October arrived this year with a definite sense of momentum. The post-IPO Olaplex coverage was still everywhere, the Met Gala makeup conversation was finishing its trickle-down to mainstream creators, and the holiday merchandising calendar had officially kicked off on the first of the month. Sephora and Ulta had pivoted from skincare-anchored displays to a more colour-and-fragrance-forward aesthetic, the Allure Best of Beauty winners had been announced, and Halloween was a serious creator-content event for the first time since 2019. October 2021 in beauty was a busy month, and the products that won it were the ones that recognised the season’s shift from indoor self-care to outward-facing intention.
Allure Best of Beauty, 2021 edition
Allure’s annual Best of Beauty list dropped at the start of the month, and the 2021 edition felt like a particularly accurate snapshot of the year’s beauty mood. The winners list crystallised what had been building all spring and summer: Rare Beauty‘s Soft Pinch Liquid Blush, Nécessaire‘s Body Serum, Saie‘s Sunvisor SPF, and the Olaplex No. 8 Bond Intense Moisture Mask all landed in their respective categories. The ones we found more interesting were the surprises — the lower-priced winners from CeraVe and Maybelline, the wave of Black-founded indie brands taking second-tier categories, and the steady representation of K-beauty crossovers like Beauty of Joseon. The list confirmed what the year had taught us: the audience for prestige beauty was now a thoughtful, diversified one.
Halloween becomes a creator event
Halloween in 2020 had been the quietest in memory, and 2021’s was a definitive rebound. Beauty TikTok turned into a parade of intricate face paints, prosthetic builds, and elaborate look references throughout October, with creators investing serious time and product budget into a single event. Brands responded with limited-edition pumpkin-toned collections, themed gift boxes, and a general acknowledgment that the holiday had moved from a kid-centric sugar event to a Gen Z and millennial creative showcase. e.l.f. Cosmetics and MAC were the two most-cited brands in tutorials we watched, sitting on opposite ends of a price spectrum that mostly didn’t matter when the goal was a one-night-only complete look.
Holiday gifting, the early reads
Sephora’s holiday-set wave dropped in mid-October, and the early-bird sets gave us our first read on what the gifting season would centre. Charlotte Tilbury‘s annual gift architecture was as strong as ever, with the Pillow Talk gift boxes serving as the brand’s defining product. Summer Fridays had a smart Jet Lag Mask gift set positioned as the universal small-gift answer, and Drunk Elephant’s seasonal kits were reformulated for the post-Shiseido era. The pattern across the early sets was that brands had figured out the past year had taught customers to value a thoughtful, smaller, less-stuffed-with-sample-sizes set over a maximalist gift box. Editing was the new gifting strategy.
The Olaplex post-IPO conversation
Two weeks after the September 30 listing, the post-IPO conversation around Olaplex kept moving the category. The stock had held up, the company’s first quarterly earnings as a public entity were coming up in November, and the trade press was now openly speculating about which brand would be next. The conversation had implications well beyond haircare. Brands across categories were now pulling forward their financial reporting, hiring outside chief financial officers, and tidying their cap tables in case the listing window stayed open. We expected to see two or three more public-listing announcements through the rest of 2021 and early 2022, with the most likely names being some combination of K18, Westman Atelier, and a fragrance house.
The eye palette returns
If the September fall lip was the first clear pivot back into deliberate makeup, October’s was the eye palette. Pat McGrath Labs‘ Mothership IX teased early in the month, with the Huda Beauty Empowered Palette, Charlotte Tilbury’s Walk of Shame Anniversary Edition, and a wave of more affordable warm-toned palettes from Anastasia Beverly Hills, Tarte, and Urban Decay all rolling in. The palette had spent 2018 through 2020 as the slightly out-of-fashion makeup format, but October 2021 was its return — partly because indoor lighting and Zoom now demanded a sharper eye, partly because deliberate makeup was the autumn mood. We expected to see a steady cadence of palette launches through the holiday season.
Hair, post-Olaplex
The Olaplex listing concentrated attention on the haircare category, and October was the month we started seeing other brands position aggressively for the same conversation. K18 had moved more product into Sephora and was expanding its DTC channel, while smaller bond-repair brands like Living Proof and Briogeo were getting renewed attention from buyers and retailers. The thesis we kept hearing was that haircare in 2021 looked the way skincare had looked around 2014 — about to be reset by an ingredient-led, professional-channel-first wave of new entrants. Whether that played out in the same way over a similar five-to-seven-year arc was the question we’d be carrying into 2022.
Body care, holiday edition
The body-care arc that had been the year’s most durable trend got its holiday-merchandising moment in October. The body-serum category that had been niche in spring was now anchoring gift sets at every prestige tier, and the supermarket-aisle equivalent — niacinamide-and-retinol-infused body lotions from drugstore brands — had earned a permanent endcap presence. Nécessaire‘s gift kits were one of the most-cited universal small-gift answers we heard from creators, while the wider conversation moved from “should I be using a body serum” to “which body serum suits my skin.” That shift, more than any single launch, was the durable signal of the year.
What we are watching for November
November is the month the holiday gifting calendar moves into full swing — the Black Friday previews, the Cyber Monday Sephora sale, the Ulta 21 Days of Beauty extensions, and the inevitable wave of holiday-set restocks. We’re watching for any second-wave Halloween-content drift into November, since fall makeup tends to land more durably after the costume content peaks. We’re tracking the post-IPO Olaplex earnings cycle and any related deal announcements. And we’re watching the early holiday-collection landings, because the pieces that sell early tend to anchor the December conversation. We will see you on the first Tuesday of November.
Shop the edit
- Urban Decay All Nighter Setting Spray — long-wear hold for Halloween looks.
- NYX Epic Ink Liner — a precise liquid liner.
- CeraVe Resurfacing Retinol Serum — an Allure-favorite skincare hero.
- Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask — an easy holiday-gift win.
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