skincare

How personalised skincare schemes like Renude are reinventing the business of beauty subscriptions



 Renude skincare subscription service

A trend that was already on the up pre-Covid has exploded in the last year or so. Beauty subscription schemes have evolved beyond product edits and sampling boxes (although those are still going great guns – hello Liberty The Beauty Drop*) to genuinely useful services that save time and money. Specifically: skincare subscriptions.

Thanks to an overall trend in which skincare has become part of the self-care canon (one of the premises of my book, Face Values), start-up founders have spotted a market for people who are interested in the benefits of skincare, but overwhelmed by products and advice. (more…)



Positive beauty: Oquist waterless skincare



Oquist skincare

Here’s another recent beauty discovery that speaks to our desire for visual and tactile sensory stimulation. Oquist is a fascinating Swedish skincare brand whose USP is its packaging. Plastic or glass bottles are rejected in favour of terracotta ‘sculptures’.

Why? Because the raw material comes from the earth, so in theory, when you’re done with them, you can simply return them back to the soil. Although the founders have a better idea – to repurpose them as household objects. Namely vases, tea bowls and beautiful lidded vessels. (more…)



YSL Nu is the latest in the line of anti-flawless make-up ranges for Gen Z (but Gen X might enjoy it too)



YSL Nu make-up line for Gen Z

YSL Nu*, the new make-up-meets-skincare hybrid from YSL Beauty is one of the best (dare I say ‘authentic’) iterations of the current ‘real skin’ beauty ranges I’ve seen yet. While the photography adheres to the ‘Glossier’ playbook (think extreme close-ups, racially diverse casting, un-perfect skin) it’s also clearly unretouched and the lighting is fairly unforgiving. Yet the images are striking and the cast cool enough to make this a compelling sell.

According to Hypebae, these five items were created with Gen Z for Gen Z. (more…)



Pre-order my new book: Face Values



DROP EVERYTHING, it’s a major news day today!

I’m finally able to talk about my second book, Face Values: The New Beauty Rituals and Skincare Secrets, which will be appearing in warehouses any day now and in shops on September 16th.

Face Values: The New Beauty Rituals and Skincare Secrets is not your average beauty how-to book. It’s beauty through a lifestyle lens, a show-and-tell of identity stories, beauty philosophies, wellbeing rituals and relatable skincare revelations from a truly wonderful global line-up of contributors. (more…)