The Business of Beauty Haul of Fame: Honey, I Shrunk the Core Audience

Welcome back to Haul of Fame, your must-read beauty roundup for new products, new ideas and at least one moment of teen angst.

Included in today’s issue: Bliss, Bobbi Brown, Byredo, CoverFX, Estée Lauder, Glossier, Goop, Kylie Cosmetics, Lisa Eldridge, L’Oréal, Milk Makeup, Tatcha, The Rootist and Counting Crows.

But first...

This summer in Los Angeles, U Beauty co-founder Tina Craig turned around at a house party and saw she was being—in her words— “robbed absolutely blind.” The thieves were the teen daughters of her friends, and they weren’t rooting through her Prada clutch looking for cash or vapes. Instead, they wanted Craig’s $68 lip gloss, technically called a “lip plasma,” that promises plump, shine and just a smack of colour.

“They cleaned me out,” said Craig, who estimates she had about $500 worth of her brand’s product in her purse. “I think they saw Bella Hadid talking about it on Vogue.com,” she said.

The brazen heist confirmed what Craig was thinking about other ways she could get U Beauty products into influential hands. She decided to use this past New York Fashion Week — already an event she attended to support designer friends like Phillip Lim and Michael Kors and be captured by street style photographers — as a seeding opportunity for U Beauty’s newest elixir, a $138 neck and décolleté serum called “The Sculpt,” which launched on Sept. 9. Throughout the week, she could personally pass the product out to fellow show attendees, which included celebrities, influencers, and perhaps the most valuable of all — women who actually pay for their clothes and beauty products, instead of waiting for a publicist or stylist to hand over freebies.

Craig was especially excited to share her neck treatment IRL because she feels the formula requires a bit of explanation. “It’s biomimetic, so it’s built to do the strengthening and repairing work that your skin already does,” she said. “It absorbs quicker, works faster, and your body recognises it as a natural part of your system. I like being able to explain it face-to-face, and show you my neck and what it’s done.” Craig wore mostly plunging necklines to fashion week events, an unspoken part of that strategy.

This type of micro-seeding didn’t used to be the norm at Fashion Week, where gift bags were once so laden, you sometimes needed an intern just to lug the bounty between shows. But today, being “chosen” as part of a small set of testers adds more insider energy to brands and products — and sure, a catwalk ticket is exclusive, but the secret stash of barrettes you’re quietly handed inside adds another level.

The barrettes in question came from Sandy Liang, who cleverly asked sponsor Google Android to make her signature motifs — hearts, stars and of course a little android cartoon — as not-inexpensive chrome hair pins. They were packaged like jewellery and handed to VIPs like influencer Devon Lee Carlson backstage. LoveShackFancy, meanwhile, placed Sally Hansen nail polishes on pink china platters, as if serving its clique of runway guests (including TikTok girls teens worship like Katie Fang). At Coach, Pat McGrath Labs gave some models and influencers a secret little heart doodle drawn flawlessly in Perma Precision eyeliner, as if they were getting a secret society initiation tattoo.

MAC Cosmetics took an even more extreme approach to micro-seeding, handing products at Area directly to the models during backstage beauty prep. Naturally, the models took selfies during runway prep, leading to far more interesting images than the standard backstage beauty shots.

The fashion week circus may be heading to London, but micro-seeding will stick around. Next up: Beyoncé and her haircare line, Cécred, which is opening a teeny pop-up shop somewhere in Soho, New York on Sept. 14 to launch a new edge cream. The goal: to dispense one-on-one hair care advice and full-size product giveaways…but only to a very small group of fans.

For her part, Craig is unsurprised by the one-on-one strategy at this season’s runway shows. Besides practical reasons — it’s less costly to give out fewer products, after all — the emotional rush of being “chosen” can often convert shoppers into brand evangelists, even if they’re already part of a high-status circle.

“I used to answer emails one at a time when I had the Beauty Snob blog in 2007,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe the people who used to email me asking for advice. Celebrities, editors. Everyone just wants to feel like they’re in on some great secret.” Microseeding cements that clubby pride — and if the product is good enough, converts the feeling of being chosen into a lasting consumer choice.

What Else Is New

Skincare

Lancôme placed its Nutrix Royal Body Butter on LaQuan Smith’s Sept. 9 catwalk, a sly move considering Smith’s hemlines were fairly thigh-obsessed.

On Sept. 10, Bliss introduced One & Done, a creamy cleanser with ceramides for dry or panicked skin. Bliss is leaning into the skin barrier narrative—this cleanser is a safe space!—and pricing it at $18.

If your skin needs a drink instead of a hug, Shani Darden’s Sake Nourishing Essence also debuted Sept. 10. “But wait,” you may ask, “Isn’t sake water SK II’s thing?” Indeed, but SK II’s famous Pitera essence is $99. Darden’s is $40 less.

Call Kacey Musgraves! On Sept. 10, Saltair introduced Golden Hour, its song-inspired scent, in a serum deodorant ($12) and nourishing body oil ($22).

Tatcha dropped its Kissu Lip Mask in Kiku — the Japanese word for “chrysanthemum” — on Sept. 11. It promises a fuller-looking lip and “a restorative, refreshing, and energetic hue representative of care, connection and community.” That’s an admirable goal, but I’m not sure it’ll happen through a $29 pot of brownish-pink lip gloss.

Makeup

Congrats to Cara Delevingne, who is L’Oréal Paris’s newest ambassador! She comes from a stellar turn in “Only Murders in the Building” along with a long stint as a Dior beauty model. She fronted its Dreamskin anti-aging line while in her 20s. (The writer briefly excuses herself to scream into a pillow, then returns to her laptop and resumes reporting.)

CoverFX has enlisted three Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders — Amanda Howard, Tori Skillings, and Kylie Dickson — to show off its Total Cover Cream Foundation, a $17 formula. It’s nice to see these women, who work so hard for so little money, getting tapped by more brands for exposure opportunities. And if a foundation can last through “Thunderstruck,” I trust its endurance factor.

The chalk-pink shimmer lipstick at Sandy Liang’s Sept. 8 show was such a fun throwback to Prescriptives’ frosted pink lip circa 1997! Getting the look is arduous, though: Makeup artist Romy Soleimani mashed up two Estée Lauder Pure Color matte lipsticks, along with a mysterious “white pigment.” Then she added a layer of Pure Color Envy Luxe eyeshadow in grey shimmer for the shimmer effect. Honestly, this whole rigamarole feels like a metaphor for Lauder’s byzantine internal structure, and the way it stops the company from reacting to both industry trends and cultural moments. I can’t solve that, but I can make a tiny suggestion about the Sandy Liang lip colour: Just… like… make it? You get Gen-Z cred; we get a cute lip colour, an indie designer gets a revenue boost; everyone gets a cute online beauty story… This is a no-brainer.

On Sept. 10, Milk Makeup launched Hydro Grip & Glow Primer, which has a subtle golden shimmer for extra illumination. If you like the almost-bare look, dab some gently on your eyelids and call it a day. It’s $30.

As of Sept. 10, Byredo’s refillable lipstick is now available as a matte formula. It comes in 10 shades, including “Attached,” a cleverly named muddy raspberry. The lipstick is $60, refills are $41.

Also on Sept. 10, Kylie Cosmetics dropped a Smokey Palette with 10 shades. (The dark grey one is called Snooze, which is pretty delightful.) The whole thing costs $32, which is $3.20 per colour.

Glossier released a voting sticker on Sept. 7 and a small online panic on Sept. 10 because it hinted its doomed makeup line Play might return for a second chance. Okay, we’re listening.

Lisa Eldridge launched five shades of Liquid Silk Eye Shadow on Sept. 5. They are $35 and can be worn as a base for shimmer shadow, or alone for a creamy pigment wash.

Bobbi Brown Cosmetics unveiled its Polished Grunge collection on Sept. 5, including a new Cream Glow highlighter compact, a lip and cheek oil, and some creamy kohl eyeliner.

Hair Care

Sabrina Carpenter’s VMA bangs have their own sponsor, Redken — she was named the hair care brand’s first-ever ambassador this week.

On Sept. 6, The Rootist’s $26 dry shampoo hit Goop, which absolutely tracks because Gwyneth would absolutely want to put fermented powder and magnesium carbonate on her perfect chill-girl blowout.

Fragrance

Oscar de la Renta skipped a fashion show this season, but its new fragrance debuted on Sept. 12. The scent is called “New York” and has elements of strawberry, tangerine and pink peppercorn instead of actual NYC notes like pizza, poured concrete and the shining salt of our tears. With its pink sparkly facade and standard bottle shape, the perfume looks a little anonymous. This is a surprise given the know-it-when-you-see-it aesthetic of designers Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, and perhaps a missed opportunity from licensing arm Inter Parfums, Inc.

And finally…If you’re wondering why beauty launches feel light this week, check your calendar app. Sept. 11 is obviously a touchy time, and two days later, is Friday the Thirteenth. We’re a superstitious bunch, it seems — but I’m surprised Urban Decay didn’t drop a cat-eye liquid liner.

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