Name/TitleAdvert: DAMN REBEL BITCHES
About this objectWhite Foamex advert featuring a woman with black-painted fingernails and a
tongue piercing holding and licking a glass bottle of REEK perfume marked DAMN REBEL BITCHES.
MakerREEK perfume
Period2010s
Place MadeScotland, Edinburgh
MeasurementsH: 425 x W: 300 mm
Subject and Association KeywordsBeauty industry
Subject and Association KeywordsSocial enterprise
Subject and Association DescriptionREEK perfume was founded in 2016 by mother-daughter team writer, Sara Sheridan and make-up artist Molly Sheridan. The company was founded with three objectives:
-to challenge beauty industry norms by celebrating real women’s lives and history
-to challenge beauty industry norms by being sustainable and making only small batches of our products;
-to support equality causes via our blog, Bitches Unite, distributing free protest stickers, by refusing to use retouched photographs of models and giving small grants to a variety of people including paying for a pregnant Irish journalist to come to the UK for her abortion and write about it during the Repeal the 8th Amendment campaign, sponsoring Scottish feminist singer, Josephine Sillars, tour and donating to a crowd-funded campaign to commemorate the women murdered at the time of the Scottish Witch Trials.
REEK sold two eau de parfums, both made by award-winning independent female perfumer, Sarah McCartney, through her company 4160 Tuesdays. The first, DAMN REBEL BITCHES commemorated Scotland’s Jacobite women and their spirit. The second, DAMN REBEL WITCHES commemorates people persecuted worldwide for witchcraft both historically and in the present day. The company also stocked a range of merchandise including badges, T-shirts and tote bags.
REEK’s imagery was revolutionary and was studied by trend forecasters and is now included in marketing courses across the UK. Shot in natural lighting with no retouching, the company allowed models to choose which images they preferred and interviewed them about their lives and reaction to being photographed on the Bitches Unite blog. The brand was featured in an array of international publications and the perfumes were beauty editor’s pick in Grazia, Elle UK and Standard Issue magazine.
Object TypeAdvertisement
Object numberGWL-2020-44-17
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved