March 2022 felt like the first proper spring in three years. The clocks moved forward at the very end of the month, the magnolias on the West Side started doing their thing, and the long heavy coats finally went into the back of the closet. The Oscars on the twenty-seventh closed out the awards season — the makeup conversation was firmly back to skin, with Jessica Chastain and her Tammy Faye character barely registering in the same look — and Paris Fashion Week wrapped up the first week of March with a Spring 2022 lineup that tracked dewy, summery, less covered. By the second half of the month every bathroom counter we visited had at least one new tinted SPF on it, and the conversation in our group chats had moved from “how do I survive winter skin” to “how do I look like I have been on a small holiday.” Here is what we kept reaching for.
The glazed-donut skin moment
Hailey Bieber had taken over the dewy-skin conversation on TikTok by mid-March, posting tutorials of what she called glazed-donut skin — barely-there base, layered hyaluronic and peptide serums, a strategic cream highlighter on top — and the products she named-checked sold out within the day. Peter Thomas Roth‘s Water Drench Cloud Cream became suddenly impossible to find online; Glossier‘s Futuredew was the more accessible pick for the same finish, and on our cheekbones we had been preferring Saie‘s Glowy Super Skin liquid illuminator since the launch. The unifying thing about every product in this conversation was that it added moisture rather than coverage, and the look it produced was the polar opposite of the matte contour that had defined 2016. The pendulum had completely flipped.
Tinted SPF went prestige
The other big March moment was the arrival of tinted SPF as the actual base step in our routines, with editorial-grade formulas finally in the field. Supergoop‘s Glow Screen had been the gateway drug since its 2020 launch, but March was the month tinted SPF as a category had real depth. Saie’s SunVisor took the lightweight, non-shiny route. Black Girl Sunscreen‘s Make It Matte hit the under-makeup brief without the white cast. Even EltaMD‘s UV Clear Tinted, the dermatologist-recommended stalwart, had been showing up in editor lists with new respect. The pitch on all of them was the same: the SPF was the base, the tint was the primer, the concealer went on top, and you were out the door three minutes faster.
Self-tanner came back, less obvious
The Bondi-Sands-and-mitt era of self-tanner had given way to a more dilute, more layered approach — a few drops in moisturiser at night, a gradual face mist by day, nothing that read as tan so much as “back from somewhere”. Tan-Luxe‘s The Face drops had the longest-running reputation as the dependable, controllable option; Sephora‘s shelves carried Isle of Paradise’s Self-Tanning Drops at a friendlier price, and that had become the recommendation we made to anyone trying tan drops for the first time. St. Tropez was still the brand we trusted for body application, with the Express Mousse the most editor-recommended formula. The emphasis everywhere was on subtlety and on stopping before anyone could see exactly what you had done.
Brow lamination at home
The brow conversation had settled into laminated, fluffy, brushed-up territory through 2021, and the at-home version of the trend had matured by March. Anastasia Beverly Hills‘s Brow Freeze was the product half the makeup artists we read were name-checking — a wax balm you brushed up into the brow to lock the laminated look in place all day. Benefit Cosmetics‘s 24-HR Brow Setter kept the more affordable lane, and Glossier‘s original Boy Brow remained the everyday gel for anyone whose taste skipped the fully-locked finish. The reason brow lamination kept landing was that it produced the exact same effect as the dewy, less-makeup look elsewhere on the face — visible texture, more of the actual person, less obvious product.
Spring fragrance got fresher
The cosy gourmand direction we wrote about in February gave way to greener, fresher compositions as the weather turned. Diptyque‘s Philosykos and Eau Rose were back on every spring-fragrance list; Jo Malone London‘s Wood Sage & Sea Salt and Nectarine Blossom & Honey worked the same shift toward bright and outdoorsy. Independent house D.S. & Durga kept the artistic-niche end of the conversation lively; the Bowmakers and Debaser fragrances had crossed from indie to “you smell amazing, what is that” status in the past year. The unifying note was bright and natural — the kind of perfume that makes the room you walk into feel five degrees warmer rather than two cushions cosier.
Closing
By the last weekend of March we had a small but reliable spring routine: tinted SPF, a few drops of self-tanner in the night cream, glazed-donut highlighter on the cheekbones, brow gel that locked rather than tinted, and a fresh perfume on the wrist. The pendulum had moved decisively toward visible-skin makeup, and the products that arrived in March were finally making it easy to do well. We will be back on the third Tuesday of the month with our look at Spring 2022 fashion from the big brands — what came down the runway in February, and what is going to filter into stores once the weather is warm enough to actually wear any of it. See you then.
Shop the edit
- e.l.f. Camo CC Cream — the complexion hero behind the e.l.f. run.
- Maybelline SuperStay Matte Ink — a long-wear lip for awards-season polish.
- Glow Recipe Watermelon Dew Drops — a spring glow serum.
- L’Oréal Paris Lumi Glotion — an easy lit-from-within base.
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