April in beauty is when we finally believe in spring. The skin is calm again, the makeup gets lighter, and the wardrobe shifts toward sandals before the calendar can really vouch for them. April 2019 had a particular texture — Pat McGrath finally dropped Mothership IV, Coachella beauty was peaking on Instagram in the second half of the month, and the brushed-out, glossy mood that had been building since February was now everyone’s weekend look. The bigger conversation underneath all of it kept circling around two things: was the retinol pendulum about to swing toward gentler alternatives, and how seriously should we be taking a four-hundred-dollar hairdryer? We pulled out the lighter foundation, ordered the new tinted moisturizer, and embraced the season.
Pat McGrath Mothership IV finally lands
The wait was over. Pat McGrath Labs dropped Mothership IV: Decadence in early April, and even those of us who had told ourselves we already owned two perfectly good neutral palettes folded immediately. The Decadence colorway was a deep, sumptuous take on the brand’s signature finishes — the kind of palette that made a 7am bathroom mirror feel cinematic. The retail moment was very 2019 prestige: a quasi-event, a sell-through measured in hours, and a small army of Instagram unboxings that turned the launch into shared theatre. This was the kind of object that justified its price by being beautifully made — the magnetic case, the embossed cover, the whisper-soft pans — and by the end of the month, it was already a shorthand reference for “real luxury cosmetics in the 2010s.” The McGrath ascendency was officially in full effect.
Coachella beauty, but make it grown-up
Coachella in 2019 had aged out of the rhinestone-bindi era and into something more genuinely creative. The face-glitter conversation had been in cultural retreat since 2017, and what replaced it was a more thoughtful, almost editorial idea of festival makeup: damp-looking skin, a single bold liner, glossy lids, and a wash of cream blush carried up to the temples. Fenty Beauty kept landing as the festival kit of choice — the Pro Filt’r Foundation shade range still felt revolutionary, and the Killawatt highlighters were tucked into roughly every makeup bag spotted at the festival. NARS‘s Orgasm blush had a renaissance moment again — proof that the most-named blush of the modern era is roughly recession-proof. The vibe was less costume, more outfit.
The retinol vs. bakuchiol debate begins
For a decade retinol had been the unchallenged gold standard in anti-aging skincare. April 2019 was the month when the polite skincare conversation really started flirting with bakuchiol — a plant-derived alternative that brands began positioning as “retinol without the irritation.” The Inkey List had introduced its Retinol Serum at the start of the year, but it was the bakuchiol options that were generating the real curiosity. Whether the science truly supported the swap was the open question in dermatology Twitter, but for the consumer the timing was perfect: the spring sun was up, the barrier-repair conversation was still ringing in our ears from January, and a “gentle” alternative slotted neatly into the moment. The bottle that was about to dominate was Herbivore‘s Bakuchiol Serum — a plant-prestige reference for the year ahead.
The Dyson Airwrap reckoning
By April 2019 the Dyson Airwrap had been on the market for about six months, and the early adopters had finally finished testing it for the rest of us. The verdict was complicated. At a retail price hovering around five hundred dollars, the device was a real commitment — but the way it pulled wet hair into a smooth blowout in twenty minutes had genuinely changed routines for a lot of people. The Coanda-effect engineering was the marketing story; the bouncy, salon-finished hair was the actual sell. Around it, the wider haircare category kept growing up — Olaplex remained a salon and at-home staple, the No. 3 Hair Perfector still selling out of Sephora locations every restock. The new luxury was your hair feeling thicker, glossier, and like it required less of you. The Airwrap was the maximalist proposition; Olaplex was the rational one. We had room in our routine for both arguments.
Westman Atelier and the new prestige clean
Quiet but persistent: Westman Atelier, the makeup line founded by makeup artist Gucci Westman in late 2018, was building real momentum through April. The brand sat at the intersection of two trends that defined 2019 — clean prestige and minimalist artist-led makeup — and the Vital Skincare Complexion Drops in particular kept showing up in editorial features. Around it, Kosas was filling out its assortment with the kind of cushiony, photo-friendly formulas that defined April 2019: cream blushes, balmy highlighters, lip products that doubled as cheek tints. The bigger picture was that “clean” was no longer code for compromise. It was code for considered.
What we are watching as April closes: how Mothership IV holds its restocks heading into May; whether Glossier Play has staying power past the launch novelty; how the bakuchiol curiosity gets translated into actual product launches at Sephora; and the start of wedding-guest season, which always reshuffles the lipstick rotation. We are also keeping an eye on rumored prestige-skincare expansions — there’s a sense that something major is coming from the Rihanna camp later this year. We will see you on the first Tuesday of May.