Maybelline Face Makeover in Fit Me

I read in WWD this week that Maybelline New York aims to change the way women buy makeup for their faces, particularly how they shop for it at drugstores.

Maybelline’s most recent success, Instant Age Rewind The Eraser, has given the company a foundation (no pun intended) upon which to build on its face makeup business and lure the entry-level face makeup wearer, as well as the more established foundation consumer.

With Fit Me, a four-product face line, Maybelline plans to offer a newer take on the “shade-true” category, starting with four products: foundation, powder, concealer and blush. Three bronzers will help complete a finished look.

While Maybelline executives acknowledge Fit Me isn’t the first face regimen to include all of these items, their point of differentiation is that Fit Me links the various items together so the consumer will shop for her face as a complete regimen.

“For us, Maybelline already has a solid face business, but we needed to recognize the shade-true segment of foundation. Our research tells us that women want ‘the right shade for me,’ and it ‘needs to look natural on my skin.' That was a big finding - and the inspiration for the Fit Me launch,” Ali Goldstein, vice president of U.S. marketing for Maybelline New York told WWD. [slightly edited quote]

Items in Fit Me will use “skin merge technology,” a patented formula that aims to match skin tone and blend quickly. Fit Me foundation will have an SPF 18 and use pigments that are grounded and refined before being added to a translucent base to allow for skin shade replication. The foundation will have a number featured prominently on its packaging so a customer will know immediately which corresponding shade of powder will match her skin, simply by using the same number. The powders will use a creamy pigment technology, and both the foundation and powder will be available in 18 shades and retail for $7.99. The concealer will be available in six shades, while the blush will come in 12. The concealers will sell for $6.49, and the blush and bronzers will sell for $5.51. Does $5.51 strike you as an odd price? Could this possibly be correct?

Maybelline spokesmodel Lisalla Montenegro will be featured in Fit Me ads, along with other models filmed during various times of their days, giving the advertisements a documentary feel. Their Fit Me shade numbers will be revealed at the end of each spot.

I love my Maybelline mascara. I use Define-A-Lash, not the iconic Great Lash, which is inferior to Define-A-Lash in my humble opinion. I have purchased Maybelline foundations and blushers, but they have never "grabbed me." I'm looking forward to trying Fit Me. I love new discoveries, especially when they are inexpensive.

Photo and all credit for this news goes to WWD