Terri Bryant (Rochester, New York, 49 years old) had always been attracted to the world of makeup since she accompanied her mother shopping as a child.
She had a goal and soon she discovered that she also had the ability to recognize how to accentuate features using pigments and brushes as tools.
“While my friends drew on paper, I saw faces as canvases.
For hours I would play experimenting with different techniques”.
She soon found herself working for brands like Dior or Stila.
Everything was going according to her plan until, after two decades of dedicating herself to it professionally, her pulse began to fail.
A most spectacular setback for whom precision is a work requirement.
She “She had been living with mild but progressive symptoms for years before discovering that she had Parkinson's.
The actress Selma Blair applies makeup to her eyes with the eyeliner applicator.Raúl Romo
Instead of being intimidated, he had the reflexes to swerve and develop applicators and formulas that he could keep using.
Also the insight to sense that he was not the only one who could be served.
Thus was born the idea for his own makeup firm, Guide Beauty, which took two and a half years to materialize.
When he did, in February 2020, a global pandemic broke out.
He never thought of leaving him, "not even on the worst days."
Last June he was joined by Selma Blair.
The actress, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2018, is in charge of the creative direction.
“She introduced us to a mutual friend,” Bryant says, “we had an instant connection as we shared life experiences and our love of beauty.”
The entrepreneur's experience with the disease is what gave her the ability to broaden her vision: “Having Parkinson's gave me a unique perspective, as a makeup artist and as someone who knows what it feels like to have to fight.
When you create through an inclusive lens, following the principles of universal design, you consider and account for as many needs and challenges as possible.”
This design paradigm, which focuses on creating products that are easy to use for anyone, without having to adapt them, has been the American's guide to develop one prototype after another, testing them with more than 200 user tests.
The result?
Ergonomic applicators and intuitive packaging that make the moment of makeup enjoyable for those who wish to use it, regardless of their abilities.
Details of the Guide Beauty designs. Raúl Romo
For a long time, the normative notion of beauty was based on exclusion.
Thus, speaking of the opposite represents a radical turn for the sector.
But it is an inescapable one, according to the report last July by the consultancy Wunderman Thompson
Inclusion's Next Wave
, which points out that much more is expected of brands: “There is a grassroots momentum from historically marginalized communities aligned with an increase in the consumer expectations”.
For 6 out of 10 respondents, according to data from the consultancy, companies that do not take inclusion into account will be irrelevant.
The head of inclusive design at Microsoft, Christina Mallon, often argues that instead of talking about "disabled", all people should understand that they are "temporarily able", because it is very likely that their abilities will diminish throughout their lives. .
Archetypes should be developed that serve all of these moments.
The industry is starting to do its homework on usability, Bryant argues, “from the tasty click of a Kjaer Weis palette, which requires no vision to tell eye shadow is closed securely, to the innovative hair dryer and eyeshadow brush. From Revlon's hot air, which allows for one-handed styling, every day we're seeing more products that address the needs of many people who otherwise wouldn't be able to access or enjoy beauty so easily."
There is talk of diversity and it is recognized that there are people with different backgrounds.
“And most importantly, we are valuing our differences and harnessing them to create products and techniques that allow us to share our love of makeup.
When that happens, our community grows and so do our connections.
Why don't you design for a
us
or for
them
, you design for everyone”.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I'm already a subscriber