Sex & Stats’ 2016 Year in Review

CoverGirl Nura Afia (Today)

CoverGirl Nura Afia (Today)

Raise your hand if you are DONE with 2016. Everyone? Yeah, I thought so. Before we let the door hit this year on its ass, let’s look back at some of the biggest trends in sexuality this year.

Women’s Equality

This year, women began speaking up and demanding more. This ranged from five women suing New York State for the infamous tampon tax to single women voting becoming America’s force to be reckoned with to “Shameless” actress Emmy Rossum asking for (and getting!) equal pay for her performance on the hit TV show.

This is one trend that’s been a long time coming, and I hope it continues for a long, long time.

Brands’ New Inclusive Spokesmodels:

This year, larger brands began making strides towards inclusivity in their advertising. This was especially prevalent with the CoverGirl brand: Beauty blogger (and teenager!) James Charles became the first man to rep the brand, and beauty vlogger Nura Afia became the first Muslim woman to wear hijab to appear in CoverGirl’s advertising.

Let’s hope that more brands follow CoverGirl’s lead of using spokesmodels of all stripes to include in their public-facing advertising. After all, it’s been proven that diversity is big business.

Wonder Woman:

Wonder Woman fever is beginning to crest, with many news items about the Amazonian princess making headlines. First, the character was revealed to be queer by DC comics writer Greg Rucka. A few weeks later, she was named honorary ambassador to the United Nations for female empowerment worldwide.

Wonder Woman will probably retain a strong interest with the release of the self-titled big screen movie starring Gal Gadot. The movie will be released on Jun. 2, 2017.

And that’s it for 2016. See you in 2017!

The Newest CoverGirl Wears a Hijab

CoverGirl Nura Afia (Today)

CoverGirl Nura Afia (Today)

CoverGirl is making strides in inclusivity in their marketing outreach this year. Earlier, the brand announced beauty blogger James Charles as its first male spokesmodel. Now, CoverGirl has tapped beauty vlogger Nura Afia. Afia wears a hijab as part of her Muslim faith.

The 24-year-old will be the first spokesmodel to wear a hijab. Afia will appear in a commercial, and will serve as an ambassador for the So Lashy! Blast Pro Mascara. She hopes that her wearing hijab will normalize Muslims for the rest of America.

Afia began posting makeup tutorials on YouTube in 2011. She now has 215K subscribers and 13M video views. But this isn’t Afia’s first major brand partnership: she’s previously partnered with Revlon.

Beauty that’s inclusive to Muslims is massive, and poised to grow even bigger. According to Ogilvy Noor, by way of The New York Times:

The Muslim personal cosmetics and care market is now worth more than $54 billion, a figure that is expected to reach $80 billion by 2020.

Beauty Blogger James Charles is CoverGirl’s First Cover Boy

James Charles (Elle)

James Charles (Elle)

Cosmetics giant CoverGirl made history this past week with the announcement of their newest spokesmodel. The newest face is 17-year-old beauty blogger James Charles, who’s made history as the first male spokesmodel for CoverGirl. He’ll advertise the brand’s So Lashy mascara, and has already met fellow spokesmodel Katy Perry.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard Charles’ name: He came to our attention earlier this year with a tweet showing off his redone senior portraits, complete with notable highlight and his own ring light.

Charles only began experimenting with makeup last year, and has already amassed 74K+ subscribers to his YouTube channel and 500K followers on Instagram.

Charles’ selection isn’t without precedent, as men have been used in cosmetics advertising before: MAC has used RuPaul and Johnny Weir before.