Welcome back to Haul of Fame, the weekly beauty roundup of new products, new ideas and a sustained shoutout to Sabrina Carpenter.
Included in todayâs issue: Boots, CFCL, Dime, Gisou, Glossier, Grown Alchemist, Isle of Paradise, Jenny Patinkin, Laneige, OsÄna, Prada Beauty, Saltair, Savor Beauty, Solawave, U Beauty, Westman Atelier and National Public Radio.
But first
Itâs all happening.
After decades of music acts turning summer into their own personal tour season, beauty brands are following suit. Fittingly, it was a pop star Ariana Grande, who really sparked the trend, with her R.E.M. Beauty tour, which made stops in Paris and Los Angeles, this spring. It included Instagram photo set-ups, product testing stations and a chance to meet the future Glinda herself.
But Grande has her own movie tour for âWickedâ gearing up, which means other brands are stepping up to the mic in her stead. On June 12, Charlotte Tilbury took over Sephora in Herald Square, Manhattan and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. On June 14 and 15, Westman Atelier is holding a meet-and-greet for their new blush at 10 Nordstrom locations, including stores in Oregon, Tennessee and Phoenix. And Chantecaille Beauty, is hyping its Just Skin tinted moisturiser with a pop-up in SoHo, New York, plus summer visits to London, Hong Kong and Seoul.
The New York event, which takes place on June 15, will be held in a converted Airstream, with a live floral installation and makeup artists matching Just Skin shades with complexions in real time. But Chantecaille could make pretty videos and shade-matching tutorials on TikTok. Why the schlep for some added face-time with clients? âWe want to convert the beauty-obsessed person who may not know us,â said Chantecaille CMO, Julia Frankenberger, noting that potential buyers âneed to feel and touchâ formulas to fully appreciate their quality and pigment payoff. âWe also want to pique the interest of that chic New York woman or chic visitor.â
Also gearing up for the road is haircare line Ceremonia. Theyâre on a âGuava Summerâ tour at Sephora through June 29, which takes the brand to California, New York, Florida, and Puerto Rico.
Candid interactions are the big benefit of these summer beauty tours, especially for mid-size labels that know building relationships is key to creating a sustainable revenue stream. Meeting customers where theyâre at â as those customers are strolling through wealthy parts of cool cities â is a brilliant way to conjure the âauthenticâ experience that so many beauty companies claim to foster with their fans. Itâs the âOmigod, how funny, I just bumped into her!â of branding.
Ceremonia founder Babba Rivera added that meeting customers is often phase one of new product development. âWe love hearing our customersâ hair concerns, and the questions they ask,â she said. âThese conversations are quantitative inputs that we incorporate into everything we do the rest of the year, including product development, kits and marketing campaigns.â
Chantecaille is currently at 650 beauty counters, including those at Bergdorf Goodman and Bluemercury. Theyâve got about 250,000 Instagram followers. (Frankly, itâll likely have more once its social channels feature a wider range of skin tones.) Ceremonia has a slightly smaller footprint, albeit with a âcoolâ factor that helps. In both cases, their formulas are excellent.
Itâs telling, then, that they want to go back to basics: meeting fans one-on-one. As Googleâs enigmatic parameters and TikTokâs infinite dopamine swipes continue to consume online shoppersâ attention spans, weâll see even more brands rely on face-to-face contact to spread their pretty-girl gospel. (Especially ones with dynamic, but not famous, founders.)
Skincare
If youâre not an Equinox member, youâll have to get Grown Alchemist like the rest of us at Sephora. On June 10, the label introduced Hydra-Restore Eye Serum, which has ectoin, an amino acid found in extreme heat and dryness that some scientists call âhighly cell-protectant.â Itâs $50.
On June 11, Savor Beauty debuted its Radiant Rose Collagen Face Cream. The brandâs MO is their small-batch production methods, which often happen by hand with local ingredients. That means this $125 cream is very limited edition, and like a Gap x Doen drop, once itâs gone, thatâs it.
Skincare in New Yorkâs West Village for under $5? Believe it! Until July 3, OsÄna Naturals will be on-shelves at Bonberi Mart, founded by âBody Harmonyâ author Nicole Berrie. Besides OsÄnaâs $5 shampoo, conditioner and body wash, it is launching an exclusive vetiver and lemon verbena hand soap for $3.97.
Isle of Paradiseâs Beautifully Balanced Body Oil Cleanser and Body Butter launched on June 10. Both products promise softer, smoother skin for about $25 each.
Saltair debuted a KP Body Smoother scrub with 10 percent glycolic acid, volcanic sand and microcrystalline cellulose to âsmooth bumps and textured skinâ on June 6. The KP stands for âkeratosis pilaris,â the condition where tiny bumps form on the skin. It often fades when people hit their 30s, which might hint at whoâs buying 33-year-old Iskra Lawrenceâs brand.
Solawaveâs new 2-in-1 Skincare Mini hit shelves on June 13. Itâs a teeny $89 gizmo with âred light therapy, near-infrared light and therapeutic warmthâ that promises to tighten skin and boost glow. And it looks like a little UFO, which is very fun.
On June 14, Dime Beautyâs Décolletage Defining Serum debuted. Itâs $48, with imagery that includes younger and older models in tube tops. Pretty!
Cosmetics
Just a month after Sabrina Carpenter used Supergoop sunscreen in her blockbuster Espresso video, Prada Beauty is featured in the new Please Please Please video. Carpenter uses the brandâs colour-changing moisture lip balm as she struts out of jail, which is a hoot. And while itâs fun to see stunt beauty go from TikTok content to actual pop culture sensation, itâs even more fun to see Carpenter and her team at CAA hack the music video game â the subject of Haul of Fameâs very first column! â for added revenue. In the wake of paltry streaming fees and taxing tour schedules, built-in beauty fees would be a coup for musicians like Carpenter, who influence what their fans are buying anyway. Also, is there an espresso perfume coming? My Magic 8 ball says, âDuh.â
If you need designer blush before then, Westman Atelier is taking over Sephoraâs NYC Meatpacking location on June 14 and 15 with their Baby Cheeks line, and launching two new shades.
On June 11, Jenny Patinkin revealed The Big Reveal, an eyelash curler engineered to address hooded and deep-set eyes. It has a flatter curve and more upright angle than typical curlers. Itâs $20 at Amazon Beauty, which feels reasonable!
U Beauty is fronted by OG fashion influencer Tina Chen, who still has a ton of credibility with affluent, style-forward women. Because of that, the brand has never needed a ton of celebrity or influencer wattage. Still, the skincare label announced its first-ever collab on June 5. Itâs with TikTok darling Tinx, whoâs made a blushy pink shade of their Plasma Lip Compound called âRom-Com.â Tinx describes it as âthe ultimate just-kissed lip shade,â which should get a lot of mileage with the Sephora teens.
Speaking of those girls, they can now buy their current lip gloss obsession, Laneige, at Boots in London starting June 12. If they happen to score a place on âLove Island,â they can also steal Laneige from the Villa, where it will be available to contestants. Genius product placement, honestly.
Also in lip gloss land, Gisouâs new Coconut Frost shimmer lip oil dropped on June 10.
Way back in December, I talked about ânipples as beautyâs final frontier,â along with the indie brand Flirte Beauty, which launched lip liners that supposedly matched oneâs nipple shade. On June 10, Glossier dropped a very similar concept with their eight new shades of Lip Line.
Haircare
Thereâs this trend we can call the âspa-ification of everything.â Itâs when you call something a âspaâ in hopes of tapping into the wellness trend that lets you rebrand beauty as a higher virtue. Calling a regular beauty joint a âspaâ began with nail salons and tanning centres; now botox jabs and teeth whitening sessions are also âspaâ activities. On June 11, Rossano Ferrettiâs Hairspa opened at the luxe Park Hyatt hotel, with amenities like the âDeluxe Hair Treatmentâ for dry, damaged hair, as well as the signature âFerretti Metodo cut,â known as the âInvisible Haircut.â
Fragrance
Is incense a beauty product? Itâs certainly getting more upscale. On June 11, a new scent called Evoke dropped from CFCL by Yusuke Takahashi, the former menswear director at Issey Miyake. It comes in the form of a burnable stick. True to fragranceâs new trend to make every product sound like slam poetry, Evoke âis a unique scent inspired by the colour of the sky after rain, with notes of lavender and fennel.â Itâs $24.50.
Also on June 11, Lake & Skye debuted 11 11 Azure, a fragrance oil in a rollerball that âcaptures the sheer power and energy of the ocean, blue skies and azure waters.â
And Finally
For a NPR segment on the fragrance boom this week, Morning Edition made its own signature scent. (According to producer Nina Kravinsky, it smells like citrus and âbeing fresh out of the shower.â) NPR isnât selling the fragrance anywhere, but during their next fundraising drive, shouldnât they think about it?