The bPerfect x James Charles collab is... interesting
The implications behind the bPerfect x Painted partnership
bPerfect announced that James Charles's new brand, Painted will be sold exclusively in their megastores and online marking Painted’s first retail partnership. Since the announcement, bPerfect has dedicated a considerable amount of its social media presence to the Painted partnership on TikTok and Instagram.
Those posts have some of the highest views the brand’s page has seen in a while, and with meet-and-greet events scheduled in Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, and Manchester, it appears that bPerfect is leaning into James' star power despite the baggage he brings.
Let’s talk about bPerfect Cosmetic’s decision to partner with James Charles and its interesting implications.
A background on bPerfect Cosmetics
bPerfect is an adored beauty brand based out of Belfast, Northern Ireland now available with over 2000+ stockists worldwide. In the beauty community, bPerfect is known for its iconic eyeshadow pigments and inspiring collaborations with makeup personalities.
My first bPerfect purchase was the BPerfect x Stacey Marie Carnival IV The Antidote Palette and I just bought bPerfect’s new Full Impact Concealer in Medium-Deep 3 and Medium-Deep 5 (stay tuned for that in a few weeks).
Some other beautiful products of theirs are:
Despite its indie roots, bPerfect Cosmetics is loved in the makeup community so you can understand why partnering with such a polarizing figure in beauty, like James Charles, doesn’t seem like the best PR move. Unless, of course, you believe that no publicity is bad publicity.
James Charles's long list of problematic behavior
Known for his makeup skills on YouTube, Charles’s career is marked by constant ups and downs due to scandals that happen like clockwork. Most recently, explicit videos of James went viral on Twitter, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
His cancellations started in the Bye Sister video, where his makeup colleage Tati Westbrook called James out for being a creep. After that controversy, followed an apology for racist comments, fatphobic remarks, and, most alarmingly, his admission of pursuing minors.
It makes you wonder if this collab isn’t intertwined with the traditional rage-baiting tactics Charles is known for, and what bPerfect’s long-term strategy is for this partnership.
Is this bPerfect’s effort at expanding its reach to American audiences?
Is this an absurdist strategy to gain more momentum as an indie brand?
Whether bPerfect understood the implications of a partnership with James’ or not (though I’m sure it did), his track record makes it hard to ignore the ethical questions surrounding his brand, and by association, the bPerfect Cosmetics brand as well.
Heads are already turning
When I saw the bPerfect Cosmetics announcement, I did what any nosy person would do: I went to the comments. Oddly enough, I didn’t see any criticisms or concerns about the partnership.
Was this weird? Yea. But I just assumed most of bPerfect’s internal audience was unaware of the magnitude of Charles’s controversies. It wasn’t until I saw Jordan Lipscombe’s post with Charles that I realized that bPerfect is certainly deleting negative comments.
Lipscombe’s post has countless comments concerning the alarming partnership with James. Considering the feedback from Lipscombe’s 1.8M followers on TikTok compared to bPerfect Cosmetic’s 348.7K, it’s safe to say Lipscombe’s comments reflect authentic reactions whereas bPerfect Cosmetic’s is guilty of filtering.
If Charles is canceled, who’s the target audience?
If Charles is canceled, then who’s the target audience? Well, I asked myself the same question and the answer is concerning: kids. While I don’t have the financial data to see who’s actually purchasing the Painted products, most of the social media footage from the meet and greets are kids.
This is concerning for a few reasons:
Most importantly, Charles has a reputation for grooming and pursuing minors (yikes)
Kids are oblivious to Charles's problematic past, which means this is an intentional marketing agenda to pivot around seasoned beauty professionals and sell junk to kids so Charles and bPerfect can make money.
At the end of the day, it’s a brand’s choice to partner with who it wants to. The choice to collaborate with such a problematic figure when there are so many other talented makeup figures out there shows that bPerfect has drawn a line in the sand and stands firmly on this decision.
What are your thoughts on the brand partnership? Have you used bPerfect? Do you think this choice is redeemable? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
I’m curious to see how this will play out. Thanks for spotlighting this collaboration!