Do You Remember: Jessica Simpson’s Edible Beauty Brand

At the peak of her Newlyweds fame, Jessica Simpson hoped to start a cosmetics empire with tasty lickable body creams.

In terms of celebrities who carved out new careers as businesspeople, Simpson is in a league of her own. Launched in 2005, the Jessica Simpson Collection started out as a shoe line and quickly evolved into a clothing empire. By 2010, the collection had earned over $750 million. At one point, its sales got to $1 billion. The shoes were celebrated for their comfort and style and the clothes were seen as accessibly appealing, rather than overpriced or too formal in the way that many other celebrity clothing brands were. It was a combination of everyday style and stuff for smart occasions. You can buy it at Wal-Mart or on Amazon. It’s for everyone. That shouldn't be particularly special but you'd be surprised by how many celebrities refuse or don't know how to make their companies open to the widest customer base possible. They want their make-up to be in Sephora, not supermarkets, even though the latter would probably get them on more shelves and into more people's hands.

(Image via Jessica Simpson Collection.)

A Bloomberg profile detailed how the Simpson Company fell into the hands of the wrong people and Simpson had to spend two years fighting to retain control of her name. Now, she seems to be largely focused on running the company, which is still a sizeable brand and money maker. Think of how many celeb brands fall apart after only a few years. Simpson has outlasted so many of her competitors and copycats. One could argue that she created the blueprint for the likes of Ryan Reynolds and Rihanna. Frankly, more celebrities should follow her example in appealing to “normal” people and not trying to reinvent the wheel with high-price “aspirational” stuff.

Before she made her name with the Collection, Simpson had a business venture that didn’t do so well, and it’s proven to be a nostalgic favourite for many a Newlyweds-loving millennial. But first, a flashback.

It’s 2003. MTV is leaning more into reality programming and dropping the façade of shows like The Real World being serious social experiments. Bam Margera’s getting his own Jackass spin-off, mostly as an excuse for him to torture his parents. Gen X cool is making way for a new era of proud trash, with Flava Flav dating shows, Ashton Kutcher punking celebrities, and Ozzy Osbourne getting drunk and walking his dog. Pop singer Jessica Simpson has married 98 Degrees member Nick Lachey, and they’re documenting the early days of their marriage for the show Newlyweds. Neither were unknowns, necessarily, but they weren’t Britney and Justin. The show felt like a good way to boost their profiles, especially for Simpson, who was known as a sweet blonde with the ability to belt who largely sang saccharine love ballads. The pair spoke about waiting until marriage to have sex, and Newlyweds' premiere would coincide with the release of Simpson's third album, where she had a more mature image and sang about sexy stuff. It’s easy to forget that she was only 22 at the time.

(Image via Giphy.)

The show was a huge ratings success, but it also created the image of Simpson being a dumb blonde. The “is this chicken or is this fish” moment, regarding her tuna lunch, is iconic in the realms of reality TV. This was the era of the ditz, or at least a time where pretty white blondes in the public eye became both beloved and derided for their perceived lack of intelligence. Paris Hilton became hugely famous with her carefully manicured image of a rich bitch with more money than sense. You didn’t even need to push that image yourself to have it forced upon you, as Pamela Anderson can attest to. Anna Nicole Smith was derided in particularly ghoulish ways with her reality TV series, which could seriously lay claim to being one of the most evil shows ever made (that’s a post for another day.) In her 2020 memoir, Open Book, Simpson discussed the weird psychological pressure of becoming famous through this manner: "Nowadays, I see so many people performing their identities on social media, but I feel like I was a guinea pig for that. How was I supposed to live a real, healthy life filtered through the lens of a reality show? If my personal life was my work, and my work required me to play a certain role, who even was I anymore?"

Simpson would be put through the wringer in weird and deeply sexist ways throughout the years. We talked before about the “mom jeans” drama and how the world seemingly came to a halt when she wore some high-waisted trousers, such was the force of fatphobia directed towards Simpson (I wrote about that here.) During the Newlyweds years, it felt like nothing she could would combat that image of her being stupid and worthy of mockery. So, when she got into the cosmetics game with a unique pitch, people didn’t take it seriously.

(Image via Pinterest.)

In 2004, Simpson launched Jessica Simpson Dessert Beauty, a cosmetics line where all of the products were edible. There was the Deliciously Kissable Hair and Body Fragrance, the whipped body cream with candy sprinkles, a lip gloss, body shimmer, and a bubble bath. The flavours were candy-sweet, with lots of vanilla and chocolate. And it was all 100% edible. In the original press release, Simpson said, "Dessert girls are full of sweetness and desire, and they don't mind getting their hair a little messed up in the name of seduction..." Much like her marriage-era music and image, Simpson was sexing it up. A lot of the promotion for Dessert Beauty in the media included Lachey, who told Ryan Seacrest that he'd personally tested every product and found them all to be tasty. “[They're] very sensual products,” he said. He was often seen licking her hand at Dessert Beauty events. Ew.

I can see the logic behind this idea and what Simpson was going for. It was a cheeky sexy brand that fit with how she was trying to sell herself in her new “married woman and hot lady” era. People love a gimmick and I imagine there’s a kind of safety element to knowing that your body cream is digestible. This was before make-up palates and skincare lines were the de facto norm for female celebrities starting their own companies. Simpson wasn’t alone in this period but this company did feel more, for lack of a better term, accessible to the public. It was fun!

But it was also extremely sexual. Frankly, when I think of lickable skincare, I think of flavoured lubes and the kind of stuff you can get from Ann Summer. To me, this concept was so clearly adjacent to kink that I’m sort of baffled that it was ever sold to kids. Simpson was branded as a ditz but this move, to many, only further exacerbated her naivety to the public. This was the era of purity rings and "barely legal" fetishizing, the time when Britney Spears was forced to be both an innocent virgin and the sex symbol of the century. So many of the women of this time were very young, managed by men, and shoved into impossible standards of desirability. Then they were expected to be spokespersons for abstinence, but still hot to creepy old dudes. Think of Britney, Miley, the Jonas Brothers, and Jessica. She was married but still in conflict with this archaic double standard that defined the earliest days of her career (Simpson was managed by her weird dad, Joe, who was a bit too open in discussing his daughter’s body.)

So, I do wonder if Simpson was truly aware of the connotations of lickable body creams. Did anyone in her team or the people at Sephora, where the brand was sold, talk about it? Given that this brand was largely marketed towards Simpson’s younger fans, I have to imagine that they didn’t? Shortly after this rollout, Simpson launched the Dessert Treats line, which was intended for that younger audience and was available to buy in drugstores. It’s tough to sell “my husband likes to lick this off of me” as something wholesome, especially when you have a pretty young fanbase like Simpson did.

The concerned parents lobby was loud in protest of Dessert Beauty. New York sex therapist Dr. Jane Greer led the charge, according to SF Gate, demanding that the products have warning labels of them. "The problem is that Jessica is oblivious to how young her fans really are -- she's sending a message of sexuality and sensuality that needs to be screened. Parents need to know that kids just can't go straight for desserts until they've had dinner -- dessert being sex, and dinner being the establishing of a mature relationship." Dr. Greer also worried that the sprinkle-on candy details would encourage perverts because "candy is also the seduction item of choice for perverts."

I don’t necessarily disagree. Again, I see edible creams and I think sex games. Simpson’s marketing wasn’t subtle on the sexuality of it all either. But it also isn’t a huge shock to me that, at this time, this was all seen as acceptable for younger demographics. I remember pretty much every singer and celebrity of the early 2000s that pre-teen me was meant to be into being super sexualized. Britain didn’t get abstinence culture, at least, but the mixed messages were intense. But I bet a lot of Simpson’s young fans did just want to smell like strawberry sorbet and feel fancy. Reddit is full of nostalgic memories for Dessert Beauty, and the reviews seemed solid.

Alas, Dessert Beauty was not long for this world. In November 2004, cosmetics manufacturing company Cosmojet sued Simpson, Dessert Beauty Inc. and Sephora, claiming they were owed $200,000 for products that they had already manufactured. "Of the nearly $1 million in products Cosmojet alleges it has sold, only $800,000 reputedly has been paid," said the report in People. A rep for Simpson said that she was "a spokesperson for Dessert products and has no involvement in the day-to-day operation of the company’s business" but that she "does intend to vigorously dispute Cosmojet’s meritless claims against her." Around the same time, another lawsuit was filed against the brand, this time from Mara Fox, the creator of a fragrance line called Love Potion who ciited trademark infringement (they lost that suit.)

This news broke around the same time that the tabloids were reporting on the Simpson-Lachey marriage being on the rocks. Simpson assured her fans, "Our relationship is better than it’s ever been […] We are absolutely not breaking up.” She also announced plans to expand her brand into a junior sportswear line. She would launch The Jessica Simpson Collection the next year. Dessert Beauty stopped production in 2006 and disappeared from shelves.

In November 2005, Simpson and Lachey announced their separation, and Simpson filed for divorce the following month. It was as extensively covered as their marriage, as was Simpson's ensuing career and love life. Her break-up album didn't sell as well as previous works. Her movies were critically slammed. She dated John Mayer, perhaps the ultimate sign of a girl needing to blow off some steam (he infamously referred to her as "sexual napalm" in a Rolling Stone profile that I really need to do a full Gossip Reading Club piece on.) Simpson has mostly kept out of the spotlight in recent years, sticking to behind-the-scenes work and raising her kids with husband Eric Johnson. Her memoir was a big seller and she has been honest about her issues with addiction. Her ex-husband married Vanessa Minnillo ​in 2011. They have three kids and work together on shows like Love is Blind.

Simpson doesn’t need edible beauty anymore, and it’s not a mantle any other celebrity has been eager to pick up, but there are certainly plenty of wannabe business mavens who would love even a sliver of what she’s accomplished with The Jessica Simpson Collection. The celeb beauty market is overcrowded. Even major stars struggle to maintain an enduring product. They can’t all be Fenty, but if Rihanna wanted to release a lickable body shimmer? You know she’d make it the next big thing.