Bustle Gathered 40 AAPI Creators For A Groundbreaking Beauty Campaign

On Friday, May 2, Bustle launched its most ambitious campaign to date, a celebration of AAPI beauty — in all its many forms — featuring 40 Asian Pacific trailblazers including chef, CEOs, TikTok creators, and beyond. “Face the Difference” is the perfect partnership between the online publication and Maybelline and aligned with the beauty brand’s Fit Me Matte + Poreless Foundation range, which includes an impressive 40 shades. As for the talent, community partner Gold House helped round up a crew that featured faces you may know — like The Comment Section host Drew Afualo and Bachelorette and Dancing with the Stars alum Jenn Tran — alongside those who work mostly behind the scenes, such as Maybelline’s Global Brand President Trisha Ayyagari or fashion designer Kim Shui.

The campaign helped kick off Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which honors the legacy and contributions of the AAPI community, and each of the featured change-makers has carved their own unique place within this category. For example, Partake Foods founder and CEO Denise Woodard is a champion for food inclusivity and a fighter of food insecurity. And Olympic medalist Maia Shibutani and her brother were the first Asian American ice dance couple inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame.

The breadth of talent and accomplishments among this group is a testament to the inherent strength and power of the AAPI community, and it was Bustle and Maybelline’s mission for this campaign to highlight exactly that. “Maybelline New York has long championed the idea that beauty is for everyone,” said Alex Wang, brand marketing director of Maybelline New York, in the press release. “This campaign is a powerful extension of that legacy, celebrating the strength and richness of the Asian Pacific community through a modern, comprehensive lens with our wonderful partners at Bustle Digital Group and Gold House.”

In a series of interactive portraits by photographer Lenne Chai, each of the 40 individuals featured in “Face the Difference” reveals their perfect Fit Me Matte + Poreless Foundation shade match as well as their own words about the deeper meaning of representation and inclusivity, plus some sage advice for their younger selves and others who might feel underrepresented. “For so long, we’ve been boxed into a narrow standard — whether it’s the expectation of fair skin, delicate features, or a certain ‘look’ that fits mainstream ideas,” writes fashion stylist Jess Xu. “But our beauty is diverse, multifaceted, and far too powerful to be confined to a single definition.” And it’s projects like this one that make her point abundantly clear.