Selena Gomez and her Rare Impact on a Stigmatized Issue
Actress, singer, producer and now makeup brand founder, Selena Gomez, has a busy life — to say the least. Taking on new projects while focusing on her physical and mental health hasn’t been easy for her, but her latest endeavor is helping to destigmatize the topic of mental health.
After 2 years of creating and testing, Selena Gomez and her team partnered with Sephora Cosmetics to establish Rare Beauty in September 2020. Rare Beauty’s mission is to “help everyone celebrate their individuality by redefining what beautiful means. [They] want to promote self-acceptance and give people the tools they need to feel less alone in the world.”
With a major mission to help every individual on their mental health journey, Selena has made it their goal to raise $100 million dollars over the next 10 years “to help give people access to mental health services” naming this The Rare Impact Fund.
But Rare Beauty isn’t waiting for these 10 years to go by before they begin providing resources to those in need — they are starting now. Selena and her team have made it apparent on their website and social media, specifically Instagram. Aiming to create a community of individuals who are educated on mental health resources, can freely express themselves and their uniqueness and ultimately de-stigmatize mental health for everyone.
Along with more information about the Rare Impact Fund, viewers can also find support and resources like important numbers and external links to groups such as the Trevor Project, the Crisis Text Line and the United for Global Mental Health organization.
Rare also has its own mental health council that is made of 12 experts and “practitioners from the fields of mental health, philanthropy, entertainment, media, academia, and beauty.”
If you’re not already following Rare Beauty on Instagram- you need to. It’s evident how important and formative it is to the brand to be mental health advocates for all. Intertwining makeup looks with graphics, photos and videos bring awareness to mental health issues by shedding a positive light on something that can be so heavy for individuals to carry.
Rare Beauty even hosted their first Mental Health Social Summit on Instagram Live and Stories and was met with positive feedback on the day-long event. In the screenshot below, you can see the Social Summit schedule along with a few comments that truly summed up how the Rare Beauty community felt about this brand’s passion for helping and supporting mental health.
Rare beauty also utilizes UGC (user-generated content) from posts using the #WeAreRare hashtag to express gratitude for their community. The brand focuses on “breaking down unrealistic standards of perfection.” Selena herself says that “being rare is about being comfortable with yourself.” The social team at Rare shares photos tagged with the hashtag while offering a meaningful caption that can be seen to inspire others on their journey of being confident with their own rare beauty.
We can see just how imperative mental health advocacy and resources are for Selena Gomez and Rare Beauty. Since the start of her brand, she has taken the right steps to create a community of individuals to stand together in times of personal crisis and remind everyone that they are beautiful in their own unique and, of course, rare way.
