Pharrell Williams is a busy man. While overseeing men’s at Louis Vuitton and on the heels of launching a new book, the multihyphenate star is also introducing new Humanrace skin care products.
“Paris has been exceptional,” he said over Zoom on Monday, from his current home base.
He was in a cheerful spirit, hinting to big news for Humanrace.
“That’s materializing as we speak, so I’m not at liberty to go into it. But, it’s coming. And it’s very exciting,” he said when asked about his ultimate hope for the brand.
Related Articles
Working with Dr. Elena Jones, chief executive officer Rachel Muscat and chief creative officer Edward Robinson, Williams founded Humanrace in 2020. He launched with a rice powder cleanser, lotus enzyme exfoliator and snow mushroom face cream as part of a three-step routine, before expanding into body care with soap-free bars and a body cream, as well as sun care.
Now, he is introducing two gel-based products: the $44 “7D Retrograde Gel Cleanser” (formulated with apple fruit extract and vitamin B) and $58 “7D Mystifying Gel Moisturizer” (with niacinamide, pseudoalteromonas ferment extract and blue light protection). A set is available for $85.
“For me, the interest centers on what it is that I learned from my dermatologist, who I have been going to for over 20 years,” he said of Jones, discussing the new goods. “A beautiful, Black, talented woman out in New York City with her own exploding practice — and just the journey that I’ve been on with her. She’s been teaching me this entire time.”
He’s learned two major lessons, he went on: “Number one, routine is everything. But the second thing, man, the way you get to that baby soft skin and that freshness and that youth is literally by the way that you’re cleansing and the way that you’re exfoliating.”
The regimen is sealed with the last step. “The way that it finishes, the moisturizer is just next level,” he added.
Product testing begins with Williams, and he’s simply “a gel guy,” he said. “I’ve always been the type of person that just loves gels. You know what I’m saying?”
The previous launches set the tone in “laying the foundation for what we’re doing,” he continued. The expansion marks where the brand is heading.
“It’s about offering choice to as many humans as we could,” Muscat said. “And gel versus rice, it’s really about that option of the texture and how it feels to you. That was really important as we’re building out the categories, knowing that we want to ensure that we have that choice for our customer.”
Humanrace is, evidently, for humans — it’s the only demographic in mind. “That’s really all we look at,” Williams said of shoppers. “This has never been about gender. It’s always been about humans, and it’s really not about skin color as much as it’s about skin type. We’re just trying to meet everybody in the intersection of success for skin health.”
Humanrace — now a team of 20, working with consultants — will soon be available worldwide through its direct-to-consumer channel online at humanrace.com. “Right now, we service the U.K., the U.S., Europe, Australia [and] New Zealand, and by the end of the year, Q4, we’ll be global,” Muscat said. U.S. retailers include Credo Beauty, Goop, Nordstrom and The Webster.
Asked about Louis Vuitton, Williams said, “I just feel honored to be at the helm of it all. And I feel like, you know, like I said, this is not a job. I was chosen. So, for me this is a dream. I never dreamt that I would be chosen, you know? When you look like me and you come from where I come from, we have aspirations, we have ambitions. This is not one of them. Because I just couldn’t even fathom it.”
He emphasized the team around him: “This opportunity to work with such an incredible, comprehensive team of masterful artisans just reminds you that — it humbles you. Some things you can beat your chest and pat yourself on the back for, but there’s a lot that your human eyes can’t see. As you stand in front of a mountain, just because you can’t see what’s on the other side doesn’t mean that there isn’t another side. And it doesn’t mean that there aren’t even more mountains that the universe wants for you, if you would just humble down and trust the process. And that’s right where I am.”