Felicia Walker Benson’s popular blog ThisThatBeauty helps teach women how to get gorgeous. Founded in 2005, her online platform has propelled the makeup aficionado and style writer into realms far beyond the Internet. Having been featured on the Today show and in the pages of Ebony magazine among many outlets, Benson is a sought out lifestyle expert whose star is continuing to rise in the competitive world of beauty blogging. She took a few minutes out of her busy schedule to offer us her top winter beauty advice, weigh in on the new craze in beauty balm — or “BB” — creams, plus give her take on an ongoing question: do black women really wear makeup?
theGrio: Tell us about your popular blog, ThisThatBeauty. What made you decide to found a blog amid a sea of beauty blog competitors?
Felicia Walker Benson: When I started ThisThatBeauty in 2005, there weren’t a ton of blogs out there. I had a few blogs that I read daily, but there wasn’t blog world domination like we have now. There certainly weren’t as many opportunities for bloggers to expand their brands like there are today. Now the focus has shifted from purely blogging, reviewing and swatching product to being more of an online influencer.
It began as a place to exercise my obsession. My blog tagline is, and has always been, “Benefit From My Obsession.” I was always that girl in the office that people would come to for makeup and fashion advice. Sometimes I would spend some of my time at work responding to emails to friends about “how to clear up this [issue,” or] “what’s a good cleanser, what’s a good mascara.” In the back of my mind I thought, “wow I should really start a magazine one day.”
And then it struck me start a blog.
What is your number one, never fail beauty tip for all women?
You know this is a really good question. Throughout my years of writing about beauty, I have often interacted with many kinds of women. The number one concern that I see from women of all races is the desire for clear, even, luminous skin. It used to be that lines and wrinkles were the definitive markers of aging. Now bright, clear, luminous skin is everything. Having said that, my number one never fail beauty tip for all women is sunscreen. A daily sunscreen with UVA and UVB protection of 30 SPF is necessary. That’s certainly what the American Cancer Society recommends.
I think you if you’re on the darker side like myself you can get away with a 15 or 20, but for most women I really recommend a 30. Sunscreen is something that many people don’t think of as a beauty product. They think of it as something that they slather on for the beach. But the sun is the number one cause of aging. The sun prematurely ages the skin. It causes lots of fine lines and wrinkles before your time. You can protect against that with sunscreen.
Also to my earlier point –wanting even, clear skin: sunscreen will help with that. Sunscreen blocks the sun’s rays from damaging your skin and creating an uneven complexion. If you have dark spots or uneven-toned skin — like most of us do — the sun will only exacerbate that. To prevent that from happening wearing an SPF 30 UVA/UVB blocking sunscreen daily can help to even out your skin tone. I give this advice constantly. It is my number one beauty nonnegotiable. I really do credit that as the reason for my relatively even tone.
BB (or “beauty balm”) creams are all the rage this season. Can you explain what they are, and how they are beneficial beyond regular tinted moisturizer or foundation? Would you recommend them?
You’re right they really are all the rage this season. Everyone’s getting in on the action. A little background on BB creams: they were originally created in Germany and they were meant as a post-surgery, post-procedure treatment. It would give the patient some sort of coverage, to conceal, but also these treatment benefits as well. BB creams first rose to popularity in Asia and became very, very hot there amongst women. True BB creams, or the original BB creams, really come in just one or two shades. And even in Asia those shades don’t necessarily match the skintone perfectly. But that’s basically how it goes.
Now in America and the Western world BB creams have certainly picked up momentum. You have lots of brands, from high-end to drugstore, getting in on the game. I think the benefit for many women is that you can combine five steps in one with a BB cream. Most provide primer, have some kind of skin treatment benefit, it’s a foundation, it’s a concealer and they have SPF. So for many women they see this as a way to combine all these steps. Naturally all women are interested in this.
I think most women struggle to find a BB cream to suit their complexion because the range is generally very limited; however in the last year I’ve seen brands like Smashbox, Origins and Maybelline come out with BB creams with a wider range to suit a bigger segment of the population. And I hear that Iman is also coming out with a BB cream soon.
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I have never been one to get my skin care from a single cosmetic product. If my foundation has SPF that’s a bonus, but I always make sure that I apply a separate SPF product prior to my foundation. The same goes with skin treatments. I personally will not look to a cosmetic product like a foundation to give me treatment benefits for my skin. I’m going to apply my treatment serums separately from my foundation — and again if it’s in the foundation, it’s a bonus. I am very diligent about my skin care.
Having said all that, I do recognize that I am not the average woman. I totally understand that many women like the convenience of these products, so for that reason I think they’re pretty cool.
What are your top recommendations for incorporating this season’s fall and winter beauty trends into one’s daily regimen?
Let’s start with skin before getting into color cosmetics. I think the best way to complement this trend is with pristine skin. For fall and winter, we really need to make sure that we are moisturizing for skin that looks supple and soft. Crocodile skin is not going to look good under any kind of makeup. So I definitely recommend increasing your moisture for day. If you were using a lighter-weight day cream for summer, now is the time to boost your moisture with a richer cream for winter. Also make sure you are using a really rich cream in the evening when your skin is repairing.
As for makeup trends, we generally see a shift to more berry-toned lips for winter. I mean, this is a no-brainer. Season after season it’s the same thing. You’re definitely going to see more berries, reds and plums. I recommend doing dark lips. They are intimidating, so start with a little bit of a stain, or a richer tone of lipstick instead. Dab it on your lips to bring up the color. That way you can ease yourself into the trend.
Some people think black women are afraid to wear make-up, or less likely to. Do you think this perception is accurate?
Oh, hogwash! I’m even tempted to call malarky (go Biden!). I honestly don’t think that black women are afraid to wear makeup, or that they’re less likely to wear makeup. But I do have some observations about black women and how we wear make up. I think as far as lipstick is concerned, because we generally have fuller lips, there is a bit of hesitancy to wear brighter colors.
I think as women get older, we become more comfortable in our skin and embrace who we are. If you’ve got full voluptuous lips, by the time you turn 30 you become very comfortable with that. I think you should not feel like you can’t wear color. It’s a matter of wearing those things in the way that make you you. It’s the same with makeup. So if you have fuller lips and you want to embrace richer colors, my personal opinion and recommendation would be to try less glossy formulas. Sometimes the really glossy formulas seem to amplify the volume that’s already there.
I think another another area of makeup where all women are very hesitant and reluctant is around foundation. For years we’ve learned that there’s one perfect foundation shade [for you]. This is something women of color probably feel impacts them the most. But, women of all ethnicities deal with this. I’m really delighted to see that more make up companies are offering better options for foundation.
How should someone who is interested in wearing more make-up get started? What, to you, is the biggest benefit of wearing cosmetics?
Women come to wear makeup for a number of reasons. Some were born wanting to experiment. It is just in their DNA. Other women don’t experiment with makeup until they’re starting job interviews after college, or starting a new job. Maybe they are recently divorced and feel like they want to shake things up a little bit. Some have imperfections they want to conceal.
There are so many resources out here today to help you with that. Clearly blogs are very influential. Lots of blogs give step-by-step tutorials on how to do makeup. YouTube is also an incredible resource.
My advice would be to take baby steps. A very easy way to amp up your look is to put on mascara and a nice lip gloss creating those two points of interest. You’ve accentuated your eyes by lengthening and darkening your lashes. That doesn’t really require a whole lot of skill and lipgloss is very easy to put on. You can also learn to groom your eyebrows. That’s something that you can do to really frame your eyes and accentuate your face without applying lots of color cosmetics. I know a lot of women are color shy.
What’s next for you?
Oh boy, what’s not next? I definitely see the further expansion of my brand. ThisThatBeauty was started as a beauty blog to share my fashion and beauty discoveries when I was a full-time corporate girl and running my blog on the side as an outlet for my passion. From there the blog has grown tremendously from fashion and beauty to also covering fitness, lifestyle, food and wine. I now have contributors so I get to add other points of view as well. I am now not just in the role of contributor, but also the editor. The blog has become a mirror of my overall lifestyle and what I am learning is that my followers are really interested in the things that I am interested in. Beauty kind of draws them in. I acknowledge the power of my brand and I am working on opportunities to further expand that brand in the areas of television and radio. And there is a book in the works.
Follow Alexis Garrett Stodghill on Twitter at @lexisb.