Written by: Avery Buker
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Introduction
Rare Beauty's packaging looks simple at first glance, soft colours, rounded shapes, minimal logos. But behind that aesthetic is a deliberate focus on accessibility that's quietly resetting expectations for the whole beauty industry. Instead of treating inclusive design as a niche add-on, Rare Beauty has woven it into how products are conceived, tested, and refined.
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The origin story of Rare Beauty's accessibility focus
When Rare Beauty launched in 2020, most coverage focused on its mental health mission and more "real" vision of beauty. The accessibility story was there from the beginning, but it came into sharper focus as customers with disabilities started talking about how different the packaging actually felt in their hands.
Selena Gomez has been open about living with lupus and experiencing arthritis in her hands, which makes fine motor tasks painful and exhausting. On a podcast appearance in 2025, she explained that her own difficulty opening everyday objects directly shaped how she wanted Rare Beauty's packaging to work: easy to open and close, easy to grip, and comfortable to use for people with dexterity challenges. What started as instinctive choices; chunkier caps, softer finishes, larger surfaces to hold, quickly became a core design principle once she and her team saw how much it resonated with customers.
As feedback rolled in from people with arthritis, chronic illness, and other mobility-related disabilities, Rare Beauty recognized that accessibility wasn't just a nice bonus, it was a genuine point of difference. That realization led to a more formal commitment: treating accessible packaging as something worthy of real research, investment, and open collaboration rather than a one-off feature.
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Specific design features that make products easier to use
Rare Beauty's packaging doesn't scream "medical device" or "adaptive tool." Instead, the accessibility features are built right into the visual language of the brand, so they feel intentional and beautiful while still being genuinely practical.
One of the most talked-about design elements is the rounded ball on top of many of the brand's liquid products, like their Soft Pinch Liquid Blush and Positive Light highlighters. That sphere isn't just a cute design signature, it gives users a larger, more stable surface to grasp and twist, which is particularly helpful for anyone who struggles to pinch or grip small, flat caps. The size and shape of the bottle underneath are also chosen so the whole component sits comfortably in your hand, making it easier to hold steady while opening, applying, or blending.
Across the range, Rare Beauty calls out three main accessibility pillars: packaging that's easy to use, finishes that create better grip, and applicators that are comfortable to hold and maneuver. In practice, that shows up as:
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Matte or soft-touch finishes that reduce slipping compared to glossy plastics or glass
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Caps designed to minimize resistance when twisting, so less force is needed to open them
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Applicators with shapes that help guide your hand and require less precise pinching or fine control
Even products that don't have the famous ball cap follow similar logic. Tinted moisturizers and other squeeze bottles use shapes that create natural finger rests and leverage points when squeezing, so people can get product out without straining their hands. Lipsticks and balms have flat sides so they don't roll off a counter, reducing the risk of chasing products that are hard to pick up from the floor.
A striking example of this thinking is Rare Beauty's fragrance. Instead of a traditional perfume bottle with a small cap and stiff atomizer, the brand introduced a capless bottle featuring a large oval button that toggles between locked and unlocked and then dispenses the scent with a simple press. That design eliminates twisting or pulling entirely and offers a much larger surface for your finger or palm, making the act of applying fragrance way more accessible to people with limited hand strength or range of motion.
All of these elements add up to something deceptively simple: products that are easier to hold, open, and control, whether you're dealing with disability, morning stiffness, or just slippery hands. By making accessibility invisible but deeply felt, Rare Beauty proves that inclusive packaging can be part of a brand's signature look, not a compromise.
The Made Accessible Initiative and research partnerships
As the conversation around Rare Beauty's packaging grew, the brand decided to formalize its approach through the Made Accessible Initiative. Rather than relying solely on internal assumptions, they wanted real evidence about what actually helps people with upper extremity disabilities use beauty products more easily.
To do that, Rare Beauty partnered with the Casa Colina Research Institute (CCRI), part of Casa Colina Hospital and Centers for Healthcare in California. CCRI ran a study in 2023 evaluating a selection of Rare Beauty products with 57 participants who had a range of hand and arm disabilities, including those resulting from stroke, spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, and other neurological or orthopedic conditions. Participants documented not just whether they liked the products, but how usable they actually found them; how easy it was to grip, open, maneuver applicators, and apply makeup in real-world conditions.
The research highlighted specific attributes that improved usability: caps that require less force to twist, components sized to allow your whole hand to engage rather than just a few fingertips, non-slip finishes, and applicators that balance precision with ease of control. Using those findings, Rare Beauty identified a group of products that met their Made Accessible criteria and showcased them on their website, explaining which features supported accessibility and why.
Crucially, the brand has said it plans to use CCRI's insights to inform future packaging decisions and to share those learnings with the broader beauty industry. That commitment turns a proprietary advantage into something more public-spirited, instead of guarding their research as a competitive secret, Rare Beauty is positioning accessibility data as a resource others can build on.
The Made Accessible Initiative also reframes what "accessible packaging" actually means. It's not just about adding a single special feature; it's about building a framework for evaluating ease of use and validating it with people who live with disability every day. By grounding its decisions in formal research, Rare Beauty gives other brands a model for moving beyond good intentions toward measurable impact.
How founder Selena Gomez's experience shaped the brand
Rare Beauty's accessibility story is inseparable from Selena Gomez's own health journey. Diagnosed with lupus in 2013, she's dealt with chronic pain, fatigue, and arthritis in her fingers; symptoms that can make everyday tasks surprisingly hard. In interviews, she's shared moments as simple as struggling to open a water bottle as turning points in her awareness of how much design can either help or hinder.
That firsthand experience led her to pay attention to things many beauty founders overlook: how a cap feels when you twist it, whether your hand slips on a glossy bottle, how much effort it takes to push a pump. Initially, she's said, the team simply leaned toward packaging that she herself found easier to use, which "inherently made the products easy to open." As feedback came in from customers with dexterity issues praising those same features, Rare Beauty realized that what worked for Selena's hands could work for a much wider audience.
Gomez's openness about lupus and mental health has helped shape the brand's tone as well. Rare Beauty isn't marketed as "makeup for disabled people," but it constantly circles back to themes of self-acceptance, ease, and taking pressure off perfection. Accessible packaging fits naturally within that philosophy, if beauty is supposed to make you feel better, the products themselves shouldn't create extra frustration or physical pain.
Her profile also gives the accessibility message a much larger platform. Interviews about the brand's $2 billion valuation and product launches now routinely include questions about accessible design, arthritis, and inclusive packaging. That visibility matters. It helps normalize the idea that mobility and dexterity are legitimate design considerations, not edge cases, and it challenges other founders and corporations to think beyond aesthetics.
In a market where celebrity beauty brands can feel pretty interchangeable, Gomez's decision to root Rare Beauty in her lived experience and to talk about disability and mental health alongside shade ranges and finish types gives the brand real emotional credibility. Accessibility isn't a campaign for her; it's day-to-day life, translated into packaging decisions.
Industry standards emerging from Rare Beauty's accessibility work
Rare Beauty isn't the only brand thinking about accessibility, but it's become one of the clearest examples of how inclusive packaging can be integrated into mainstream beauty without sacrificing style. As retailers, consumers, and other companies take notice, a set of emerging "unofficial standards" is starting to take shape.
First, there's the idea that ease of opening and closing is a core metric of good packaging, not an afterthought. That means testing how much force is needed to twist a cap or press a pump, considering one-handed use, and designing shapes that work for people with limited grip strength. Rare Beauty's research with CCRI gives the industry a template for how to measure this and why it matters.
Second, material choice and finish are gaining new significance. Soft-touch, matte, and slightly textured components are no longer just "premium" touches they're understood as accessibility tools that reduce slipping and make products more secure to hold. That lens can be applied far beyond Rare Beauty, from skincare tubes in the shower to glass serum bottles at the sink.
Third, there's a growing expectation that brands should consult people with disabilities when developing packaging and share what they learn. Rare Beauty's willingness to talk openly about its partnership with a rehab research institute and its plan to make findings widely available puts gentle pressure on others to move past generic claims of inclusivity and toward specific, evidence-based changes.
Finally, perhaps the most important emerging standard is philosophical: accessibility is becoming part of what "inclusive beauty" actually means. For years, the conversation focused largely on shade ranges and representation in marketing. Rare Beauty's work adds another essential layer; how the product feels to use for someone who lives with pain, tremors, stiffness, or limited mobility. As more consumers call this out and reward brands that respond, accessible packaging will shift from standout feature to baseline expectation.
Rare Beauty has shown that accessible design can absolutely coexist with soft, aspirational branding and resonate with a broad audience, not just a niche. It's also proven that listening to disabled consumers, partnering with medical researchers, and building from a founder's lived experience isn't just good ethics, it's also good business.
For the beauty industry, the lesson is clear: the future isn't just about what's in the bottle. It's also about who can hold it, open it, and use it comfortably every single day.
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