PB Approved: We Are Fluide, A Vegan & Cruelty Free Brand That Is Designed For All Skin Shades & Gender Expressions
1. Please tell us about your brand.
We Are Fluide is a mission-driven brand that creates vegan, cruelty-free, and paraben-free beauty products designed for all skin shades and gender expressions. We believe that makeup is joyful and fun — as well as powerful and transformative —and nobody should be left out.
Our tagline is “makeup for everyone,” and we truly embrace the ethos of inclusion. Through providing a platform and amplifying the voices of queer and gender expansive identities, we hope to inspire others to create their identities on their own terms, opening up possibilities for everyone’s self-expression.
We encourage you to discard your preconceived notions of what makeup is supposed to look like and who it’s for, and instead use makeup as a tool for tapping into a self that feels right to you.
Ultra-pigmented liquid lipsticks, moisturizing, non-sticky glosses, 7-free nail polish, and glorious glitters are the stars of our collection. A mission-driven startup, We Are Fluide donates products to fundraisers and events to support LGBTQ+ organizations big and small.
2. What is the meaning behind your brand name?
Through our imagery and campaigns, we celebrate gender-expansive identities and the concept of gender fluidity, which inspired our name.
3. How did We Are Fluide come to existence?
The vision for We Are Fluide was always about inclusive representation and celebrating the beauty and lifestyles of people who were vastly under-represented in the industry. Our goal is to evolve the mainstream conception of “beauty” while creating a space for people to express themselves authentically.
As a parent, I've been so inspired by the teenagers who are leading the way in creating a more expansive understanding of gender identity. Through their engagement and activism, they’re creating a worldwide movement and paving the way for everyone who comes after them.
For me, personally, the company represents an opportunity to recognize and honor the shift in our culture regarding gender expression. Through creating an online community and content platform as well as products that were marketed specifically to with gender expansive identities in mind, we validate and support nonbinary identities.
4. Where do you get your inspiration from when creating new products? What about the product names?
As a brand, we embody a non-prescriptive approach to beauty, in that each product is multi-purpose and versatile. Many of us have a complicated history with makeup, and our products are designed to be easy, wearable, and fun, especially our “Universal” line, which includes a multi-function crayon in 4 shades, a glittery eyeliner in 4 shades, and a shimmery gloss for eyes, lids, cheekbones in 3 shades.
We want to demonstrate that you can discard all your preconceived notions of what makeup is supposed to look like and who it’s for, and instead use makeup as a tool for creativity and experimentation.
5. We Are Fluide donates a portion of their sales to charitable organizations and causes. What are the organizations and why did We Are Fluide choose to work with them?
We donate product to many fundraising events and non-profit organizations, and we have been involved with the NYC-based LGBTQ healthcare center, Callen-Lorde, which is an incredible organization. Healthcare is crucial to the success of our community, which is why we are dedicated to supporting Callen-Lorde. For Pride 2020, we partnered with the Marsha P. Johnson Foundation to donate a portion of sales for all Pride products. Earlier this year we launched our College Rep program and have been proud to support various LGBTQ+ campus organizations around the country through product donations and sponsorship.
6. What do you hope to see for the future of the beauty industry?
We created the company to embody and embrace gender expansive beauty and recognize the increasing numbers of people who live between categories and help make them feel seen. In less than three years since we’ve launched, we’ve seen a shift in the industry towards being more inclusive generally -- related to pressure from consumers. We hope that this bottom-up demand for change continues and creates a lasting impact in the industry.
7. As for the brand itself, what legacy would you like to leave?
For us, the future of beauty is gender expansive--where gender is understood as unique for everyone, rejecting a binary with “masculine” on one side and “feminine” on the other and, instead, allowing for a multitude of experiences and expressions of gender. We hope to offer a positive contribution towards creating a landscape in which beauty is less prescriptive and more individualistic, and, overall, more enjoyable and playful.
8. What is running a business like during quarantine? Have you faced any difficulties?
Among the many challenges of living through this surreal time is finding stability in the unstable, peace in the un-peaceful moment and strength during this time. Although we all may be experiencing the pandemic and quarantine in different ways, we have all had our lives upended and have had to reckon with the recognition that, despite our efforts and assumptions, we are not in control. It is not a bad thing to be reminded of that lack of control, because it is at the heart of the human experience: the very thing we most want to believe that is essentially false. These last two years of building We Are Fluide have been a whirlwind of intense work and powerful connections with incredible people who believe in our mission to liberate makeup from patriarchal beauty standards and showcase gender-expansive identities. I've always been grateful to the incredible individuals who have worked with me from our first days, but I am especially grateful to them now for staying committed and connected, and for trying new things, and continuing to plan for a future when we dance and laugh together at our photoshoots as we've done before and hope to do again.
9. What’s next for Fluide?
We are really excited about new product lines and new shades for existing product lines that are coming out this fall and winter. Stay tuned!
10. Social media?
@fluidebeauty on instagram, fb, twitter and TikTok
Interview by Alison Hernon, PhotoBook Magazine
