Gash Will Return, Plus More Intel on the "Blandemic" Strategy With Urban Decay Global Head Anika Majithia
My 1:1 about working with Ari Kytsya, the direction of "uncensored femininity," and the three chapters of the "new" UD.
Marketing, really is, all around us. And consumers are eating up the art of advertising more than ever, but are also equally as critical of what's being sold to them. Get ready to be sold — or not.
It’s a new era for Urban Decay, which is clear from the brand’s latest partnership with OnlyFans creator, 24-year-old Ari Kytsya. Kytsya, who divulges both the lifestyle she was able to create due to sex work, but also the dark side of the business, has developed a fanbase on TikTok and Instagram. She creates funny skits (which is how I found her, unaware of her vocation), she talks about work she’s had done — she shares her life online outside of being a “mattress actress.” (Her words!)
Can a Controversial Brand Ambassador Revive Urban Decay?
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If you’ve followed Urban Decay for as long as I have, you know things got weird after the L’Oreal acquisition and went from weird to bad once Wende Zomnir, the brand’s visionary founder, left the company in 2022. Urban was known for edge. They had unnatural shades of eyeshadow. They made a lipstick called Gash (this comes off casual but if you know Gash, you KNOW it) and “Pocket Rocket” lip glosses while brands were touting Rum Raisin and Spice. The brand’s original tagline? “Does pink makes you puke?”
Eventually, the brand veered into neutrals with the launch of what many consider The Mother Lode of everyday eyeshadow: The Naked Palette. It was so beloved that they had a funeral for it when it was discontinued in 2018 and revived it last year for a limited run.
But the brand has struggled to find it’s place in the new world of social media, post 2016 makeup. Reviews and attention spans are shorter. Consumers are either horrified or celebratory of sex marketing, and outside of hits like Moondust Eyeshadow and the staple All-Nighter Setting Spray (which was recently reformulated and not without controversy — yes, I did ask about it, keep reading), the brand has appeared bland itself, if not cheesy. (I still cannot get over Big Bush Volumizing Tinted Brow Gel.)
Which is why this partnership with Kytsya is exciting, as noted in my previous reporting. Paired with the appointment of escoteric makeup artist Lockie Stonehouse as their new global ambassador and a campaign centered around the “blandemic” we’re in, this is the comeup that typically happens in the industry — some brands are hot, then fade, then make their way back around. This feels like the fresh start a legacy brand, who has been part of many of our memories, with new leadership. According to the brand, when Kytsya’s video dropped, it reached 1M organic video views in under 24 hours – Urban Decay’s fastest video to achieve this ever and #1 Instagram post year-to-date.
I had the opportunity to speak with Anika Majithia, Global Head of Urban Decay, who joined the company late last year. She shares her definition of the term “bland,” why we’re seeing reformulations vs. in-your-face makeup launches to start, the brand’s goal of celebrating “uncensored femininity” in all forms, plus a great tease: Gash is returning!
Kirbie: I have been keeping tabs on Urban Decay for a minute and have felt like the brand has lost its way. But with this new campaign, it reminds me of why people fell in love with it. Walk me through the “blandemic” campaign and how that came to be. What were you and the team seeing in terms of the conversation and beauty, and then why did you feel blandemic made sense for the brand at this time?
Anika Majithia: The DNA of the brand was so rooted in rebellion and doing things differently in the beauty industry. And I always ground myself in the line that Wende Zomnir created when she launched the brand, which was, “Does pink make you puke?” Transparently, I started as the new head of Urban Decay at the very end of last year, and I had the same sentiment, quite honestly, that there's something we need to do to reinvigorate and bring back the brand.
The first few months was really spent thinking through what should the future for Urban Decay looks like. What I see happening in the makeup industry at the moment has a lot of parallels to 30 years ago, when the brand started. I will never be someone that insults “clean girl” makeup, because this brand was also built off girlies that absolutely love our Naked Palette. But with everything going on in the industry, we saw an opportunity to really leverage the conversation around a potential lack of experimentation and lack of expression and makeup, which I think we all feel.
We're going through a phase of really reinvigorating and reigniting the brand, [so] it felt like the right conversation to jump on. Our new brand point of view is “anti-bland makeup, born to perform” and really championing a sense of femininity, which to me, is what the DNA of the brand really did.
My team came to me with Ari Kytsya, who popped up on my own FYP a lot, and I've always been a big fan. I knew her as a makeup creator and just a really, really funny girl, and knew her also through her partner [Yung Gravy]. The team said, “Look, we'd love to work with her, and we'd love to share the sentiment around the ‘blandemic’ in makeup that's happening.” We saw an opportunity to reopen a conversation on who deserves a seat at the table from a creator lens and who really are the real influencers and creators in today's makeup industry as well.
KJ: We know how long ahead of time brands work in order to produce product and make products. Obviously, now it's been promoted that All-Nighter Setting Spray got a makeover. We've seen some teases of some palettes as well. Do you then say, What comes first? The chicken or the egg? We have have these products that we're obviously going to makeover. But we have this idea of the “blandemic.” How do you fit these things together? Because one criticism I have seen is, “You're talking about a ‘blandemic,’ but then you're just making over products that don't necessarily scream ‘in your face’ makeup.
AM: Urban Decay is a brand that's been built off two very different core audiences. You've got your Naked palette fans. They're probably the equivalent of your “clean girl” today. And then you have your lovers of Gash, Kush, some of those amazing electric palettes that the world fell in love with, and myself included, way back when. So the first thing I'd say is “anti-bland” means something very different to everyone, right? To one girl, it might be “I'm gonna shake up my nude cut crease. I'm gonna throw on a really deep black liner to like rock that punk-goth look,” and to someone else, it might be might mean electric green highlight. It might mean a crazy blue lip. That's the thing I love about this industry, that pushing your own limits and expressing yourself can mean something so different to so many different people.
A lot of the new products that scream anti-bland, crazy innovation are coming in January 2026 and onwards. Like you said, it's a bit of the timing of it, and I'm someone that is a huge believer of honesty and transparency in the industry, and knowing that, yes, leadership changes happen. Brands change direction, and that's a great thing. There’s three main chapters to where we're going to take our product strategy. One is really the reinvention of our iconic products. You mentioned All-Nighter, and also the Shaped palette. Is the Shaped palette anti-bland? I encourage your audience to decide. If you think that a versatile, multitasking, nude palette [is] bland, then I challenge you to use it on your boobs or your butt in a way like you've never done before, because it can be done. So that's the first chapter.
The second one is going to be bringing really fresh innovation and fresh technology that isn't always rooted in color. Things that bring excellence in performance and are told in a really anti-bland way. And then the final chapter is really bringing back color in a way that's meaningful and interesting for our audiences. I always look at the two sides of the coin. We've got our lovers of the crazy color — they'll be getting their Gash back. We're looking at other products that we can bring back for them, but then also things that are more “safe color” for the anti-bland girl that wants to push her own look in a different way.
“The final chapter is really bringing back color in a way that's meaningful and interesting for our audiences. We've got our lovers of the crazy color — they'll be getting their Gash back. We're looking at other products that we can bring back for them.”
KJ: I want to go back to Ari. When your team comes to you and says, “Hey, we want to look into Ari,” — Urban Decay is a L'Oreal property. [The industry] see L'Oreal is this legacy, very buttoned-up conglomerate. [UD] is pairing with someone that — not that Urban Decay has never paired with a sex worker before. Chloe Cherry is, for example, but I think in Chloe's case, she was being so promoted for her work as an actress on Euphoria. This is a completely different take on it and UD leaned in to what Ari does for living for this campaign.
What were the reservations that you had, if any, and how did this get greenlit?
AM: I think you said it perfectly, that Chloe Cherry was an actress. Women, are never just one thing, and we're never just one job. For me, Ari was someone that comes across as a girl's girl. She's a makeup creator, she's a comedian — I don't think we should ever just put people into one box in terms of whatever profession they're choosing to do. You've asked the question on reservations, and I think sitting in my seat, you always think of the responsibility to that individual, the responsibility to your community, and the conversation that you're going to inevitably trigger by doing something like this. Why Ari specifically was a perfect partner is how honest and open she is about the industry. I've seen her talk really candidly about the joys of her industry. She's someone that's very sex positive. I've also seen her talk very openly about the risks and downsides. And something I respect about her content is how open she is with other women and young girls about the kind of great things that they might see from her life, not being true for everyone, and not being representative of what it's always like going into the industry.
For me, she was a very real and fair representation of someone that's really thought through their place in the industry. Meeting her in person was such a joy, because she is truly a girl's girl and has the back of our audience, and I think that's a conversation for me that we wanted to open as well to say nowadays, especially with younger women, they're never just doing one one thing with their life anymore. They're so multifaceted. And how can we as brands lead conversations around who deserves a seat at the table and not make people feel kind of ostracized or isolated because of a choice that they might have made.
KJ: How did you work with Ari on this? Obviously, you had an amazing script writer, but was she throwing out ideas? Was she involved in this? I would love to hear a little bit more about this process.
AM: The first thing which sometimes has surprised people about this is it was initiated by my in-house social team, who are a bunch of incredible women between the ages of around 21 to older millennial. They wrote a draft script themselves. They're not copywriters, but they're people that just love Ari and are real fighters for the cause that they wanted to stand for.
Ari had the script. She actually fell in love with it, and she was like, “I was ready to rip this up and say, lots of changes, but I loved it.” There were a few changes that she made. I think it was really a “if you know, you know,” nod to her audience. It's like, we see you, we hear you, and we understand you, and we're standing up for you. So I think a lot of the language that Ari injected was a real, then on the day, she got really creative and played with it. It was really a true collaboration. Even her makeup. We did her makeup for her, and there were a couple of things where she was like, “This just doesn't feel Ari.” So then she went in and did it herself, which is exactly how brands should be working with creators. It's a partnership, and it's a relationship that needs to be built and needs to feel really authentic.
KJ: How else will we see her bring this vision to life? Will we see her in if we walk into a store? Will she be doing specific product launch promos?
AM: We're still cooking with her. I think it was such a great collaboration. And it's honestly the way I love to work with creators, is you dip your toe in the water. Check the chemistry works. Check if it's something that both brand and creator and audience feel really good about and I think thankfully, given the response, the team and I are now in talks with Ari of what comes next.
What I will share is one thing that we really want to stand for in the future is what I like to call “uncensored femininity,” so girls, women, even men from the LGBTQ plus community, trans women, standing up for different things. Ari is one of many stories to come that stand up for various communities, kind of across this really beautiful spectrum of femininity.
KJ: I'd be remiss not to bring up — I've mentioned the All-Nighter reformulation. I did see that the brand departed from the partnership with Skindinavia. Can you talk a little bit about that or share what happened there?
AK: It’s not something I can talk about today just because it's quite hot off the press and transparently, I want to have a conversation with them before anyone else, out of fairness to them. So unfortunately, no comment right now.
KJ: I had to ask. But thank you for acknowledging that. Let's end on this, what do you think is the most underrated thing about Urban Decay is as a brand?
AK: I would say what the brand stands for at its very core is exactly the messages that the world needs to hear right now. I think everything in terms of speaking up for what you believe in — uncensored femininity in all of its various forms, is such an amazing topic. I'm really excited we’re having this conversation on what anti-bland really means within a really broad spectrum of consumers. We've got the world talking on what anti-bland means to them, and I'm really excited to carry that conversation on authentically with our consumer base.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.