May arrived with the Met Gala on the first Monday — Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons retrospective at the Costume Institute, “Art of the In-Between,” and a red carpet that read like a debate about what fashion was supposed to be. The beauty looks that came out of the night were strange and specific in the best way: Rihanna in pale petal-pink crystals, Cara Delevingne with a painted silver scalp, Solange’s lid sculpted to match the fabric of her gown. None of it translated to the bathroom counter directly, but it gave the rest of the month a permission slip — to try the unusual lid, to let the lip be quieter, to play with finish in a way April had not. The weather finally turned, the SPF rotation began in earnest, and the rest of May broke into three quiet projects: summer skincare prep, a Mother’s Day push, and the slow build toward the wedding-guest beauty season.
The Met Gala beauty that we actually copied
Out of the dozens of looks that walked the carpet on May 1, two ended up rotating into our actual lives by the second week of the month. The first was the soft, pearly inner corner — used by half the artists working that night to brighten an otherwise minimal eye. We pulled out a single shimmer pigment from MAC Cosmetics — the Pearlglide eyeliner in Rave or a soft cream from a Stila pan — and used it as our daytime trick all month. The second was the painted-on glossy lip, almost wet but not quite, in a color one shade pinker than your natural mouth. Pat McGrath‘s LUST Lip Gloss had launched a few months earlier and was still the gloss of choice for editors. We bought one in Flesh and one in Bronze Allure and rotated them. The Met always promises beauty looks that are too theatrical for daily life, but the most useful trick of any year is the one detail you can extract.
The summer SPF reset, started early
May is the month every dermatologist’s Instagram begins reminding you that SPF is a year-round commitment, but in practice it is the month most of us actually rebuild the SPF rotation. We tested four formulas this month: EltaMD UV Clear (the dermatologist favorite, still the most universally recommended chemical SPF for blemish-prone skin); Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen (the new clear gel that had become the editorial darling); a Korean physical formula from Sulwhasoo; and a tinted mineral SPF from Australian brand Invisible Zinc. Unseen Sunscreen won for everyday wear under makeup, and EltaMD remained the no-debate pick for sensitive skin. The summer routine got rebuilt around those two, plus a hat.
Mother’s Day, but make it skincare
Mother’s Day fell on May 14 this year, and the gift-giving conversation was almost entirely skincare. The retailer assortments that had built through April crystallized around a small set of consistent picks: Tatcha The Rice Polish gift sets, the La Mer Crème de la Mer mini for anyone in your life with a serious gift budget, and a stack of Drunk Elephant samples that retailers had begun bundling in their gift-with-purchase tiers. The cheaper, more thoughtful Mother’s Day pick of the year — the one we ended up sending to several mothers in our group — was a Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream and Midnight Recovery duo, which delivered legitimate prestige skincare for under $80. The takeaway from the assortment: prestige skincare had effectively replaced fragrance as the default thoughtful gift for the women in your life, and the brands that built around that fact were going to have a very good rest of the year.
The wedding-guest beauty conversation begins
By the third week of May the calendar was full of save-the-dates, and the beauty corner of the wedding-guest conversation came back into focus. The dominant question, every year, is the lipstick — what color holds for six hours, photographs well in late-afternoon outdoor light, and survives the dance floor. We tested three this year: a NARS Powermatte Lip Pigment in Get It On (a wearable berry-pink), the Charlotte Tilbury Matte Revolution in Pillow Talk (still the universal-flattering pink-nude), and the new MAC Liptensity in Stallion (a medium brown for an evening event). All three held the full duration. Pillow Talk remained the wedding-guest-event answer of the decade. The other two won secondary uses.
The body care conversation finally caught up
One quieter but lasting story of the month was the rise of prestige body care. Nécessaire would not formally launch until 2018, but the conversation was already there — the brands that made elevated body lotions, dry-brushing tools, and cellulite serums were having a moment, and Drunk Elephant’s body retinol launched into Sephora as a quiet flagship of the category. The product we actually wore every day in May, though, was simpler — Aesop Resurrection Aromatique Hand Balm, picked up at a store in SoHo and used at our desk every afternoon. Sometimes the launch of the year is just the well-made staple. We started budgeting for nicer body care in general — a body oil, a dedicated foot cream, a real exfoliating glove — and have not regretted a single purchase.
Closing
By the last week of May the cabinet had reorganized itself around summer — three SPFs, a body oil, a Pillow Talk in the wedding-guest pouch, two Pat McGrath glosses, the Sublime palette still on permanent rotation. June is going to bring the start of full-strength summer — sunscreen testing in actual sun, the swimsuit beauty bag question, the sweat-proof makeup conversation — and we are looking forward to all of it. We will see you on the first Tuesday of June, and on the third Tuesday for the summer jewellery roundup, where we are deep into a Sophie Buhai obsession we cannot shake.