How Beauty Companies Have Responded to the Novel Coronavirus

It's a bad time. People are getting sick and people are getting laid off. Some people who are out of work don't know how they're going to pay rent, how they're going to feed their family. COVID-19 affects us all one way or another and it's not hard to believe that this virus will change the fabric of our life.

Personally, as I'm hunkering down at home, I have been trying to support local Austin businesses to help keep our communities' beloved restaurants and businesses. Of the larger, national businesses that I do use, I like to see that they are treating their employees' health and well being as a top priority, that they are looking out for more than just themselves. Some companies have given back and taken care of their employees. Some have not. In this blog post, we'll take a look at the response of some larger beauty companies to COVID-19. Just a note that for some of the following brands, I'm aware that they are owned by the same parent company but for the purposes of this blog post, I'm going to be looking at the response of the individual business entity and not of its parent company. The companies I've chosen are the ones that I personally enjoy and the ones that I've purchased from most often. Because of that, I was curious about how they're treating their employees and what charitable contributions they've made.

Sephora

Sephora got into hot water early April 2020 when news broke that they laid off more than three thousand part time and seasonal employees. According to former Sephora employees, they were given less than an hour's warning to attend a video conference where they were told that they were being laid off.

This left thousands of employees with extremely uncertain and precarious life and financial situation. This also contradicts Sephora's promise that "all store employees will continue to receive their base pay for scheduled shifts for the duration of this closure." According to other former employees, when stores closed, they were promised they would be taken care of and were assured that they would still have their jobs when the situation has become more stable.

I'm a big fan of Sephora. Going to Sephora is an event for my friends and I. We love to look at and try out all the makeup! This news is very disappointing and honestly enraging. I can understand that it's an extremely tough time for retail companies right now. BUT Sephora is worth billions of dollars. Are you really telling me that a company with stores internationally and generates billions of dollars every year cannot afford to take care of its employees both full time and part time? None of the highly paid executives can help support these employees?

My irritation with Sephora speaks to the larger disillusionment that I have about corporations. I had a hunch that companies would rather throw their employees under the bus than take a business hit but it's super disappointing to be proved right. Getting confirmation that regular people like you or me are treated as disposable and that large corporations are treated as and operate as though they are far more important than treating the thousands of employees they have like humans.

Ulta

Ulta has also temporarily furloughed salon and retail associates starting April 19th. Some definitions! A layoff, as it is generally used, means that an employee is permanently dismissed from work. Furloughs, as it is generally used, refers to a temporary layoff from work. While employees are not paid during furloughs, some are still able to make use of their health benefits. I'm not saying this is the same case for Ulta employees. This is just the distinction I found while reading up both.

Back to Ulta, CEO Mary Dillon is forgoing her base salary indefinitely as a response to COVID-19. Dillon has also contributed $500K to Ulta's Beauty Associate Relief Program to provide monetary grants to associates facing personal hardship. Ulta executives and directors are also expected to make similar donations to the relief program.

While Ulta's stores are still closed, their distribution centers are open to continue fulfilling e-commerce orders. In addition, employees who are working in distribution centers have their salaries increased by $2. Aside from this, the company has also announced that they will donate more than 450K medical grade gloves from their salons to hospitals nationwide in coordination with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

It's unfortunate that people are being furloughed in Ulta as well but I appreciate Ulta's CEO forgoing her salary indefinitely. This is a concrete way executives who have been rich for a long time can help mitigate costs. I also appreciate Ulta starting a relief program for their employees.

Yesstyle

It's harder for me figure out what is happening with Yesstyle employees or what the working conditions really are in their Hong Kong distribution center. I'm going off their official statement on their website so take this as you will.

I'm a huge fan of Asian beauty and Korean beauty specifically. There are many, many Asian beauty products that you can find through Amazon (who apparently continue to treat their employees poorly even through a global pandemic), some of the newer and smaller brands you can only still find from Asian retail stores. I LOVE Yesstyle for these kinds of products. I've been ordering from them off and on since college and I hope to continue to do so until they give me reason not to.

Either way, Yesstyle has temporarily has suspended shipping to select countries and territories due to postal carrier suspensions. To places that they are still servicing, Express and Expedited shipments may be delayed for up to a week. Their Premium Standard and Standard can experience delays of up to 4 weeks.

Employees also wear surgical masks while working and undergo daily temperature checks. Employees who have traveled internationally or have family members who have traveled internationally are required to self quarantine before returning to work.

Finally, all products received in their warehouses are sprayed with disinfectant and the warehouse itself is cleaned and sanitized daily.

Fenty Beauty

Fenty Beauty is one of my favorite Western beauty companies and since this is Rihanna's company, it's hard to separate the business entity from her. To start, after so much Googling, I have not found any press releases or news items that announce any layoffs within Fenty Beauty.

As far as responses, Fenty Beauty is donating 100% of all the profits from their Clara Lionel Makeup case and Killawatt Highlighter to Rihanna's Clara Lionel Foundation which supports and funds groundbreaking and effective education, health and emergency response programs around the world. In total, the Clara Lionel Foundation has donated $5 million dollars to organizations such as Direct Relief, Feeding America, Partners in Health, The World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, the International Rescue Committee. These donations will help to support local food banks serving elderly and at-risk communities in the US, distribution of necessary respiratory supplies, providing protective equipment for healthcare workers, and many many other awesome things.

Rihanna herself has teamed up with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to set up a $4 million grant to help victims of domestic abuse - specifically meant to address the rise of possible domestic violence due to being trapped in unsafe homes. The fund will provide funds for shelter, food, and counseling for individuals and their children in the Los Angeles area.

I love Rihanna and all these efforts she and her organizations are undertaking just makes me love her more.

To be honest, I'm encouraged by people like Rihanna and some companies like Ulta who are at least trying to do good and using their wealth to help their employees and their communities. One of the worst parts of dealing with the pandemic is that it's painfully obvious that the government and large corporations don't know how to treat people with any kind of humanity or are not willing to. Even when people are dying, we are still trying to protect capitalism and the larger companies who profit from it.

I don't have an uplifting way to end this. It's not really an uplifting time. I only want to say that I hope folks out there are staying safe and healthy. I hope we treat each other well and with empathy.