August 2015 was the back-to-school launch month at peak intensity. The drugstore endcaps reorganized in the second week, the Sephora fall preview emails started landing in the third week, and the cushion-compact category got its third major Western entry with the YSL launch. By the first Tuesday of August we already had three new products on the bathroom counter, two more on the bathroom-counter waitlist, and the strange satisfaction of having survived a full heat-dome summer with most of the routine intact. Below, what we kept reaching for.
YSL Cushion arrived with the widest shade range yet
Yves Saint Laurent’s Touche Éclat Le Cushion arrived at US prestige in early August, and it landed with the widest shade range the cushion-compact category had yet seen at Western retail — sixteen shades, with meaningful undertone variation, addressing the central complaint that had dogged the Lancôme Miracle Cushion launch eleven months earlier. The format was dewy rather than matte, the price point was solidly prestige at fifty-five dollars, and the early adopter coverage from beauty editors who had committed to it through the August humidity was warmly positive.
By the end of August the cushion-compact category in the US had three real prestige options at meaningfully different finishes — Lancôme dewy original, Dior matte, YSL dewy with widest shade range — plus the Korean originals available through specialty channels. The category had genuinely settled into Western retail.
Back-to-school drugstore launches went bigger
The August 2015 back-to-school endcaps at every CVS and Target reorganized in the second week, and the launches that landed in 2015 were larger than the previous two years. Maybelline’s Vivid Matte Liquid lipsticks were the breakout — the brand’s first proper liquid-matte launch, with a saturated-color range that translated the prestige liquid-matte conversation at one-third the price. L’Oréal Paris’s Voluminous Lash Paradise mascara had not launched yet (that was 2017), but the Voluminous family kept its drugstore reference position.
ColourPop, the Los Angeles-based affordable cosmetics brand that had launched late 2014, was hitting full mainstream momentum by August 2015 through Instagram-driven influencer marketing. The five-dollar Lippie Stix and Super Shock Shadow products were getting heavier editorial coverage every month.
Strobing remained the technique of the year
The strobing-versus-contouring conversation we documented a year earlier remained settled in 2015. Strobing — the highlighter-forward, contour-light approach to building dimension — had won out, and the August 2015 editor coverage was largely about which highlighter to commit to. Becca’s Shimmering Skin Perfector kept its position as the prestige reference; Marc Jacobs Beauty’s Glow Stick highlighter had emerged as the prestige stick-format alternative.
The drugstore answer that arrived in August was Maybelline’s Master Strobing Stick, which kept its position from the 2014 launch through 2015’s back-to-school reformulation. The under-ten-dollar price point made strobing genuinely accessible.
Skincare reset began earlier
The post-summer skincare conversation that had been pulling forward each year by 2015 was a firmly mid-August event. The advice in every column ran the same direction: introduce a low-strength retinol now; layer in a vitamin C if not using one; book an in-office facial for the first week of September. Dermalogica’s Daily Microfoliant kept its position as the gentle-exfoliation reference; Drunk Elephant’s T.L.C. Framboos Glycolic Resurfacing Night Serum was the breakout pre-fall product across the entire August editorial coverage cycle.
Beauty influencer culture hit a real tipping point
The other story building under the launches in August 2015 was the maturation of the beauty-influencer category. The YouTube tutorial creators who had been growing audiences since 2010 — Michelle Phan, NikkieTutorials, Jaclyn Hill, Jeffree Star — were no longer fringe; their endorsements were driving measurable retail sales and several brands were running explicit influencer-collaboration product launches. The model would dominate beauty marketing for the next several years, and August 2015 was effectively the last quiet month before the influencer-launch boom of 2016.
What we’re watching for September
September 2015 brings the September issues, NYFW Spring 2016 in the second week, and the Allure Best of Beauty list. We were also tracking the Kylie Cosmetics launch that the Jenner camp had been teasing — the rumor was a fall 2015 lipstick-kit drop. We will see you on the first Tuesday of September.