While singer and entrepreneur John Legend is known for his melodic voice and EGOT status, his legendary glowing skin is coveted, with many of his fans striving to achieve his grooming regimen. Lucky for them, his next entrepreneurial venture includes dominating the beauty space with the launch of his melanin-focused skincare and body care brand, Loved01 (pronounced “loved one”), which has been in the works for a year and a half. The brand’s name, Loved01, encapsulates the type of love that Legend emotes in his music and daily life: “My career has been all about love, and love is so important to who I am. Love is also important when you think about self-care because it expresses love for yourself and the loved ones around you. And we felt this brand was about self-love and sharing it with your loved ones and how that self-care ritual is often shared; it’s communal; within your family, you may be standing at the sink together in front of the mirror. It’s part of how you bond with the people you love,” Legend tells ESSENCE.
He continues, “We felt like the name Loved01 captured that energy and that sentiment. We also wanted our people with melanin-rich skin to know they’re loved. We intentionally created this brand with them in mind because we believe they deserve great skincare at an affordable price.”
Loved01 was founded and designed to address the need for more inclusivity in the skincare market and to prioritize the needs of melanin-rich skin with dermatologist-approved products at affordable prices. With Loved01, Legend is dedicated to ensuring skincare with effective ingredients for melanin skin are financially accessible so everyone can experience the joy of beautiful, healthy skin. “Many celebrities are getting into skincare, and we didn’t want it just to be another celebrity skincare line; we wanted it to have a real reason to exist in the world. A-frame approached us because they’ve been researching skincare and saw that people with melanin in their skin are overlooked, underresearched, and underserved when it comes to formulating products that meet our unique needs. I didn’t want to produce this line unless we had something special to offer. If it was just another celebrity putting their name on something and selling a product that wouldn’t be accessible to many people, I didn’t want to do it,” he states.
The unisex brand offers elevated skin and body products for melanin-rich skin at an affordable price point, with most products from $10-$15, available on February 1st through Loved01.com, CVS stores nationwide, and CVS.com and launch in select Walmart stores and on Walmart.com in March 2023. “We have wealth, income, and pay gap. So there are all these reasons why we may have less disposable income as Black and brown people in America. But we deserve care. We deserve love. We deserve to be able to treat our skin well. However, we should be able to get it at a price we can afford. This is why Loved01 exists: We know there’s a gap in providing products formulated for our skin. But there’s also an issue regarding making it affordable and accessible. And so we wanted to do both simultaneously,” Legend shares.
He continues, “We wanted to provide a high degree of care and love and science and all the things that go into creating these products that are formulated for melanin in your skin, but also making sure that folks with melanin-rich skin can afford it and it’s at places where we all shop.”
Featuring six products at launch, Loved01 offers targeted skin-care solutions made of thoughtful ingredients for melanin-rich skin to deliver genuinely effective results. Legend intentionally decided to tap a Black woman dermatologist, Dr. Naana Boakye, to curate products that tackle the pain points many Black and brown people experience with their skin. The line includes natural ingredients that have a history in communities of color, including shea butter, jojoba, and coconut oils, enhanced with the antioxidant properties of rosehip oil and sea buckthorn oil. The dermatologist-approved products nourish, moisturize and gently rebalance the skin’s pH levels, leaving users feeling clean, vibrant, and beautiful. And according to Legend, his favorite products from the line are the face and body moisturizers. “I just put it on my hands, and it feels so silky and smooth. All of our products focus on moisture, so even our cleansers or shaving cream have the rosehip oil and the sea buckthorn oil, which helped to moisturize deeply,” he reveals.
Believe it or not, Legend is deeply familiar with the beauty industry as he was an early investor of Tristian Walker’s BEVEL, the first and only head-to-toe grooming brand for Black men. “Right at the beginning, Tristan came to me with his vision for his brand. It’s amazing to see brands that know us and care about making products for us. We have buying power, so why not formulate products created with us in mind, not as an afterthought, but as the center of what we’re trying to do? I think that that model influenced me early on,” he shares. What excites him about the beauty industry is the opportunity to connect with his audience on a skin-deep level. “I think it’s a way to be a part of everyone’s lives, and that’s a beautiful thing. Everyone has a skincare routine, and if we create something special that is a companion for everybody as part of their morning and evening ritual,” he says.
Legend embodies love and care and lives the soft life; his newest brand highlights that. When asked if he’s in his soft life era, his response is simple, “Well, I’m an R&B singer, so there’s always going to be some soft life in an R&B singer. We write love songs that help people express their vulnerability. I’m singing in falsetto sometimes, you know, those intimate moments you got some John Legend and Marvin Gaye music playing. Being in touch with that vulnerable side of yourself is important for an artist because artists are at their best when they’re being honest, letting their emotions show. R&B singers have been at the forefront of the soft life movement for a long time.”
With Loved01, he hopes his current and new audiences can see the love and care poured into each product. “I want them to know that we put a lot of love and care into formulating these products. We made them for everybody, but we centered on melanin skin and research and product development, and we wanted to ensure that it wasn’t just a luxury for a few people who could afford it,” he says.
Scroll below to see a first look at the Loved01 brand. You can purchase the products below on February 1st via Loved01.com and at CVS Pharmacy nationwide.
