Introducing Aerin Lauder’s everyday luxury beauty


Aerin Lauder’s own-name beauty brand was never going to be a low-key launch but the product itself is an unflashy as it gets. OK, the gilded compact packaging is something you’ll want to show off at the table, but the contents are purely functional, in the best possible way, of course.

Aerin, the brand is starting small with an Essentials capsule product line and a seasonal colour range. But the bigger picture includes clothing, lifestyle and who knows what else. Having worked for the Estee Lauder brands for 20-odd years in all different departments – PR, marketing, product development – Aerin decided the time was right to market her own taste. And why not, when it’s as impeccable as this?

So the starter range consists of six creamy foundation compacts which are dual-purpose so double as concealer (the consistency is beautiful), a lip-and-cheek compact and a bronzer. There’s also a brush kit with handles that are short enough to be travel-friendly but thick enough to be properly grippable, a lip conditioning balm and a hand and body cream. This being a collection based on genuine utility, Lauder has only included what she considers must-haves so as yet there are no mascaras, eyeliners, lipliners… any of that.

The four-times-a-year seasonal collection is similarly edited down to what’s effortless and useful, so a weekday and a weekend palette containing user-friendly pretty neutrals (eyeshadows, blush and highlighter), a lipstick and a lip gloss. The glosses are very ‘nineties nude’ in hue (that’s a good thing) and the packaging again is luxe but pared down. One of the stand-out elements is that everything is infused with a very gentle scent of rose, intended to have a calming effect when you’re reapplying your lippy in the middle of the day. It certainly has the desired effect with me, my Aerin lip balm is currently doubling up as a solid fragrance of sorts on the back of my hand.

Shop Aerin here or in the UK at Harrods