Music Icon Smokey Robinson and His Wife Present New Skin Care Line for People of Color
Smokey Robinson is one of America’s most prolific songwriters of the 20th and 21st century. With a career spanning five decades in music and entertainment, and a catalogue of more than 4,000 songs, Robinson is one of the most iconic figures in popular music.
Along with his wife and business partner, Frances, an accomplished interior designer, the Robinsons recently presented their latest venture; a skin care line for people of color. The Get Ready and My Girl product lines were originally developed for the couple due to the lack of skin care products available for their skin type. Named after two of Robinson’s signature hit songs, which he penned for The Temptations, the Get Ready and My Girl brands are created by Skinphonic, a leading skin care company that focuses on providing services and solutions to those underrepresented in the beauty and cosmetic businesses.
One day, a friend of the Robinsons offered to introduce the couple to a development team of dermatologists and scientists at Skinphonic that were interested in working with them to formulate a line of products designed specifically for their skin type. For more than two years, the development team worked with the Robinsons to formulate three products. After extensive clinical trials were conducted, the products not only worked well for the Robinsons, but the couple was interested in making the products available to the general market.
“I have dry skin due to my extensive travel schedule. I also play a lot of golf,” says Robinson. “Frances and I were looking for a solution. We tried just about everything that was on the market. The Get Ready and My Girl skin care lines are designed for people of color, not just black people. The products are made for people with pigmentation in their skin and were developed for that sole purpose. Finally, after two and a half years, we got the one that we felt was right for women and one we felt was right for men. The marketing team chose to name the products after two of my songs because they wanted the music to be familiar with people and to associate me with something immediately recognizable.”
According to data provided by Skinphonic, the cosmetics industry creates and tests products primarily for single issues (wrinkles, age spots, and dry skin) and most are tested primarily on light skin. However, there are biological differences between Caucasian skin and pigmented skin. Pigmented skin has different sized cellular structures and reacts differently to certain ingredients. Biologically, people with pigmented skin represent more than 80 percent of the world population, which includes people living in Latin American, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Both the Get Ready and My Girl programs feature three product items: AM Hydration, a morning moisturizer; the PM Treatment Complex for the evening; and the Twice Daily Cleanser.
“The three-step program is simple and works perfectly, especially for guys,” says Robinson. “With these products, you get up in the morning, and wash your face with the cleanser. Then, you put on your day cream. In the evening, you wash your face with the same cleanser, and then you put on the night treatment — and that is it.”
Robinson says that Skinphonic is currently formulating additional products for their line, as well.
At 77-years-old, Robinson, along with his wife, are health conscious and longtime advocates for wellness. He hasn’t eaten meat in more than 40 years. He first became a vegetarian, incorporating fish and fowl into his diet. For the past two years, he has been a total vegan. He doesn’t smoke or drink, except for an occasional glass of wine. He is an avid golfer and works out regularly. He has also practiced yoga for more than 35 years.
“I believe in taking care of myself,” says Robinson. “I want to keep my body healthy for as long as possible. When I became a total vegan, it wasn’t a big transition for me because I was already a vegetarian.”
Known globally for his numerous hit records with The Miracles and as a solo artist, Robinson was one of the leading architects of the Motown sound with chart-topping tunes including The Miracles’ number one hit, “The Tracks of My Tears.” Other memorable classics recorded during the Robinson years include “Shop Around,” “Ooo Baby Baby,” “I Second That Emotion,” “Baby Baby Don’t Cry,” and “Tears of a Clown,” which was co-written with Stevie Wonder. Many of his tunes were widely influential, including “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me,” also recorded by The Beatles, who were huge fans and supporters of Robinson, and “Going to a Go-Go,” covered by the Rolling Stones. Some of Robinson’s big solo hits were “Cruisin’,” “Being With You,” and “Quiet Storm,” the song that created a movement at black radio for Urban Adult Contemporary formatted stations across the country that still exist today.
During the Motown era, Robinson also created hits for other recording artists such as “The Way You Do the Things You Do” by The Temptations; “You Beat Me to the Punch” and “My Guy” by Mary Wells; “Don’t Mess with Bill”by The Marvelettes; and “Ain’t That Peculiar” by Marvin Gaye, just to name a very few.
The recipient of almost every music award and honor imaginable, Robinson’s enormous contributions to Motown Records and American music was displayed on The Great White Way and theater venues across America and abroad in the mega successful production, Motown the Musical, which broke box office records on Broadway. His countless achievements include a Grammy Legend Award; a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; a Kennedy Center Honor; a National Medal of Arts presented by President George W. Bush; two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honors, first as a solo artist and later with The Miracles; a Songwriter’s Hall of Fame induction; honorary doctorate degrees from Berklee College of Music and Howard University, among numerous others. Surprisingly, Robinson did not win his first Grammy Award until 1988, for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for “Just to See Her.”
With no plans to retire, Robinson continues to tour and expand his music catalogue. When asked to confirm whether he wrote, co-wrote and collaborated on more than 4,000 songs, Robinson replied: “Yes, ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) sent me a song log a few years back, but since then, I’ve written many more. I write all the time.”
Proclaimed by Bob Dylan as “America’s greatest living poet” and revered globally as the man who help Motown’s founder Berry Gordy build an American institution, Robinson is peerless, and his many significant contributions to popular culture are unparalleled.
In the era of brand extensions, who would have ever imagined that two of Robinson’s songs, “My Girl,” and “Get Ready,” released respectively in 1965 and 1966, would be named for a skincare line?
Gwendolyn Quinn is an award-winning media consultant with a career spanning more than 25 years. She is a contributor to BlackEnterprise.com, Black Enterprise’s BE Pulse, Huffington Post, EURWEB.com, and Medium.com. Quinn is also a contributor to Souls Revealed and Handle Your Entertainment Business.