March 2018 hit the bathroom counter with a particular spring optimism — the daylight saving switch on the 11th gave us back the late-afternoon sun, the Glossier Skin Tint launched on the 6th to a quietly excited beauty press, and Pat McGrath teased the third Mothership palette through the back half of the month. The cushion compact came back out, the heaviest moisturizer went into the back of the drawer, and we re-tested every SPF in the cabinet. Spring 2018 had a quieter, less aggressive tone than spring 2017 — the post-Fenty conversation had stabilized, the active-ingredient routine was now standard rather than novel, and the editorial pace was slowing into a more deliberate rhythm. We were grateful for it.
Glossier Skin Tint and the minimal-foundation reset
On March 6, Glossier launched its first foundation-adjacent product — Skin Tint, a sheer build-able tint sold at twelve shades, $26 a tube. The launch was the brand’s most direct challenge yet to the prestige-foundation category. The formula was glossy, blendable, and explicitly not designed for full coverage. The shade range was narrower than Fenty’s forty (the comparison was unavoidable) but wider than most prestige brands had launched in their first foundation. We tested two shades and landed on the lighter of the two for daily wear under SPF. Skin Tint was the right product for the year — minimal, glossy, fast — and the brand’s particular contribution to the year was beginning to crystallize as the answer for everyone who did not want to wear a real foundation.
Pat McGrath previews the third Mothership
The third Mothership palette teased through Pat McGrath’s Instagram in mid-March — a deeply pigmented set of cool tones with a press release that promised an April launch. The first two Motherships had defined the chrome and the burgundy conversations of 2016 and 2017 respectively; the third was built around what the previews called “subversive” cool tones — purples, deep teals, an inky black. We pre-cleared a Saturday afternoon for the launch order and watched the brand build the kind of editorial anticipation only Pat McGrath Labs can build now. The Mothership lineage has effectively become its own genre of prestige beauty release; we are not getting tired of it.
The spring SPF reset, second annual
The SPF rotation got rebuilt for the warmer months by the third week of March, and the products that won were the same ones from the previous year with one new addition. EltaMD UV Clear and Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen had earned permanent slots; the new addition was Kosas‘s tinted SPF — a small clean-beauty brand whose color-cosmetics line had quietly built a cult following through 2017. The clean-beauty category was the place to look for tinted SPF this year because the brands had spent two years specifically formulating around the heavier-than-average physical SPF formulas. Three SPFs in the rotation, all under $50, and our skin had not seen this much daily protection since we started writing this post.
Bakuchiol goes prestige
The bakuchiol conversation that had started in late 2017 had built through the winter into a full prestige category by March. Ole Henriksen had launched a bakuchiol serum, Herbivore Botanicals‘s Bakuchiol Retinol Alternative had restocked, and the smaller indie brands were releasing weekly. The clinical evidence on bakuchiol was still thinner than retinol’s, but the early studies had shown it could deliver similar effects with less irritation. We added one bakuchiol formula to the routine on the alternate retinol nights and committed to documenting what difference (if any) it made over the spring. The active-ingredient era continued to mature into something more thoughtful than the 2017 enthusiasm.
The lash serum verdict
By the end of March we had completed an eight-week trial of the GrandeLASH-MD lash serum, and the verdict was a measured yes. The lashes were demonstrably longer in photos. The growth happened slowly enough to be plausible. There were no irritating side effects (the side-effect risk with prescription Latisse — irreversible iris darkening in some patients — was not a factor here). At $65 for a tube that lasts roughly three months, the cost was reasonable. The lash serum category will be one of the dominant prestige-adjacent conversations for the rest of 2018; we are now committed to writing about it more honestly than the editorial press has been doing.
Closing
By the last week of March the bathroom counter looked entirely spring — the Glossier Skin Tint up front, three SPFs in the rotation, the bakuchiol serum on the alternate nights, the lash serum in the morning routine. April will bring the third Mothership palette, the start of Coachella prep, the Drunk Elephant Protini launch we have been hearing about since January, and the long Met Gala buildup. We will see you on the first Tuesday of April, and on the third Tuesday for the spring fashion roundup.