August is the strangest month in beauty. The first half of the month is the dead-zone tail of summer — humid commutes, vacation makeup-bag minimalism, the sense that nobody is launching anything important until Labor Day. The second half flips. The fall preview emails start landing, the back-to-school endcaps reorganize, and the quietly-engineered Q4 launches that will dominate the rest of the year start showing up at every Sephora. By the first Tuesday of August 2013 we already had the Marc Jacobs Beauty rollout calendar circled, the back-to-school drugstore launches lined up, and a sense that the second half of the year was going to be louder than the first. Below, what we kept reaching for.
Marc Jacobs Beauty arrived at Sephora
The launch was the lipstick-conversation event of the month. Marc Jacobs Beauty rolled out at Sephora in early August 2013 with a single-page editorial in every fashion magazine and a roster of products designed to read like a fashion-house export rather than a celebrity-fronted brand. The standout was the Lust for Lacquer lip vinyl in a deep burgundy called Have We Met — a high-shine, deeply pigmented lacquer that read like a runway lip rather than an everyday product. It sold through fast.
The other launch product everyone we knew bought twice was the Highliner gel eye crayon, a thick stick eyeliner that drew like a kohl pencil but set like a gel liner — the kind of category-collapsing product that explained why a fashion designer was actually getting into beauty. The pricing put it head-to-head with NARS at the prestige tier; the campaign imagery put it head-to-head with the older makeup-artist-fronted houses. By the end of August, Marc Jacobs Beauty had become a real presence in the Sephora layout, not just a launch novelty.
Back-to-school drugstore launches got smarter
The back-to-school endcap at every CVS and Target reorganized in early August, and the 2013 version was meaningfully more sophisticated than the year before. Maybelline’s Color Sensational line had launched updated formulas; the new Vivids range — bright, opaque, almost-neon shades — was the answer to the prestige conversation around M·A·C’s Heroine and the deep-saturation lipstick trend. L’Oréal Paris was pushing its Colour Riche Extraordinaire line, the first widely-distributed drugstore answer to the moisturizing-lipstick category that the prestige tier had been working for years.
Revlon was the unexpected entry. The Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains had launched the previous year, and the August 2013 reformulation extended the shade range and improved the longevity. The cream-base, high-pigment, balm-finish lip product was the late-August commute default for anyone who wanted color that stayed put without committing to a true matte.
The end-of-summer skin reset began
The post-summer skincare shift had become an annual ritual by 2013, and the August 2013 version was the most prescriptive yet. The advice in every magazine column and editor email read more or less the same: introduce a low-strength retinol now, before the back-to-school stress; layer in a vitamin-C serum if you have not been; book an in-office facial for late September. The brand that benefited most from this conversation was Dermalogica, which had been an aesthetician-shelf staple for years and had finally developed enough consumer-direct retail presence to capitalize.
The over-the-counter retinol category was where the real shift happened. RoC’s Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle Night Cream was the drugstore reference — twenty-five dollars, a serious 0.1% pure retinol formulation, an editor recommendation that crossed every demographic. The conversation around adapter products — the moisturizer-rich formulas designed to ease people into retinol use — was getting louder, but in August 2013 the pure formulas were what was selling.
Hair stylists made the case for less washing
The hair conversation pivoted in a way that would dominate the next two years. The advice that had been niche and West Coast in early summer — wash less, condition more, accept that your scalp will adjust to two or three washes a week — was now being said out loud by every major hair stylist quoted in every August fashion-magazine column. Oribe’s Gold Lust Repair & Restore Conditioner was the prestige product that benefited most; Olaplex had not launched yet (that arrived in 2014), but the conditions were being set.
The drugstore tier kept its standard, with Pantene’s Pro-V deep conditioner taking on a new life as the once-a-week treatment people were finally willing to commit to. The argument that fewer washes meant longer-lasting color, less heat damage, and a healthier scalp was finally winning out over the daily-shampoo orthodoxy of the previous decade.
Fragrance went lighter for the late-August humidity
The fragrance category in August always pivots toward citrus, salt, and tea — the lighter compositions that survive humid air without feeling cloying. Jo Malone’s Wood Sage & Sea Salt had launched earlier in the year and had become the fragrance of summer 2013 — an outdoor, breezy, almost-androgynous scent that worked in office air conditioning and on the beach with equal grace. The cologne format was unobtrusive enough for a hot subway commute. Diptyque’s Philosykos was the prestige alternative for anyone who wanted a slightly more textured green fig over a salty marine, and we had two friends who had committed to it as their signature for the rest of the year.
What we’re watching for September
September is the official start of fall — the New York Fashion Week shows for Spring 2014 are queued up for the first half of the month, the September issues of every magazine land like dossiers, and the real Q4 launches start dropping in the second half. We were watching the runway beauty looks because every shade decision for fall would be visible in the front rows. We were also watching the drugstore foundation launches that were rumored to be coming — the matte-finish, longer-wearing reformulations were going to set the tone for the next two years. We will see you on the first Tuesday of September.