Welcome back to Haul of Fame, your must-read beauty roundup for new products, new ideas and three new ways to smell like a pirate ghost. Sexy!
Included in today’s issue: 111Skin, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Biologique Recherche, Cyklar, Fenty Beauty, Garnier, Glossier, Heretic, The Inkey List, Isamaya Beauty, Kayali, Korres, L’Oréal Paris, Lisa Eldridge, MAC Cosmetics, Maison Francis Kurkdjian, Make, Naturium, One/Size, Saltair, Tatcha, Tonymoly, Versed, Voesh, Yves Saint Laurent Beauty and Cher.
But first…
LoveShackFancy and Tinder are ready for their hard launch. On Sept. 18, the companies will debut a partnership centred around LSF’s new fragrance, Secret Crush, which also comes with a flirt-forward range of clothing items, including menswear-inspired button-up shirts and boxer shorts. The collab allows the growing coquette empire to take advantage of Tinder’s massive platform, while helping the dating app attract the college-aged young women who are crucial to the Swipe Right economy.
Secret Crush is LoveShackFancy’s first gourmand fragrance, with a vanilla base and notes of coconut and caramel. To celebrate the scent, Tinder has helped LSF build its first-ever café, a pop-up space in New York that founder Rebecca Hessel Cohen hopes will become a proof-of-concept for future outposts. “It’s one of my dreams to have LoveShackFancy cafés all over the world,” said the designer, whose 12-year-old brand now has 21 standalone stores along with 450 retail partners worldwide. (The brand is also preparing to open a Soho flagship, which Cohen vows will have an “exclusive” beauty moment.) “And when you think of first dates, and flirting, you think of our clothes — I mean, we have love in the name! And we know that so many girls wear our pieces when they go out. But you also think of these cute dates at these perfect, romantic places on tiny street corners. I want to build a whole world for that to happen for my girls.”
Tinder CMO Melissa Hobley revealed that the dating app made the first move. “We approached them, because we really admire the relationship LoveShackFancy has built with young women. And we’re seeing a much bigger influx of college-age women coming onto Tinder, and turning it into a real rite of passage when they turn 18. We want to be there for them, and build experiences for them.” Hobley said LoveShackFancy’s reputation as a “date night brand” fits nicely into Tinder’s goal to “bring back the butterflies” of a great date. And much like love — or at least fun sex — fragrance merges the physical and the emotional in a valuable way.
After the success of her eight fragrances, her Stanley water bottle sell-outs, and her lip gloss collaboration with Lawless Beauty that launched in August of this year, Hessel Cohen admits that LoveShackFancy is exploring the world of colour cosmetics with deep interest and guidance from Sephora. “We’re working very closely with them in terms of getting in the kitchen and seeing what we can make,” said the founder. “Having a deeper beauty extension of the brand will be really nice because it’s the perfect gateway, price-wise… And our aesthetic, the glowy, blushy kind of look — it’s just so right for a colour product.”
Likewise, Hobley said LoveShackFancy is just the first in a series of beauty partnerships coming to the platform, especially in terms of fragrance. “I think brands are finally understanding that alternative outlets are essential to messaging. Tinder gets 3 billion swipes a day. Everyone is here. Beauty brands are finally getting that this platform is an underserved audience.”
What else is new…
Skincare
When I was in junior high, we’d glaze our cheekbones with MAC Lip Glass in order to copy the shiny-shiny-shiny party looks we saw on Kate Moss and Lil’ Kim in the party column of W Magazine. On Sept. 4, the brand released an actual glass-skin highlighter called Skinfinish Lightstruck that captures the same effect.
L’Oréal’s Age Perfect Le Duo serum launched at Walmart on Sept. 4. Like Clarins’s Double Serum, it combines peptides and vitamins to address issues of firmness and radiance, but the price point — about $28 — is quite different.
Those who love a TikTok clip along with their moisturiser might adore Tonymoly’s Melt Masks. Launched on Sept. 8, the gel masks look like coloured jello sheets, but slowly fade to clear on your skin. Each one is $5 or less and promises to address concerns like dryness, dark circles and firmness.
Biologique Recherche dropped its newest VIP O2 collection on Sept. 8 with a cleansing milk, cream and mask to jump start your skin’s natural renewal process. Think of it as a San Vicente Bungalow card for your cells instead of your social climb.
This is bold: 111Skin is calling its newest topical duo “The Exosome Face Lift.” It dropped on Sept. 9 with an Exosome Shot Serum and Exosome Overnight Mask. The formulas include microspicules, which are the tiny needles in sea sponges, along with fermented proteins and Swiss ice wine (!) which apparently helps with tightening. The retail price is $825, which feels astronomical unless you’re weighing it against an actual face lift. In that case, buy quickly and in bulk.
I regret to inform you that the $248 tube of SMOOTH Dynamic Wrinkle Defense Serum from U Beauty is extremely worth it. The copper-peptide formula dropped on Sept. 9 but I’ve been testing it for two weeks and my skin is smooth, calm and very fresh. (I’m in my early 40s, if that sways you either way.) I’m sorry; I know it’s expensive for 16 f***ing ounces!
Is it time to load up on winter-proofing products? Versed is hoping so. On Sept. 9, it introduced a Daily Recovery Rich Barrier Cream with lipids and niacinamide to capture elusive moisture in dry weather.
Korres launched its Santorini Grape Poreless Skin Perfecting Toner on Sept. 9, which claims to rebalance oily skin and has 2% salicylic acid for the stress-zits from back to school season.
Cyklar’s new body oil is designed for in-shower use or on dry land, but the $32 formula is really useful as a shaving cream swap for legs and bikini line. (Just don’t slip on it when you leave the tub.) The product from influencer Claudia Sulewski debuted on Sep. 9.
On Sept. 9, Voesh introduced hand and body balms with mango seed butter, turmeric extract and virgin olive oil. They’re $18 – $25, which means the ingredients are Erewhon smoothie dupes, and so are the price points.
This new trend of “driftwood accord” in fragrances is killing me in the best way. I love that people want to smell like a shipwreck. (Insert pop psychology take on disaster glam here.) Iskra Lawrence is apparently one of those people, because on Sept. 10, the Saltair founder dropped a Driftwood franchise with deodorant, body butter and body wash.
Naturium’s first toner hit stores on Sep. 12. It’s a $17 formula with licorice root, rice milk and potassium azeloyl diglycinate — a natural compound found in barley that’s known to help reduce redness – called the “Multi-Bright Milky Toner.”
Makeup
Make made a “Cream Stroke Blush Stick” that hit shelves on Sept. 4. It’s a buildable formula available in five shades, including “Rouge Moon,” which would be an amazing name for a K-pop romcom cartoon.
You’ve likely seen Garnier’s “waterworks” campaign by now. The brand has reality TV stars weeping, then tidying their mascara-streaked faces with $11 Micellar Cleansing Water. It’s cute, but although Countess Luann and Bachelor Ashley are capable ambassadors for makeup-crying, where is Lauren Conrad?!
Isamaya Ffrench is booked and busy. On Sept. 9, the acclaimed makeup artist debuted two Core Collection eye palettes for $110, but if you’re Extremely Online, you saw the club kids (and Trendmood) swooning over them this spring. Then the UK native scooted backstage to Eckhaus Latte, Alexander Wang and Off-White to do the backstage beauty looks.
One/Size introduced a Boucle Silk powder Sept. 9 that’s available in 10 shades and claims a melt-y finish once applied. It’s $40 per compact and formulated in Italy, the same place where most luxury brands mill their boucle fabric.
A hack for Glossier’s Cloud Paint Plush Blush, the brand’s first powder blush which launched on Sept. 10: Use them as eye shadows instead. The “colour wash” effect is unreal.
Kiss kiss, sell sell! Tatcha’s Kissu Lip Mask has a new shade — Gold Leaf — launching Sept. 9. It’s infused with 23 karat gold and takes inspiration from a Kyoto myth about a geisha who used to kiss her crushes with a gold-dusted mouth. Meanwhile on Sept. 10, The Inkey List debuted its Tripeptide Plumping Lip Balm at Ulta Beauty, where its $14 formula promises to “enhance lip texture.” Don’t get too flipped about this. The real benefit is the sheer funsies of its pink shade, which is essentially the colour of a dragonfruit.
Perhaps The Business of Beauty should do a case study on the Clinique Black Honey Industrial Complex. At least once a month, another brand unveils its take on the mythical, Madonna-loved shade, which makeup artists and school nurses can tell you looks more like dried blood than anything berry-infused. On Sept. 10, Fenty Beauty rolled out their version, a Gloss Bomb Universal Lip Luminizer in “Rose Amber.” It’s $22 with more shimmer than the traditional Black Honey homages, and a scintillating lustre that gleams from all the way across a selfie stick.
Lisa Eldridge’s “dream brow pencil,” the Brow Arch-itect, launched on Sept. 11. It’s a double-sided mechanical pencil that lets you “feather” your brows in precise, light strokes and comes in five shades.
Looks like someone listened to the “get your book a beauty partnership” advice. On Sept. 12, Beauty Creations paired with the “Goosebumps” franchise on a seven-piece collection of shadows, tinted lip balm, lip and cheek oil, and a jelly face mask that looks like green slime. (Geriatric millennials know this as “ectoplasm,” a key substance in the Ghostbusters universe.)
Fragrance
It’s sweet. It’s tart. It’s Phlur (again). On Sept. 6, the prolific fragrance brand launched Cherry Stem, a $99 spritz of fruit, caramel and leather that’s the colour of an Edward Cullen after-school snack.
On Sept. 10, Maison Francis Kurkdjian unveiled “the most precious interpretation of Baccarat Rouge 540.” It’s called Édition Millésime, and it’s basically a hyper-concentrated version of the famed scent with amped-up ambergris. Only 54 bottles will be released per year, at $25,000 – $35,000 per bottle. Yes, it will likely sell out. Also yes, ambergris is a digestive compound found in the intestines of sperm whales that comes out with their poop. It is called “floating gold” and it is also whale poop, because life can be absolute shit and very beautiful all at once. Poetry, guys.
Kayali rolled out two new scents — Oudgasm Chocolate and Oudgasm Milky Musk — on Sept. 8 at Sephora. The brand by Mona Kattan will also debut its first-ever “Scent Layering Bar” in New York’s Soho neighbourhood to kick off New York Fashion Week.
Smell filthy rich while getting clean? Heretic Parfums dropped a trip of Dirty Body Washes on Sept. 8 in vanilla, hinoki and coconut scents. They’re $34 each.
While we wait for Louise Trotter to absolutely slaughter the competition in Milan (bias? Me?), Bottega Veneta premiered a stand-alone fragrance book at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan. It’s inlaid with Italian walnut and “undulating glass evoking the Venetian lagoon” and while that copy is so lofty it borders on goofy, the actual space is quite lush.
While Austin Butler hangs with Emily Ratajkowski, his YSL Beauty franchise is dating someone new. Meet Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the NBA all-star who just scored a contract for YSL Beauty’s Myslf Absolu fragrance. His first campaign images hit Sept. 10, but worry not — the brand assures me that Mr. Butler is still on contract for future ads, which means we’ll get two gorgeous and talented hommes for the price of one $210 perfume bottle.
And finally…
If you stayed out wayyyy past your bedtime on Wednesday night or Thursday morning, you may have caught a glimpse of Cher at “Studio 54” — or at least, the closest one could get to Studio 54 without Ian Schrager’s Instagram blessing. (What a sentence!) The one-night-only disco valhalla was made possible by Valentino Beauty, which created an entire campaign around the club’s legendary mirrored decadence starring Adut Akech. There were, to quote Madonna, “Perfume Candy Boys” wearing glitter and angel wings; there were also “Cigarette Candy Girls” who gave you those sugar-powder cigarillos instead of the real thing. (Cowards!) The event also served as an intro to Valentino Beauty’s newest ambassador, Colman Domingo — and as proof that fights will still happen at the door to a great party. Stay safe out there! And Valentino Beauty — would you ever consider making designer Band-Aids? Could be fab.
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