February 2014 was busier than it had any right to be. New York Fashion Week ran in the second week and laid out the Fall 2014 ready-to-wear conversation; the Sochi Winter Olympics ran simultaneously and pulled an unexpected amount of beauty editorial attention toward sporty-glamour territory; Valentine’s Day kept its annual red-lipstick press cycle. By the first Tuesday of the month we already had three new lipsticks in rotation, the cushion-compact rumor mill was at full volume, and the mascara conversation that had been building since fall was finally cresting at retail. Below, what we kept reaching for in the year’s shortest, most makeup-forward month.
The Sochi Olympics gave the season a sporty-glamour register
The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi opened on February 7 and the beauty conversation that came out of the Olympic broadcast was unexpectedly influential. The figure-skating finals delivered a series of editorial close-ups on extreme glamour-meets-athleticism — bright eyes, deep lips, hair pulled back tight enough to survive a triple-axel — and that vocabulary spilled into fashion-magazine commentary for the rest of the month. The brand most often associated with the look was M·A·C, which sponsored the makeup work on a number of the broadcast events; the technique most discussed was the inner-corner highlight that read sharper under camera flash than under daylight.
The crossover effect on retail was real. The deep-jewel lipstick conversation got an unexpected boost — a wine, a deep berry, an oxblood — as the figure-skating short programs translated into “serious face for the camera” into the editorial language of the year.
NYFW Fall 2014: a softer, more fluid eye
The Fall 2014 shows in New York were the cleanest pivot away from the strict architectural tailoring of Fall 2013. Backstage, the consistent through-line was a softer, more fluid eye look — a brushed-out smudge of brown or charcoal in the lash line rather than a clean liner, a slightly damp finish on the lid, and a deliberate absence of contour. The makeup artist whose name kept coming up was Lucia Pieroni at Calvin Klein and Diane Kendal at Marc Jacobs. The lip varied — bare at Calvin Klein, a deeper berry stain at Marc Jacobs — but the eye was the consistent statement.
The retail interpretation came quickly. Bobbi Brown’s Long-Wear Cream Shadow Stick line, freshly launched, was the editor reference for the runway-eye-at-home translation. The single shade everyone we knew was reaching for was Bark, a warm taupe-brown that pulled the runway smudged-eye look into a workable office-day version.
The cushion compact still had not landed
The cushion-compact rumor mill — the one that had been building since the start of 2013 — was at peak volume in February 2014, and still nothing had actually launched at the US prestige tier. The category had been a Korean obsession for several years (AmorePacific’s IOPE Air Cushion was the technology reference), and editor coverage of the format kept teasing that one of the major Western prestige houses was about to take a swing. The launch did not come in February, but the building anticipation effectively trained the US prestige consumer on what to expect — a small round compact, a sponge applicator, a tinted-base finish — so when the launches did come later in the year the consumer was already primed.
The K-beauty conversation more broadly was getting louder. Sephora’s K-beauty edit had expanded its shelf space; Tony Moly’s sheet-mask range had grown to fill an endcap of its own at most retailers. The infrastructure for what would become a much bigger 2014–2015 K-beauty story was being built in February.
Mascara wars peaked at drugstore
The drugstore mascara category had been getting more competitive every quarter through 2013, and by February 2014 the category was at peak intensity. Maybelline’s Lash Sensational, launched late 2013 and in widespread distribution by early 2014, was the breakout. The fan-shaped brush, the lengthening-without-clumping formula, and the under-ten-dollar price point made it the editor-recommended drugstore option of the early year. L’Oréal Paris’s Voluminous in the original gold tube held its position as the second-most-recommended.
The prestige conversation stayed its ground. Benefit’s They’re Real held the workhorse spot; Tarte’s Lights, Camera, Lashes was the under-twenty-five-dollar prestige answer for anyone willing to commit slightly more than drugstore money for a slightly cleaner-removed end of day. The mascara aisle was the place where 2014’s drugstore-versus-prestige math finally tipped: the drugstore had genuinely caught up.
The lip-stain category got a serious launch
The other launch that mattered in February 2014 was the next generation of lip stains. Marc Jacobs Beauty’s Lust for Lacquer in Have We Met had been a holiday hit; the brand pushed harder on the lip category in February with the Le Marc Liquid Lip Crème line, a hybrid lip stain and lipstick that tried to bridge the long-wear of a stain with the comfort of a balm. The launch was meaningful because it set the template for the liquid-lipstick boom that would dominate the next two years.
The drugstore answer was Revlon’s ColorBurst Matte Balm, which had launched mid-2013 and was on its widest distribution by February. The crayon format, the under-ten-dollar price, and the shade range that included a usable cool red and a usable deep berry made it the everyday workhorse for anyone not paying prestige money for the same idea.
What we’re watching for March
March 2014 brings Paris Fashion Week wrapping the runway-coverage cycle, the early-spring color collections at every prestige house, and the lighter-skincare swap conversation we have started looking forward to every year. We were watching for the cushion-compact arrival that was now the most-rumored launch of the year, and we were tracking the Charlotte Tilbury US announcement that publishing kept assuming was imminent. We will see you on the first Tuesday of March.