For the latest beauty and makeup trends, those in the know are ditching fashion magazines and logging on to social media. YouTube and Instagram influencers are redefining beauty standards. And as Tina Trinh reports, the industry is taking notice.
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Day: April 27, 2018
We’re locking down the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending April 28, 2018.
For the second straight week, we welcome a Hot Shot Debut … this time at No. 1.
Number 5: BlocBoy JB Featuring Drake “Look Alive”
BlocBoy JB and Drake spend another week in fifth place with “Look Alive.”
Drake just delivered on a promise to students at Miami Senior High School. Earlier this year, he donated $25,000 to the school, while also promising the school new uniforms that he designed himself. This week, Drake previewed the new designs on Instagram … and you can see them by going on our Facebook page, VOA1TheHits.
Number 4: Post Malone & Ty Dolla $ign “Psycho”
Post Malone dips a notch to No. 4 with “Psycho,” featuring Ty Dolla $ign.
Ty is not the only guest appearing on Post’s “Beerbongs & Bentleys” album, out April 27. The set will feature 18 songs, with other guest stars being Swae Lee, 21 Savage, Nicki Minaj, and G-Eazy and YG.
Number 3: Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line “Meant To Be”
While Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line slip a slot to third place with “Meant To Be,” it remains the top song on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for a 20th week. It’s only the third single to last that long at No. 1.
Sam Hunt held the title for 34 weeks with “Body Like A Back Road,” while Florida Georgia Line was in the driver’s seat for 24 weeks with “Cruise.”
Number 2: Drake “God’s Plan”
Drake ends his 11-week run at No. 1, as “God’s Plan” slips to second place. It lasted a respectable 11 weeks, but now it’s your runner-up.
Drake is accustomed to dominating chart records, but J Cole just stole some of his thunder. J. Cole racked up 64.5 million streams in the 24 hours after releasing his new album “KOD.” This is the most 24-hour album streams on Apple Music, eclipsing Drake’s previous record with “Views.”
Number 1: Drake “Nice For What”
Drake shouldn’t feel too bad, though, because he just replaced himself atop the Hot 100. “Nice For What” is your Hot Shot Debut in first place. Furthermore, Drake is the only artist to have both songs debut at No. 1 …proving he’s in a class by himself.
What will Drake do next? Join us in seven days and we’ll see for ourselves.
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Mamma Mia! The members of ABBA announced Friday that they have recorded new material for the first time in 35 years.
The Swedish pop supergroup said it had recorded two new songs, including one titled “I Still Have Faith in You.”
The news was announced in an Instagram statement from Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Faltskog.
ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo” and had a sequin-spangled string of hits including “Dancing Queen” and “Take a Chance on Me” before splitting up in 1982.
The band’s statement said the members reunited to plan a virtual tour featuring digital avatars, and decided to go back into the studio.
ABBA said “it was like time had stood still and that we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyous experience!”
“I Still Have Faith in You” is due to be performed by the group’s holograms in a December TV special broadcast by the BBC and NBC. There was no word on when the second track will be released.
Ulvaeus revealed earlier this month that digitally created virtual band members — “Abbatars” — would perform in a television show in 2018, followed by a tour in 2019 or 2020.
The band members have performed together just once since the 1980s, at a private party in 2016, and have long said they will never tour live together again.
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Participants at the Cannes Film Festival will be given fliers warning “Proper Behavior Required” as part of an anti-sexual harassment campaign at the May 8-19 event.
The top women’s rights official for the French government announced Friday that she reached a deal with Cannes organizers for the campaign. It will include written warnings urging appropriate behavior and a hotline for victims and witnesses to report abuse.
Secretary of State for Women’s Affairs Marlene Schiappa noted that Cannes is one of the places where disgraced Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein allegedly raped and harassed women.
Schiappa’s office says the French government is urging other upcoming festivals and events to join the effort.
Film festivals have been soul-searching since the Weinstein scandal, rewriting codes of conduct and redoubling gender equality efforts.
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She had traveled to Alabama all the way from California to be here for this moment.
She had managed to stay dry in a torrential downpour that would have forced many others away. Had somehow beat the odds, got in line early, and secured one of the sold-out opening day tickets for access to The Legacy Museum.
So it was a surprise to Isoke Femi that the hardest thing for her to manage were the words to describe what she had just witnessed.
“My experience in there… is so painful,” she said exiting the exhibit.
Site of slave warehouse
Built on the site of a slave warehouse in downtown Montgomery, once the epicenter of the slave trade in the United States, in a town that at one time was the capital of the Confederacy, The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is filled with visual exhibits that serve as a catalyst for understanding what many blacks in the United States have historically endured.
“Five-thousand blacks were lynched between 1880 and 1940,” said civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was an early supporter of the museum and the nearby National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a new memorial that sits on a grassy, six-acre hill overlooking Montgomery.
It is the first memorial and museum of its kind in the United States, tackling subjects such as racial terrorism and lynching.
Founded by the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization working in marginalized and impoverished communities, the group hopes the Memorial and The Legacy Museum will help change the national narrative about race.
“We must face the truth of our origins,” Jackson told VOA in an exclusive interview immediately following his own trip through the museum in its opening hours. “We are a post-genocidal, post-slavery, post-Jim Crow society.”
Facing the past
But not a post-racial society, says Mark Potok, former senior fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center, who spent much of his career tracking hate groups in the United States.
“It is white people in this country, and in the South in particular, who are so averse to facing the past squarely,” he said.
Potok says racism and bigotry, particularly in Alabama, which now hosts this museum and memorial, are not yet consigned to the history books.
“It’s worth remembering that 15 years ago, a very short time ago, the majority of white people in Alabama voted to keep segregated schools in the state constitution,” Potok said.
Jackson says it’s not just Alabama.
“And even today … 200 attempts to get federal anti-lynching legislation has not passed,” he said.
Speaking to the impact of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, he hopes “this will give us a deeper narrative … and we will seek to become better. At the end of the day, we must educate and enlighten us. Not make us get behind more barriers.”
Change at the ballot box
The biggest barrier in Jackson’s mind today is the one keeping people from the ballot box.
“There are 4 million blacks in the South unregistered to vote,” he said.
Mark Potok agrees with Jackson, and believes the best way to bridge the racial divide in the United States is to vote.
“You know, it’s not beating up white supremacists on the streets of Charlottesville,” he said. “It is really changing the people who represent us.”
Isoke Femi, still reeling from her walk through the images and displays that deal with powerful and uncomfortable truths long avoided, sees hope in the crowds around her.
“The love it took to do this, the commitment, the courage, and the fact that everybody is here that it’s not just something that black people are coming to. Everybody is here. And even if they can’t find the words … they want the healing of America.”
In that healing, Jesse Jackson hopes there is also a lesson.
“We must learn to live together,” he said. “And that is one of the great challenges of our past.”
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For some people, makeup isn’t just about the latest shade of lipstick or eye shadow. It’s about empowerment.
Just ask the fans at Beautycon, a recent two-day event in New York that showcased more than 100 makeup and beauty brands, along with speaker panels featuring social media stars whose expertise is all things beauty.
At Beautycon, the spotlight wasn’t on supermodels or fashion editors, but everyday people who have used social media to upend the industry. With online fans numbering in the millions, these Instagram and YouTube influencers are charting a path into a once exclusive field and forcing insiders to rethink conventional notions of beauty.
“I figured out a way to express myself through social media and through my platform and just share my individuality,” said Irene Kim, a Korean-American social media influencer who spoke on a panel, “Niche is the New Norm.”
“Beauty is limitless,” Kim said. “It’s whatever you want to do and how you want to express yourself.”
Mecca Iman is a makeup enthusiast who agrees.
“It’s deeper than just, how it looks, it’s how you feel,” she said.
Democratization of beauty
“There’s no longer a publisher who’s dictating what is beauty or what does health and well-being mean,” said Moj Mahdara, CEO of Beautycon Media. “Now you have a generation of young people who are creators creating that dialogue for a consumer, but that consumer is really their friend — their friend, their fan, it’s a two-way conversation.”
Iman teared up during a meet-and-greet session with social media star Raye Boyce. Boyce, who’s better known by her online handle, “ItsMyRayeRaye,” posts instructional makeup and beauty videos on YouTube and currently has 1.8 million subscribers.
“She’s just so relatable and so cool and then the makeup that she does, I learn from her. I learn so much from her,” Iman said.
Major brands take note
Boyce recently partnered with CoverGirl to promote the company’s cosmetics on her social media channels. She was also given the opportunity to visit the research and development labs of Coty, the parent company of CoverGirl and other consumer beauty brands like Clairol, Rimmel and Max Factor.
“I feel like them listening to us, they’re trying to understand the space,” Boyce said.
Nabela Noor, a beauty influencer with 749,000 Instagram followers and counting, has partnered with companies like Sally Hansen, Benefit and e.l.f. Cosmetics.
“The reason why I wanted to do what I’m doing is because I wasn’t seeing anyone else like me,” said the plus-sized, Muslim Bangladeshi-American. “I wasn’t seeing myself represented on television, in the media. I thought, if I’m not seeing it happen, I’m going to make it happen for myself,” she added.
“By being online and being myself and being proud of who I am, I’ve been able to help people feel good about themselves,” she said.
Tokyo Stylez, originally from Nebraska, calls himself “one of the others’“ or an “alien.” The flamboyant hairstylist started posting his wig creations on Instagram, and now works with artists like Nicki Minaj, Beyonce and Rihanna.
“People really support what I do, they trust my vision, they trust my judgment on things. So if I say, ‘Go do this’ they really go do it, which is amazing,” said Tokyo, who also commands upward of $900 per person for all-day workshops where he teaches his hair techniques. “I just do me, and it works for me,” he said.
Beauty from the inside out
Self-acceptance is a key theme for the demographic that marketers have dubbed Generation Z, the post-millennial group born in the mid-90s to mid-2000s who are well-versed with consumer technology. A section of Beautycon entitled “B-Well” focused on health and well-being, with vendors hawking probiotic beverages, vitamins and healthy snacks.
“Beauty is both inside and out, and how you treat your insides and your mental health and your physical health and your spirituality is all a part of how you foster beauty,” Mahdara said. “I think the industries around health and well-being and beauty are colliding into one and will be a very big movement moving forward.”
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European Union countries backed a proposal Friday to extend a partial ban on the use of insecticides known as neonicotinoids that studies have shown are harmful to bees.
The full outdoor ban will be on the use of three active substances: imidacloprid, developed by Bayer CropScience; clothianidin, developed by Takeda Chemical Industries and Bayer CropScience; as well as Syngenta’s thiamethoxam.
“All outdoor uses will be banned and the neonicotinoids in question will only be allowed in permanent greenhouses where exposure of bees is not expected,” the European Commission said in a statement.\
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From T-shirts, socks and toys to knives and lanterns, a store in upstate New York takes pride in only selling goods that are made in America. Olga Loginova from VOA’s Russian service talked to the store owner about his business, which emerged after the 2008 financial crisis.
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The U.S. economy likely slowed in the first quarter as growth in consumer spending braked sharply, but the setback is expected to be temporary against the backdrop of a tightening labor market and large fiscal stimulus.
Gross domestic product probably increased at a 2.0 percent annual rate, according to a Reuters survey of economists, also held back by a moderation in business spending on equipment as well as a widening of the trade deficit and decline in investment in homebuilding.
Those factors likely offset an increase in inventories. The economy grew at a 2.9 percent pace in the fourth quarter. The government will publish its snapshot of first-quarter GDP Friday at 8:30 a.m.
Don’t lose sleep
The anticipated tepid first-quarter growth will, however, probably not be a true reflection of the economy, despite the expected weakness in consumer spending. First-quarter GDP tends to be soft because of a seasonal quirk. The labor market is near full employment and both business and consumer confidence are strong.
“I would not lose sleep over first-quarter GDP, there is the residual seasonality issue,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “Overall the economy is doing very well and will continue to do well this year and into 2019.”
Economists expect growth will accelerate in the second quarter as households start to feel the impact of the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion income tax package on their paychecks. Lower corporate and individual tax rates as well as increased government spending will likely lift annual economic growth to the administration’s 3 percent target, despite the weak start to the year.
Federal Reserve officials are likely to shrug off weak first-quarter growth. The U.S. central bank raised interest rates last month in a nod to the strong labor market and economy, and forecast at least two rate hikes this year.
Minutes of the March 20-21 meeting published earlier this month showed policymakers “expected that the first-quarter softness would be transitory,” citing “residual seasonality in the data, and more generally to strong economic fundamentals.”
Consumer spending lackluster
Economists estimate that growth in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, braked to below a 1.5 percent rate in the first quarter. That would be the slowest pace in nearly five years and follows the fourth quarter’s robust 4.0 percent growth rate.
Consumer spending in the last quarter was likely held back by delayed tax refunds and impact of tax cuts. Rebuilding and clean-up efforts following hurricanes late last year probably pulled forward spending into the fourth quarter.
“Our new consumer survey found that 37 percent of consumers thought they didn’t get any extra income from the tax cut or did not know what to do with it,” said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. “It is possible this means that there is a lag in the consumer response to tax cuts.”
Business spending
Business spending on equipment is forecast to have slowed after double-digit growth in the second half of 2017. The expected cooling in equipment investment partly reflects a fading boost from a recovery in commodity prices. Economists expect a marginal impact on business spending on equipment from rising interest rates and more expensive raw materials.
“While we do not expect rising rates to crush equipment spending, a slowdown nevertheless appears in store,” said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Higher interest rates will hurt at the margin.”
Investment in homebuilding is forecast to have declined in the first quarter after rebounding in the October-December period. Government spending probably contracted after two straight quarterly increases. Spending is, however, expected to rebound in the second quarter after the U.S. Congress recently approved more government spending.
Trade was likely a drag on GDP growth for a second straight quarter after royalties and broadcast license fees related to the Winter Olympics boosted imports.
With consumer spending slowing, inventories probably accumulated in the first quarter. Inventory investment is expected to have contributed to GDP growth after subtracting 0.53 percentage point in the fourth quarter.
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Amazon.com Inc. more than doubled its profit Thursday and predicted strong spring results as the world’s biggest online retailer raised the price for U.S. Prime subscribers, added U.S. football games and touted its cloud services for business.
The results showed the broad strength of the company, which has been expanding far beyond shipping packages, the business that has drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The forecast beat expectations on Wall Street, sending shares up 7 percent to a new record in afterhours trade and adding $8 billion to the net worth of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive and largest shareholder.
Seattle-based Amazon is winning business from older, big box rivals by delivering virtually any product to customers at a low cost, and at times faster than it takes to buy goods from a physical store. It is expanding across industries, too, striking a $130 million deal to stream Thursday night games for the U.S. National Football League online and working to ship groceries to doorsteps from Whole Foods stores nationwide.
Sales jumped 43 percent to $51.0 billion in the quarter, topping estimates of $49.8 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.
Prime now $119
Prime, Amazon’s loyalty club that includes fast shipping, video streaming and other benefits, has been key to Amazon’s strategy. Its more than 100 million members globally spend above average on Amazon.
The company announced Thursday it will increase the yearly price of Prime to $119 from $99 for U.S. members this spring.
The fee hike is expected to add a windfall to Amazon’s subscription revenue, already up 60 percent in the first quarter at $3.1 billion.
“We do feel it’s still the best deal in retail,” Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s chief financial officer, said on a call with analysts. He said the number of items Prime members can get within two days had grown fivefold since the last price increase four years ago.
Advertising and the cloud
Despite the surge in shopping, Olsavsky gave credit for Amazon’s $1.6 billion profit last quarter to two younger businesses: advertising and Amazon Web Services.
Revenue from third-party sellers paying to promote their products on Amazon.com was an unusually large bright spot during the quarter, with sales in the category, which includes some other items, growing 139 percent to $2.03 billion. This included $560 million from an accounting change.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), which handles data and computing for large enterprises in the cloud, won new business and saw its profit margin expand. It posted a 49 percent rise in sales from a year earlier to $5.44 billion, beating estimates.
Amazon remains the biggest in the space by revenue, and its stock trades at a significant premium to cloud-computing rival Microsoft Corp.
Amazon’s shares have also outperformed the S&P 500, rising 30 percent this year as of Thursday’s market close, compared with the S&P’s less than 1 percent decline.
More workers, spending
Notorious for running on a low profit margin, Amazon has still reaped rewards for shareholders as it has bet on new services like voice-controlled computing and has expanded across continents and industries.
Global headcount was up 60 percent from a year earlier at 563,100 full-time and part-time employees, thanks to a hiring spree and an influx of workers from Whole Foods Market.
The company plans to increase its video content spending this year, Amazon’s Olsavsky said, with a prequel to “The Lord of the Rings” in the works. The third quarter will also see extra spending to prepare for the busy holiday season.
Amazon is working with JPMorgan Chase & Co and Berkshire Hathaway Inc to determine how to cut health costs for hundreds of thousands of their employees.
And it is expanding its retail footprint outside the United States, particularly in India. Amazon’s international operating loss grew 29 percent to $622 million in the first quarter.
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