Birchbox has announced the rebrand of its men’s brand, BirchboxMan, to Birchbox Grooming. As brands continue to delve into the male beauty market, ensuring that products are gender inclusive will be essential.

Google Nigeria has released a voice assistant with a nuanced and representative English accent. This effort to regionally customise the service may help to address the growing calls for inclusivity across sectors, ensuring people around the world have tools suited to their needs.

The beauty sector has evolved from an aspirational pursuit of perfection, to celebrating uniqueness and encompassing health and wellness. But as Gen Zers expect the products they buy to align with their values, beauty brands are having to go deeper below the surface to engage them.

“Western mainstream media create and perpetuate idealised versions of beauty and appearance and present them to us as ‘real,’” says Tracey Thornborrow, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Lincoln. “Of course, people are not as homogeneous as the media would have us believe.” In response to such unrealistic ideals, a growing number of people are demanding ‘realness’ from media producers and advertisers.