of Famer Nécessaire launched a Vitamin C Body Serum

• A sentence I’d never thought I’d utter: I’m very excited about this tinned fish apparel

• Unfortunately the best option is now free bleeding…

That’s all for now. If there’s a product you want reviewed or just want to chat, reply to this email. :)