July 2014 was the slowest launch month of the year and the loudest stress-test month. The bathroom counter had nothing new on it that had not been there in June, the heat dome sitting over most of the East Coast tested every product we had committed to in the spring, and the absence of new product to write about meant every magazine column pivoted to year-best-of forecasts and reformulation deep-dives. By the first Tuesday of July we already had three favorites that had earned a permanent spot in the rotation through humid commute conditions, a small graveyard of products that had failed the same test, and a surprising amount of brand-loyalty consolidation. Below, what we kept reaching for in the year’s humidity-test month.
The natural-deodorant conversation finally got useful
The aluminum-free deodorant story we covered a year earlier had matured meaningfully. The category that had been a near-universal bathroom-counter disappointment in 2013 had genuinely usable options by July 2014. Tom’s of Maine’s Long Lasting Natural Deodorant kept its drugstore reference position; Schmidt’s jar-format natural deodorant had become a Whole Foods staple with measurably better odor protection than the previous-generation formulations.
The conversation among the people we knew shifted in July specifically. Almost everyone we knew who had failed a natural-deodorant transition the previous summer was willing to try again, and most of them stuck with it through the heat dome. The category was no longer a hopeful experiment.
Pool-day skincare became a real category
The pool-and-beach-day-specific skincare conversation got more sophisticated in July 2014. The advice in every column ran the same direction: a separate water-resistant SPF for actual swim days (not the daily-wear face SPF used the rest of the time), a dedicated post-swim cleanser to get the chlorine off the skin, a small barrier-protection step before sun exposure to prevent peeling later. EltaMD’s UV Sport — the water- and sweat-resistant version of the brand’s reference SPF — was the editor-recommended pool-day choice; L’Oréal Paris’s Advanced Suncare Silky Sheer was the drugstore answer for the same use case.
The post-swim conversation pivoted hard. Cetaphil’s Gentle Skin Cleanser as a body wash after a chlorinated swim was the surprising recommendation that bounced through every July how-to. We tested it. It worked.
Hair stylists made the case for the wet-look braid
The summer hair conversation pivoted toward braided wet looks and away from the loose-beachy waves of the previous summer. The styling reference was a fresh-out-of-the-pool look — a single side-French braid, glossed up with a leave-in conditioner, secured with a small clear elastic. The product that carried the look was Bumble and bumble’s Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil — applied to damp hair before braiding to give the wet finish that did not crunch as it dried.
The drugstore version landed quickly. L’Oréal Paris’s Total Repair Damage-Erasing Balm was the under-fifteen-dollar workhorse that performed the same function for any wet-finish summer styling.
Mascara mostly retreated from the routine
July 2014 was the month most of the people we knew gave up on mascara through the heat dome. The combination of heat-melt, post-swim raccoon eyes, and a general summer minimalism meant the mascara conversation pivoted to two things: tubing formulas that washed off cleanly with warm water, or the lash-tint salon service that had quietly become available at more US salons in 2014. Benefit’s They’re Real Tinted Lash Primer was the editor-recommended tubing-style answer; Maybelline’s Lash Sensational Waterproof was the drugstore-default heat-and-pool-survival mascara.
Tom Ford expanded the lipstick conversation
The other meaningful launch of July 2014 was the expansion of Tom Ford’s Lips & Boys collection — a series of small-format lipsticks named after men, designed as a more accessible-priced entry into the brand than the full-size forty-eight-dollar Lip Color line. The collection was technically a holiday 2013 launch but received a wider summer rollout, and the small-bullet shades — Drake (a soft brown-pink), Oliver (a dusty rose), Tony (a brick red) — became the prestige-tier impulse purchase of the season.
What the launch represented was bigger than the lipstick. Tom Ford was making the case that prestige beauty could play in smaller-format and lower-price-tier products without diluting the brand image, and the launch’s success changed how the rest of the prestige tier thought about the category. Several brands queued up similar small-format launches for the rest of 2014.
What we’re watching for August
August 2014 will bring the back-to-school launches at every drugstore, the second half of the cushion-compact rollout (the Lancôme launch had been confirmed for the back half of the year), and what was rumored to be a fragrance launch from Marc Jacobs that the publishing world had been hearing whispers about since spring. We will see you on the first Tuesday of August.