The Business of Beauty Haul of Fame: Beauty Behind Bars

Welcome back to Haul of Fame, your must-read beauty roundup for new products, new ideas and a sudden craving for Christmas.

Included in today’s issue: All Saints, Brooke Shields, Evolve Together, Fenty, Gisou, Glossier, Joanna Czech, Lancôme, MAC, Make Beauty, Phlur, Revolve, and the WNBA.

But first…

My favourite cleanser was in jail.

It was at Target in downtown New York, where everything from pimple patches to nail gel polish to my $19 Naturium face wash was locked behind a filmy glass case. Detaining beauty products is not a new thing — the mass incarceration of face creams first began around 2022, as shoplifting increased a reported 64 percent in New York and Los Angeles, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.

The thieves? Mysterious “criminal retail rings” that clear shelves like my cleanser claims it clears pores. The pain point? We have to wait for store employees to jailbreak our body wash, turning a 10-second drugstore trip into a 10-minute chore. The process makes impulse buys less likely, since the novelty of “what if…?” has more time to fade. And of course, there’s an emotional cost to the lock-ups: Customers don’t like being treated like potential criminals, making them less likely to visit a maximum security store at all.

But there is a strange upside to this annoyance: It’s turning young drugstore employees into raw, unfiltered ambassadors for the merch they actually like. “People would ask me for perfume and body wash recommendations all the time,” said Lilah Daniels, 19, who worked at a Target in Connecticut for all of last year, and hopes to continue working for the retailer as a college student now in Manhattan.

“Eventually, my entire job was just standing there with a little key, waiting to unlock things for people after I recommended them.” Daniels says the Kate Spade fragrances were especially popular, “but when people wanted something for their daughters, I would always tell them to buy Billie Eilish’s perfume, because it was actually amazing.” In part because of Daniels’ recommendations, her location went on to sell out of the fragrance.

When a retail worker and college student named Olivia (“no last name, my parents don’t know I have a job!”) recently helped me jailbreak some Megababe deodorant at a Walmart near Boston, she said the same thing.

“People are like, ‘Does this work?’” She admits she’s steered shoppers to “better” items when they look for makeup, including her “favourite” Nyx primer.

At Target on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Vanessa Munoz, 22, frequently recommends CoverGirl’s Clean Fresh Yummy Gloss. “It’s as good as what they sell at Sephora,” she said, noting that shoppers “have a lot of questions” about the makeup behind the cases. Her colleague, a recent 22-year-old graduate named Tenearia, said she often steers people to Cerave skincare instead of other options. “They ask me what’s good, and I have used it all, at this point. I started working here six months ago and I didn’t realise how much advice I’d be giving!”

Even at Trader Joe’s, where the face creams aren’t locked up but often need to be brought out from the inventory room in the back, young employees are giving their recommendations. “When we were out of a certain type of foam cleanser, I always tell people to use the cream cleanser in the tubes instead,” said Ruby Matheu, a 21-year-old designer who worked at a Los Angeles grocery store during college. She noted that their hair conditioner was a big talking point among potential shoppers. “I tell them it absolutely works. I know because I’ve used it.”

Beauty retailers like Sephora and Ulta Beauty already educate their retail staff about products so they can share their knowledge with consumers, incentivised to do so with gifted products and seller rewards. And a few mass brands, including Neutrogena and Olay, do send “tiny samples” to drugstores and big-box hubs, according to the women surveyed for this story. If drugstores, big-box hubs and masstige beauty labels took the lead and did the same thing with beauty-obsessed employees, it could help make the self-care “jails” feel less punitive, and a little more like a treat for shoppers who enjoy some free (and very helpful) beauty advice while they pick up their detergent and Tylenol.

What Else Is New

Skincare

Attention, beauty planners: The holiday season now starts in late summer. On Sept. 13, Revolve unveiled its 2024 Beauty Advent Calendar. It costs $150, contains about $540 in products, and includes 27 items from Revolve-ing brands like Summer Fridays, Charlotte Tilbury, and Too Faced. Beekman 1802′s own holiday calendar debuted Sept. 15; it costs $179 and includes 24 goodies, including 16 full-size products. Fenty’s Warm Cinnamon Shimmering Lip + Body Duo and Gloss Bomb Trio — both limited-edition holiday treats — launched the same day.

Clé de Peau did a cool activation on Sept. 14 with the artist CJ Hendry. They filled a tent on New York City’s Roosevelt Island with 100,000 handmade felt flowers, then invited influencers — and Martha Stewart — to come make “bouquets.” The idea was tenuously tied to CDP’s “Radiant Lily,” a hero ingredient that inspired one of Hendry’s fabric blossoms.

Tonymoly debuted a “Plump-kin Spice” line of retinol eye patches and body serum on Sept. 16. There’s also $6 hand cream that comes in a tiny plastic pumpkin jar, because of course there is.

On Sept. 16, Patchology dropped some droplets. They come in a tube marked “Skincare Booster,” cost $40, and claim to form “an invisible daily mask” on top of your existing skincare products.

Joanna Czech and Evolve Together introduced their first collab — Rosemary Enzyme Cleanser — on Sept. 17. The product, which costs $63, includes ingredients such as papain (the enzyme extract from papayas) and kaolin clay.

Makeup

Macximal Sleek Satin Lipstick hit stores on Sept. 16. It promises MAC’s signature smooth finish, plus extra-durable pigment in 34 colours, including one that’s transparent. This marks the first time Mac has released a clear lipstick (it’s literally called In the Clear), which it is marketing as a double-duty product that hydrates, but can also serve as a “topcoat,” like glossy nail polish for your pout. It’s $25 and certainly interesting — but I think Mac’s Kylie-esque beige pink, called Blankety, will be a bigger seller.

Make Beauty’s Infinite Brow Nano Pencil dropped on Sept. 17, with five shades and “an ultrafine tip that allows for precise control.” In the 1990s, girls used to write their phone numbers down in lipstick. I feel like now, it could be brow pencil — if they weren’t just typing them into a phone instead.

Glossier rolled out three new lip gloss shades on Sept. 17: bronze, pink and nude. They cost $18 each and their first fans are WNBA players Brionna Jones, DiDi Richards, Skylar Siggins-Smith, and Ezi Magbegor — at least, I hope they’re fans, since they’re starring in the brand’s new lip gloss campaign.

Gisou’s Honey Infused Lip Oil relaunched on Sept. 18 with jojoba oil and meadowfoam seed extract to make lips shiny but — they swear — “not sticky!” It’s about $25 and comes in a limited-edition coconut pineapple shimmer shade.

Curology made a limited-edition Funfetti lip balm, available as a gift-with-purchase to shoppers who bought from the skincare brand’s Rx line. Chapstick also makes a limited-edition cake batter lip balm, which is available on Amazon and will promptly be stolen by every 11-year-old in your life.

Hair Care

At the Tommy Hilfiger fashion show on Sept. 9, I was sitting directly behind Brooke Shields, who had a lot of excitement for the giant rugby sweater dresses, and also extremely bouncy hair. I know this because several times, it literally bounced in my face. (This was fun. I enjoyed the whole deal.) Shields said the buoyancy was courtesy of her Shine Enhancing Detangler, created by her new-ish brand Commence. It launched officially on Sept. 17.

Fragrance

London fashion brand AllSaints — purveyor of some secretly amazing biker jackets — has debuted its first three fragrances: Sunset Riot Intense, Ravaged Rose, and Shoreditch Leather, a fantastic name for a brand made famous by indie sleaze heiresses. The bottles cost $65 – $110, and come from Scent Beauty, the parent company for Sabrina Carpenter’s beauty endeavours.

Phlur’s Strawberry Letter hit Sephora on Sept. 13, after first debuting as a limited-edition drop this spring.

On Sept. 18, Lancôme launched their Absolue Les Parfums, an 11-piece “couture” scent line that mixes a core rose essence with guest stars like moss, musk and jasmine. Each bottle costs $270 and looks pretty elegant; kudos to them for keeping it simple (or believing in the “quiet luxury” hype.)

And Finally

Surely, this deserves some type of beauty award. Glamour? Allure? Call this woman.