May 2023 was bookended by two of the year’s biggest cultural moments. The Met Gala on May 1 honored Karl Lagerfeld, two months after his death-anniversary marker; the Coronation of King Charles III followed on May 6 in London. Both events functioned as massive beauty showcases, and the looks they produced — particularly Charles Finch and Pat McGrath’s Met Gala face palette work for the major attendees — set the tone for the next several months. We spent the rest of the month testing summer launches, refining body-care routines for warmer weather, and watching Glossier launch the latest extension of its YOU fragrance line. These are the products and conversations that defined the close of beauty’s spring.
Met Gala 2023: the Lagerfeld face
The May 1 Met Gala honored Karl Lagerfeld with the “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty” theme, and the beauty looks delivered. Lagerfeld’s signature aesthetic — strong-lined eye, very pale skin, often a graphic black liner — translated to a long list of statement faces. Pat McGrath Labs‘s products did most of the heavy lifting on the major faces, and the Skin Fetish Highlighter and the Mothership IX palette appeared in nearly every backstage breakdown.
Among the most-discussed looks: the porcelain-skin and statement-cat-eye approach on Anne Hathaway, the more romantic peach-and-pink soft-glam on Dua Lipa, the architectural high-glamour styling on Cardi B. Charlotte Tilbury‘s Pillow Talk lipstick range continued to be the red-carpet lipstick of record. The bigger insight from the night was that “old-school glamour” — heavy lashes, defined brow, full-coverage skin, statement lip — had returned in full force after several years of dewy-skin minimalism dominating red carpets.
The Coronation: Catherine’s beauty choices
King Charles’s Coronation on May 6 was the British monarchy’s biggest visual moment in seventy years, and Catherine, Princess of Wales, did her own makeup for the ceremony — a choice that became its own story. The look: Bobbi Brown brown-toned eyeshadow, heavy lashes, a deep-rose lip in what was widely identified as Charlotte Tilbury‘s Hot Lips 2 in Patsy Red. Catherine’s signature heavily-defined eyeliner was, characteristically, present.
The cultural importance of the look was less about the specific products and more about Catherine’s choice to do her own makeup for an event of that scale. Beauty editors read it as a deliberate statement about competence and self-presentation, which fit neatly into the year’s wider “quiet luxury” conversation. The wider Coronation beauty looks — Queen Camilla’s silver-toned smokey eye, the more traditional looks on the wider royal family — got moderate attention, but Catherine’s was the look that drove product sell-through through the back half of the month.
Glossier YOU Doll launches
Glossier released YOU Doll in mid-May, the third fragrance in its YOU line and a sweeter, vanilla-and-fig riff on the original ambrette-and-musk YOU. The launch was Glossier’s first major product extension following its February Sephora debut, and the brand timed the rollout to capitalize on the new retail distribution — both the Glossier site and Sephora’s stores carried YOU Doll from launch.
The fragrance was a test case for Glossier’s broader strategy. The original YOU had been the brand’s most-shopped product and a cult cultural object since its 2017 launch; whether YOU Doll could carry the franchise into a second pillar was a question about whether Glossier could grow product categories rather than just preserve them. Early sell-through was strong, particularly at the prestige Sephora locations where the brand was newest. We expected at least one more YOU extension by 2024.
Mother’s Day gift sets that work
The May 14 Mother’s Day gifting calendar produced a fresh batch of beauty bundles, and the standouts were the ones that delivered real value rather than acting as empty marketing tie-ins. Augustinus Bader‘s Hand Care duo (full-size hand cream plus the Tinted Hand Treatment) was the prestige gift that mothers we knew actually wanted. Diptyque‘s Eau Capitale Eau de Parfum and Bougie set was the quiet-luxury choice. Necessaire‘s body-care duos kept the wellness-leaning recipient happy.
The pattern across the standouts was that the gift sets had moved away from “hero product plus three travel sizes” toward “two genuine full-size products that work together.” The category was finally maturing into something gift-givers could trust without inspecting. We expected the same logic to extend to Father’s Day and the holiday gifting calendar later in the year.
The summer body-care reset
The skincare conversation pivoted from face-only to body through May. Necessaire‘s body serum continued to define the prestige category. Tan-Towel‘s self-tan towelettes had a sustained TikTok moment as the easy pre-event option. SALT & STONE‘s natural deodorant kept growing as the prestige pit-care answer.
The bigger idea behind the body-care shift was that summer asked of the body what fall and winter had been asking of the face: real skincare, layered actives, and a routine that delivered visible results. Body retinol, body niacinamide, and body vitamin C all had serious launches through May. The category was going to grow significantly through the summer.
May closed the spring with two big cultural-beauty moments and a clear pivot toward summer’s body-and-face routines. The Met Gala had reset the red-carpet glamour conversation, the Coronation had reminded us that competence in self-presentation was its own kind of luxury, Glossier had successfully extended its fragrance line, and the wider category had finally given body care the same attention it gave the face. We will see you on the first Tuesday of June.
Shop the edit
- e.l.f. Halo Glow Liquid Filter — for a lit-from-within complexion.
- e.l.f. Halo Glow Blush Beauty Wand — an easy soft-petal cheek wash.
- EltaMD UV Clear SPF 46 — the lightweight daily facial sunscreen.
- Olaplex No. 3 Hair Perfector — pre-summer bond repair.
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