June 2015 was where 2015 became a real summer. The Memorial Day weekend skincare reset had taken hold by the first week, the Pride month color conversation was at peak volume in the second week, the wedding-and-pool-day calendar was running every Saturday, and the Olaplex consumer launch in mid-month was the year’s most important hair-care development. By the first Tuesday of the month we already had three new products on the bathroom counter and a clearer sense of what 2015’s second half was going to look like. Below, what we kept reaching for.
Olaplex No. 3 brought the salon treatment home
Olaplex’s consumer launch in mid-2015 was the year’s biggest hair-care moment. The brand’s salon-only bond-rebuilding treatment had been the secret weapon behind half of the country’s balayage services for the previous twelve months, and the consumer-version Olaplex No. 3 — a take-home weekly treatment in a small white tube — finally let everyone who had been getting Olaplex add-ons at the salon use the technology between appointments. The launch sold out within the first week at every retailer that carried it, and the back-order list ran into thousands.
What made the launch matter beyond the product was the category implication. Olaplex was the first hair-care brand to bring genuinely new chemistry — bond-rebuilding rather than coating, sealing, or moisturizing — to the consumer tier in years, and the launch positioned the brand as the prestige hair-care reference for the rest of the decade.
Pride 2015 brought the year’s loudest color
The Pride month color conversation in June 2015 had been amplified by the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision on June 26, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The mood across the rest of the month carried into the Pride parade weekends with unusual intensity, and the makeup conversation followed. Urban Decay’s Electric Pressed Pigment Palette had a third seasonal moment as the saturated-color reference; M·A·C’s annual Viva Glam fundraising lipstick — the proceeds had supported HIV/AIDS organizations since the brand’s founding — was getting heavier promotional attention than usual.
The visibility of trans and non-binary creators in the editorial coverage continued to widen. Several brands launched explicit Pride-month collaborations, with proceeds going to LGBTQ+ organizations, and the marketing was meaningfully more substantive than performative.
Self-tanner application got idiot-proof
The self-tanner conversation we have been tracking every June since 2013 had finally gotten user-friendly enough that almost everyone who tried in 2015 stuck with it. St. Tropez’s Self Tan Bronzing Mousse kept its prestige reference position with an improved formulation that fixed the pre-2014 streak issue; Jergens’s Natural Glow gradual-build line continued its drugstore dominance. The new entrant getting attention was Tarte’s Brazilian Glow line, which had launched in 2014 and was widening at Sephora through 2015.
Body care expanded into prestige territory
The body-care boom we have been documenting since 2013 hit a real prestige moment in June 2015. The Sephora summer body-care endcap was the most carefully curated it had been in years, with Fresh’s Sugar body line, Tarte’s body-care expansion, and Kiehl’s Creme de Corps all getting expanded shelf space. The drugstore answer kept its weight too — Aveeno’s Daily Moisturizing Lotion held the universal-summer position; Dove’s sugar scrub continued its quiet cult run.
YSL Cushion confirmed for fall, expanded shade range promised
The cushion-compact category news of June 2015 was the firmer confirmation that Yves Saint Laurent’s Cushion would launch at US prestige in fall 2015 with the widest shade range the category had yet seen. The pre-launch press kits seeded to editors had wider undertone variety than either the Lancôme or the Dior launches had carried, addressing the central complaint of the early Western entries. By the end of June the cushion-compact category roadmap for the rest of 2015 was clear, and the format had effectively cemented its place at US prestige.
What we’re watching for July
July 2015 brings the slow-launch month we count on every year, the heat-test conditions that determine which products survive into August, and the early start of the back-to-school launch teases. We will see you on the first Tuesday of July.