June was the first month that felt like full summer — humidity climbing in the Northeast, ninety-degree afternoons through the South, the entire country pivoting overnight from “moisturizer plus tinted SPF” to “tinted SPF only.” Pride Month rolled out the now-expected wave of capsule launches; the better brands kept their queer-org partnerships year-round and used June as a campaign moment rather than the entire fundraising arc. Two big product stories drove the month — Sol de Janeiro’s Cheirosa 68 launch, which was either the smartest or the most cynical line extension we’ve seen all year depending on your mood, and Glossier finally entering a real foundation-adjacent category with the Pro Concealer. We tested everything we could and watched the rest of the conversation unfold on TikTok.
Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 68 expanded the scent universe
By June, Sol de Janeiro‘s Cheirosa 62 — the original Bum Bum Cream scent — was probably the single most-recognized body fragrance in the US, the kind of product so ubiquitous you could smell it in two elevators a day. Cheirosa 68 launched into that environment as a sequel built around dragon fruit, lychee, and red musk — sweeter, more candy-forward, more “young.” The brand also expanded the Brazilian Crush body mist, hair mist, and perfume mist sub-lines across the new fragrance. The launch sold through faster than anyone expected at Sephora; we expected an ambivalent reception and got the opposite. The takeaway: scent line extensions, when the parent scent is this iconic, are basically guaranteed wins — the customer is already in your store.
Glossier shipped a Pro Concealer — and it was good
The Glossier launch we’d been waiting on landed mid-month: Glossier Universal Pro-Read Concealer, a name nearly as long as the brand’s original product line, in a wider shade range than Glossier had ever offered. The formula was firmer than the brand’s old Stretch Concealer (now phased out), thicker on the face, designed to actually conceal rather than just blur. The packaging was new — sleek, more grown-up, less millennial-pink-postcard. Reviews from the makeup-artist community were uniformly positive in the first ten days. The takeaway: Glossier has spent two years rebuilding from the inside, and this was the product that signaled the brand had finally caught up to what its longtime customers actually wanted from it.
The SPF arms race delivered real innovation
The summer-skincare aisle had felt stagnant for two years; June broke it open. Supergoop! Glowscreen kept its iconic-product status while quietly reformulating. Colorescience Sunforgettable Total Protection Brush-On became the dermatologist-recommended powder SPF of the year. Beauty of Joseon Relief Sun continued to be the gateway Korean SPF for the entire under-30 demographic. The Inkey List, Skinfix, and Hero Cosmetics all launched credible mineral SPFs in the $15-25 range. The takeaway: the “I can’t find a sunscreen I’ll actually wear” complaint was finally obsolete; the only excuse left was preference.
The body-glow category split into oil and spray
The body-luminizer category had been dominated for three years by Sol de Janeiro Glow Oil and Fenty Beauty Body Sauce. In June it bifurcated cleanly. Oils — denser, slippier, suited to bare-shoulder evening looks — stayed in the $30-50 mass-prestige range. Sprays — lighter, more pump-and-go, suited to festival/Coachella applications — colonized the $15-25 drugstore tier with launches from e.l.f. and Maybelline. Tower 28 launched its own SuperDew Body Spray late in the month. The takeaway: when a category gets too crowded, it splits — and the customer benefits.
Pride capsules separated the partners from the marketers
Pride Month always produces rainbow product. The better question, four years post-Bud-Light-discourse, was which brands had real LGBTQ+ org partnerships and which were renting the rainbow for a month. Kosas donated to The Trevor Project from its limited-edition lip glosses. Summer Fridays ran a year-round partnership rather than a June capsule. The Ordinary‘s parent DECIEM continued its multi-year support of GLAAD and Stonewall. The takeaway: in the polarized retail environment of 2024, the brands that survived Pride Month were the brands that had treated LGBTQ+ partnerships as a permanent commitment, not a quarterly campaign.
What we are watching in July
The Olympics open in Paris on July 26 and we expect every fragrance house with French heritage to be in heavy promotion through the back half of the month — Cartier, Hermès, Dior, Guerlain, Chanel. We’re watching the long tail of the Glossier Pro Concealer to see whether it sustains its first-month momentum or pulls back into Glossier’s typical “good not great” trajectory. We’re also watching the wave of K-beauty newcomers — Beauty of Joseon and the rising clean-beauty Korean brands — to see whether the early-2024 momentum holds through summer. And we’re keeping an eye on heatwave skincare, which was already trending hot in early forecasts. We will see you on the first Tuesday of July.
Shop the edit
- e.l.f. Stay All Night Setting Spray — keeps summer makeup in place through the heat.
- Supergoop! Glow Stick SPF 50 — easy on-the-go SPF reapplication.
- Color Wow Dream Coat — anti-humidity protection for summer hair.
- Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 62 Mist — a warm-weather scent layer.
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