skincare

This brand wants to sex up sunscreen



Vacation by poolside FM

It’s happened with skincare, it’s happening with oral care, could Vacation by Poolside FM be the ones to make sunscreen a feel-good ritual, not a chore?

There are many reasons we all love to hate sunscreen. It’s expensive, it’s impractical (who can be arsed to reapply it throughout the day?!), it feels icky or it leaves a white zinc oxide cast on the skin. It’s just not a pleasure.

Enter Vacation by Poolside FM, a brand extension of the 80s throwback online radio station and app. Its premise is to make a sunscreen as nostalgic and joy-inducing as the radio station (more…)



TRP Travel Retail Style Index: May 2021



Tiffany & Co Blackpink Rosé ambassador

Welcome to the latest travel retail column for DRG by Alison Farrington aka The Retail Planner (TRP).

This month’s highlights come from a purposeful social retail pop-up in Hainan, a luxury hometail makeover and the latest TikTok trend.

1/ SOCIAL RETAIL. Societal pressures are the focus for a new type of phygital pop-up courtesy of Japanese skincare brand SK-II that has debuted a retail-tainment destination in the Haitang Bay Duty Free Shopping Centre in Sanya, Hainan.

The pop-up is an immersive representation of the P&G-owned brand’s new SK-II Studio animated anthology series called VS. The film and retail campaign aims to highlight career pressures faced by women and viewed through the experiences of six athletes taking part in this year’s Tokyo Olympics. (more…)



Yuzu beauty news – a fragrance, a foundation, and a fabulous fruit-growing lab



Louis Vuitton On the Beach Les Colognes fragrance

Latest update on beauty ingredient, yuzu fruit. Since I mentioned it in my spring trend round up, the Japanese citrus has cropped up in a summer fragrance and a radiance boosting foundation.

The fragrance first. Louis Vuitton’s On the Beach‘ (£200, above and below) is part of its Les Colognes line (colognes but with eau de parfum concentration) and combines a top juicy note of yuzu (the note you smell first), with a herby cocktail of thyme, rosemary, pink pepper, cloves and cypress, plus a floral neroli note. It’s designed to smell subtly coastal rather than full-on beachy (despite the name). Fragrantica has some early reviews here. (more…)



Oh look, another celeb beauty launch



Humanrace skincare

I’m so cynical about celeb beauty lines and yet completely seduced by this Pharrell-founded skincare brand, Humanrace. I just love this clean, clinical packaging and I hope the products smell of Granny Smiths.

For the marketing campaign, Pharrell has used extreme close-ups of smooth-skinned, modern day influencers, including the artist Blondey and a robotic cancer surgeon called Dipen Parekh. The blurb is all very worthy which is a bit of a turn-off for me. I guess all that needs to be seen is if non-influencer people talk about it and if it’s actually any good. (You can buy it here – when it’s not sold out – from $32.) (more…)