Back in college, 26-year-old Summer Borowski was elbowed in the nose while playing water polo. And since then, her nose has been crooked. At least, she thinks so—which bothered her, a lot. But not enough that she felt ready for a rhinoplasty, aka a nose job, which is a surgical procedure to reconstruct the nose.
Last Friday, I wrote about L’Oréal’s recent acquisition of ModiFace, a tech company that specializes in making augmented reality apps for beauty brands. L’Oréal, one of the world’s largest cosmetics companies, is banking on the inevitability that someday, you will just use an app to test a particular shade of lipstick on your face instead of actually putting it on your lips before smearing it off onto a tissue.
London-based fashion and beauty photographer Cameron-James Wilson—who’s shot major faces like Gigi Hadid and Pia Mia—got his biggest break recently when the Instagram account of Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty re-posted his image of the dark-skinned black model, Shudu, supposedly wearing lipstick from the collection. It’s a big deal, considering that Fenty was named one of Time’s Best Inventions of 2017 and is a roaring commercial success.
Unless I’m just re-ordering the same foundation I’ve been using for years, I still prefer to do my beauty shopping in brick-and-mortar shops, where I can test formulations on myself. But L’Oréal, the largest beauty company in the world—which owns both drugstore brands like Maybelline and prestige labels like Shu Uemera—just acquired the Canadian beauty tech company, ModiFace.
When I read that New York City-based celebrity facialist Georgia Louise gave Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett a “penis facial”—and that it costs $650 per treatment—I did not flinch. I didn’t even flinch when I read further that the serum used for the treatment is made from stem cells derived from the removed foreskins of newborn babies in South Korea.
American beauty brands like Avon and Mary Kay have long depended on an extensive network of loyal sales representatives—brand evangelists before that was a term. This sales model has even been adopted by digital-native millennial brands like Glossier, who recognize that young women want to look like their prettiest peers, not supermodels in the magazines. Now, skincare and cosmetics brand Beautycounter—which prides itself on making socially responsible and transparently priced products, is training its 30,000 sales reps, which it calls “consultants,” to be activists for safer cosmetics regulations by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
Tennis champion Serena Williams is launching her own beauty line—and it’s going to be an empire (of course). The company, called Aneres (“Serena” spelled backwards), will be nothing if not comprehensive—with 18 beauty categories spanning lipstick, lip gloss, eyeshadow, powder, foundation, eyeliner, cosmetic cases, makeup brushes, mascara, makeup remover, skin care, perfume, body lotion, shampoo, dry shampoo, hair rinses, and hair spray and gel.
It may seem like Korean beauty brands are taking over the world, but beauty brands from Japan are giving them a run for their (hard-earned) money.
The Beckhams are one busy couple this year. Former professional soccer player David is starting a new Major League Soccer franchise in Miami, while forever Spice Girl Victoria just appointed a new chairman for her eponymous fashion line, which raised $40 million in private equity funding last November.
The reservoirs of South Africa’s second-largest city, Cape Town, are almost empty. Four million residents are at serious risk of being without running water by July—ominously dubbed Day Zero by South African politicians. The original date was pushed back from April due to successful conservation efforts by locals of Capetonians—from harvesting rain water for gardening to a complete ban on washing paved areas with drinkable water.
Mattel’s Barbie has had over 150 careers since she was created 58 years ago—from the controversial Computer Engineer Barbie in 2010 to a Barbie styled as an American presidential candidate in 1992, over two decades before Hillary Clinton was the first female presidential candidate nominated by a major party.
Andrew Cunanan was half-white, half-Filipino—and so is actor Darren Criss, who plays the ‘90s serial killer in American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. That’s the extent of the conversation about race in the current FX series produced by Ryan Murphy, who is also the creative brains behind television hits like Nip/Tuck, Glee, Scream Queens, Feud, and American Horror Story. On July 1, Murphy will join his fellow showrunner Shonda Rhimes at Netflix. The 5-year contract is believed to be the most expensive in television history, putting up to $300 million in Murphy’s pocket.
Last night, Twitter aired a 90-second commercial during the Academy Awards, featuring an original poem written and performed by Denice Frohman, interlaid with a montage of women, ranging in age from their 20s to their 80s, including Hollywood heavyweights like Ava DuVerney and Issa Rae. “I heard a woman becomes herself the first time she speaks without permission,” Frohman began the poem.
I will let you in on a dirty beauty industry secret: sheet masks—which are fiber sheets with holes for your face soaked in skin serum—are overpriced and contain way more product than you need in one sitting. You could just buy a bottle of skin serum and pat it gently on your face, but where’s the fun (and Instagram selfie potential) in that?
Growing up Chinese American in California, my experience with “secret menus” at restaurants extended mostly to asking for “animal style” at In-N-Out Burger. But Momofuku restauranteur David Chang wants you to “badger” Chinese restaurants for the “real” menu.
Jaden Smith might be the son of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but he wants to take on Silicon Valley. On the way to my meeting with 19-year-old Smith at the 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, he tweeted this at Elon Musk. I saw this from a gray Tesla Model S, driven by a Tesla employee, which he hired to fetch me over to him:
According to a new luxury brands report from social media analytics firm Netbase, beauty brands made up only 5% of the conversation on social media in 2017—but their conversations were among the buzziest. At almost 4 million mentions, L’Oréal surpassed its closest competitor, Estée Lauder at 1.4 million mentions, by more than twice on platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Instagram (the main priority for visuals-centric beauty brands). Unfortunately, this spike in L’Oréal’s mentions isn’t due to enthusiasm for its eyeshadow—the brand’s timeline shows that the August sacking of transgender spokesmodel, Munroe Bergdorf, propelled L’Oréal to the top.
In 2017, Deciem looked set for world domination. Estée Lauder Companies invested in the little beauty company, which had become a cult favorite for its no-frills brands such as the Ordinary,
In her latest beauty tutorial, the 21-year-old vlogger JJ Smith—Sailor J on YouTube—starts by giving an overview of the products she will be using: “Highlighters right here, contour kits right here, mascara, eye-liner, blush…”
Two-and-a-half years ago, Polina Veksler and Alexandra Waldman founded Universal Standard, a fashion-forward, plus-size women’s clothing brand as an antidote to the predominant plus-size-apparel experience: sold far away from the rest of women’s apparel, relegated to the areas like the furniture floor of the department store and mostly made with cheap, flammable, polyester fabrics.
It was 2am on a Saturday night—er, Sunday morning—and I was in a cab with my friend. We were going home, thankfully, not to another club like we would have done at a younger age. Our concealer was caking at this point, our eye makeup smeared into panda eyes, our lipstick stuck onto one too many cocktail glasses. “God, grant me the strength to wash my face,” my friend said. But she did not wash her face when she got home.
People at Fashion Week are usually hungry—and no, I’m not making an off-color joke about the models, who are typically provided with a catered buffet backstage. I’m talking about the editors and stylists and buyers and celebrities and socialites and bloggers—er, influencers—attending the shows. It’s cold outside, they’ve been running around all day, they’re wearing uncomfortable shoes, and they haven’t really eaten all day, all week, or even all year in order to fit into their Instagram-ready outfits. They need sustenance, and this past week, while showing the Fall 2018 collections, the designers at New York Fashion Week provided.
The humans at the 2018 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York City are very well dressed—lots of pink skirt-suits and sequined leggings and leather loafers. They are, after all, competing with their dogs in the arena, in a way. But the dogs are even better groomed—you are not allowed to pet the dogs that are competing, as the oils from your hands could affect the appearance of their fur. It’s the same sort of logic as to why you shouldn’t run your hands through your hair too often, lest it looks stringy.
Perhaps you noticed that when U.S. figure skater Mirai Nagasu became the first American woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics, she was also mastering a beauty look: winged eyeliner. Or when U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim became the youngest woman ever to win an Olympic medal in her sport, she was sporting blonde balayage curls. (She also refused to cry after winning, because she didn’t want to ruin her eyeliner.) Or that Canadian figure skater Gabrielle Daleman, who helped her team claim gold, is a master of contouring and has been referred to as a “Kim Kardashian lookalike” by media outlets.
