The singer-songwriter, EGOT winner and entrepreneur is sending his creative spirit in a new direction: skin care. John Legend says he’d been thinking about his own line for years, but he didn’t want to create something new just because he’s “a celebrity with nice skin. There needed to be a real reason for it to exist.”
That reason, he explains, was the “need for more skin care made for melanin-rich skin, and the need for more study about dark skin tones in dermatology and product development.” Another critical factor: “It needed to be affordable and accessible— something people could buy at their local CVS. That’s how we created Loved01. I’m very entrepreneurial and creative at heart, and I have such a great creative team around me. I’ve collaborated with great skin-care brands before, and I care a lot about my skin.”
“We believe that Loved01 can be special because it’s formulated for an underserved market that deserves great skin-care products made with them in mind,” Legend continues. “We also want to create a larger movement for how the industry can change so that more research is done on melanin-rich skin and our unique issues and concerns. And we even need more dermatologists being trained in medical school on how to treat these needs. Even the FDA doesn’t require product testing on brown and black skin tones to label it effective and safe—it only requires it on lighter skin tones. We want to be a force for change.” Here, Legend opens up about his new brand, as well as the high-low mix of products he keeps in rotation.