Name: Madison Mize

Social Justice Group: 2022-2023, Women’s Role and Representation in the Media (print/ads/tv)

Date of Fieldwork: January 26, 2023

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Milk Makeup

Type of Fieldwork: Tour of organization and interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?:

On January 26, we went to the Milk Makeup headquarters in Soho. We interviewed two people there: Kate Ingram, the Creative director of Creative Operations and Tyler Smart, the Chief Creative Officer. Founded in 2014, Milk is a makeup brand that is vegan and cruelty free. Tyler and Kate gave us a tour of the office, and we were able to go behind the scenes of all the shoots. We saw unreleased makeup, people working in their office, and we learned how they chose what products to release, and how they picked the designs for the packaging. Milk Makeup’s mission is to represent people of different ethnicity, sizes, and genders; so this was really helpful for our project. Milk is aware of the effects that the ideal of beauty has on people, particularly women, and believes that their brand must reflect “real” people, not just thin, white models that conform to the beauty standards.
Milk Makeup is different from other brands because they’ve been representing women of all ethnicity and body types since it was founded. Everyone who works there believes that being inclusive is necessary. Milk is really making a change by sticking with their mission, and is one of the only big makeup brands that has been inclusive from the start. Our group learned so much, and it was an amazing experience for our first fieldwork leaving the building.