CoverGirl hired its first male ambassador for the makeup brand, 17 year-old James Charles. James Charles was brought to fame after posting on twitter about retaking his yearbook photo because of bad lighting. He originally said, he didn’t like how the highlighter looked in the picture so he brought his own ring light. In my opinion, it takes a lot of courage to tell the photographers that their “professional” pictures look terrible.

There are male students at Don Lugo who are too afraid to wear makeup due to the fear of backlash or harassment from peers. With CoverGirl being such a mainstream brand of make-up in the teenage world, it may make more male students comfortable with wearing make-up to school which is rare on the Lugo campus. A male Lugo student, who asked to remain anonymous, said on behalf of the announcement that, “I’ve never felt confident in my own skin, makeup and nail polish, make me feel like I am beautiful. And now thanks to James Charles, I am starting to realize, I can be who I am and who i want to be, but it still might be a while until i wear makeup.” Adding, “It makes me proud to be a human in this day and age, being how accepting people are, if i was a few years younger, i wouldn’t have been able to be like this.”

James Charles had widespread social media fame, due to his makeup tutorials on YouTube and Instagram. With 650 thousand followers on Instagram, and 94 thousand subscribers on YouTube, that was just why CoverGirl reached out to him. CoverGirl has worked with LGBT celebrities RuPaul and KD Lang, using social media stars to appeal to youth. Knowing that the makeup companies we buy from every day are sponsoring or even hiring LGBT celebrities, is a big thing because we are finally getting recognition from big brands.

James Charles told BuzzFeed, “Breaking gender norms comes as soon as a boy is comfortable enough to put on makeup. I think it is so important to love who you are and be comfortable in your own skin.” Many male celebrities, including Jaden Smith, have broken ‘gender norms’, but not at this scale. One thing i always say is to do what it takes to be comfortable in your own skin, whether that be makeup, nail polish, or even just dressing different, and to live your own truth.

Katy Perry posted a picture of her and James with a caption of, “Just wrapped up another great CoverGirl shoot. Honored to have the pleasure to announce the first Coverboy, James Charles.” Charles gets to co-star, with his new friend, Katy Perry, in CoverGirl’s new mascara campaign, “So Lashy.”

In an interview with New York Times James stated, “Hopefully I could be an inspiration to other boys, who are too scared to wear makeup, and express themselves in a manner they haven’t felt comfortable doing before.” Being openly gay, it is so humbling knowing that now we have a face in a popular makeup company. The LGBT community has always been excited about makeup, especially in the trans and drag section

The company is moving for a more gender neutral brand, using its first male icon in the company’s history. CoverGirl has already had ambassadors from many races, ethnicity’s, and ages, I believe that gender is just the next step in the makeup brands development. “I think they’re kind of making the statement that they’re for everybody,” Professor Goodman at University of Florida stated when interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor, “So its not surprising that its male cosmetics at this point.”