July arrived in proper-summer mode this year. The cautious reopening of June had given way to actual reservations, actual weddings, actual vacations rebooked from 2020. Sun was the unifying weather story across most of the US, and the bathroom-counter conversation followed accordingly: SPF was no longer a side-product but the lead. Glossier-era no-makeup makeup met Fenty-era complexion technology met Korean-skincare-era ingredient education, and the result was a season where almost no product was sold without three concurrent stories — what it does, what it leaves out, and what it lets you do less of.
Tinted SPF takes over
The most-talked-about category of July was tinted sunscreen, the hybrid product that sits somewhere between a daily SPF, a mineral filter, and a sheer base. Ilia‘s Super Serum Skin Tint had become the gold standard, with creators calling it the only base they’d reach for through the summer, and Saie‘s Sunvisor took the same idea in a more zinc-forward direction. The category solved a very specific 2021 problem — that no one wanted to layer four products on a hot day, but everyone still wanted protection, evenness, and just enough light correction to look on-camera. The shade ranges were still inconsistent, but the formulation craft was real, and the conversation moved on from “is mineral better” to “which mineral feels best.”
The Sephora Beauty Insider Sale, decoded
Twice a year, Sephora’s Beauty Insider Sale gives us the cleanest read on what shoppers actually want — strip away the launch hype and watch what people add to a cart when there’s twenty percent off. The summer 2021 sale told us exactly where the season’s loyalty sat. The most-restocked items in our circle were Charlotte Tilbury’s Pillow Talk lipstick, Summer Fridays‘ Jet Lag Mask, Olaplex No. 3, Drunk Elephant’s Protini, and the Soft Pinch Liquid Blush — a snapshot of late-2010s prestige skincare, the new clean wave, and the runaway 2021 viral hit, all in one cart. The sale also confirmed how much of “what’s hot” is actually old loyalty, with a single new product slotting in once a season at most.
K18, and the haircare follow-on
If May and June were Olaplex’s IPO months, July belonged to the brand sitting right behind it. K18, the bond-repair haircare brand from co-founders Suveen Sahib and Britta Cox, had been building quietly with its salon-only Leave-In Molecular Repair Mask and was now starting to move into direct-to-consumer distribution. The product positioning was unmistakably post-Olaplex — single hero formula, peer-reviewed-style copy, professional-channel-first roll-out — and the conversation around it suggested the haircare-as-skincare framing was here to stay. We expect to see two or three more brands follow this exact pattern through the rest of 2021 and into 2022.
Fenty Skin’s first anniversary
One year out from launch, Fenty Skin had quietly become a category-shaper. The minimalist three-step routine — Total Cleans’r, Fat Water toner, Hydra Vizor SPF — had taught a generation of skincare-curious shoppers that a routine could be both effective and short. By July 2021, Rihanna’s brand was expanding the line and reportedly working on body care, and the original three SKUs were still hitting their marks at Sephora. The simplification thesis the brand had pushed at launch — fewer products, used more often — felt vindicated in a year when so much of the industry was figuring out how to step away from the 12-step routine without abandoning the science.
The body-care conversation reaches the supermarket
The skinified body-care thesis we’d been tracking since spring kept maturing in July. The Tatcha body line and the wave of niacinamide-and-retinol body lotions from drugstore brands meant a category that had spent a decade as an afterthought now had its own merchandising at every retail tier. The defining sub-thread of the month was that the shopper who used to buy lotion as a single-bottle category was now stacking — wash, body serum, body oil, body SPF — in the same way they’d been stacking face skincare since 2017. The unit economics of the bathroom counter had shifted decisively, and brands were following the money.
Salt-water beauty
One of July’s quieter undercurrents was the return of the salt-water-and-sun aesthetic — beach-day pictures, sun-bleached hair, freckles, a slightly sandy texture left on purpose. The “no-makeup makeup” of 2014 had been about a flatter, more controlled finish; the 2021 version had grit. Saie‘s Glowy Super Gel and a wave of cream bronzer sticks were the workhorses, while the original Bumble & bumble Surf Spray seemed to be everywhere again, fifteen years after launch. The trend matched the cultural moment: people wanted to look like they had been outside, not like they had been retouched. The professional makeup community that had reset the texture conversation around the Westman Atelier school of soft-and-real complexion now had a beach-day equivalent, and the result felt distinctly summer-2021 in a way 2019 had not quite managed.
Tower 28’s ShineOn Lip Jelly kept showing up alongside the Wet Lip Oil Gloss in July getting-ready videos, and the slow-but-steady mainstreaming of fragrance-free, sensitive-skin-friendly colour products felt like one of the more durable shifts of the year. The fact that Amy Liu, who founded Tower 28, had built the brand specifically around her own eczema flare-ups gave it a credibility that more typical clean-beauty marketing struggled to manufacture, and the Sephora distribution that had started in 2020 was now hitting full ubiquity. We saw the Lip Jelly stocked at airport Sephoras on the way to vacation more often than not.
What we are watching for August
August is traditionally the quiet month of the beauty calendar, but 2021 looks like a noisier year than most. We’re watching for the formal Olaplex S-1 filing, for back-half-of-summer fragrance launches, and for the Olympic-related makeup conversation around the Tokyo Games — even with delayed staging and mostly-empty venues, the imagery from competitors tends to set a fall makeup mood. We’re also watching Tower 28‘s expansion across Sephora, since it’s the one indie brand we keep returning to for the colour categories that elsewhere felt overworked. We will see you on the first Tuesday of August.
Shop the edit
- Sun Bum Cool Down Aloe Gel — after-sun relief for peak summer.
- L’Oréal Paris Skin Paradise Tinted Serum — a lightweight tinted base for the heat.
- NYX Fat Oil Lip Drip — a glossy nourishing lip oil.
- Maybelline Lash Sensational Waterproof — pool-proof lashes.
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