September 2015 was, like every September, the official start of fall. The September issues hit every newsstand the first week, NYFW Spring 2016 ran the second week, and the actual Q4 launches that would dominate the rest of the year started landing in the second half. By the first Tuesday of the month we had three magazines on the kitchen table, the long-rumored Kylie Cosmetics launch finally confirmed for November, and the Charlotte Tilbury restock cycles back to manageable levels. Below, what we kept reaching for in the year’s biggest launch month.
Allure Best of Beauty held real authority
The October Allure issue landed in mid-September with the annual Best of Beauty list, and the 2015 winners had shifted toward the prestige and DTC brands that had defined the year. Glossier’s Boy Brow took home a brow win — making it the rare DTC product to land on the list within its first year of distribution. Drunk Elephant’s C-Firma Day Serum and T.L.C. Framboos were both recognized in the skincare category. Charlotte Tilbury’s Magic Cream took a moisturizer recognition. Olaplex’s No. 3 took home a hair-care win in its first year of consumer availability.
The list’s authority had grown through 2015 to a level where it functionally drove holiday-quarter purchasing across the industry. The 2015 winners were uniformly products that landed in actual gift bags through December.
NYFW Spring 2016 went bare-faced
The Spring 2016 shows in New York were the cleanest fashion-week beauty conversation in years. The runway through-line at Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren was deliberately undone — almost no foundation, a soft rubbed-in cheek tint, the lightest hint of mascara, and a lip kept either entirely bare or with a single sheer balm-tint. The brand most often credited backstage was M·A·C; the makeup artist whose name kept coming up was Diane Kendal at Marc Jacobs and Gucci Westman across multiple American shows.
The retail interpretation came fast. Marc Jacobs Beauty’s Re(marc)able foundation, Charlotte Tilbury’s Magic Cream, and the Becca Beach Tint were the three products most often credited as the at-home translation of the runway look.
Kylie Cosmetics confirmed for November
The launch beauty publishing had been speculating about for most of 2015 was finally confirmed in mid-September: Kylie Cosmetics would launch its first product, the Kylie Lip Kit (a liquid lipstick paired with a matching lip liner), on November 30, 2015 through the brand’s own e-commerce site only. The pricing was twenty-nine dollars per kit; the initial shade lineup was three: Candy K, Dolce K, True Brown K. The launch positioned itself in the same DTC model Glossier had pioneered the previous year, but with the celebrity-led marketing engine that would distinguish the brand for the rest of the decade.
What was new about the buildup was the speed. The pre-launch hype cycle that Glossier had taken several months to build was compressed into the eight weeks between announcement and launch for Kylie Cosmetics, and the brand would sell through its launch inventory in a matter of minutes when the November drop arrived.
Charlotte Tilbury The Queen launched as the year’s carpet red
The lipstick of late summer 2015 had been Charlotte Tilbury’s K.I.S.S.I.N.G. in The Queen — a true cool red that the Met Gala carpet had cemented in May and that, by September, was selling out across every Bergdorf Goodman, Nordstrom, and Saks Fifth Avenue restock cycle. The shade had become the year’s prestige cool-red reference, just as Pillow Talk had been the prestige nude reference twelve months earlier.
Fall foundation reformulations brought meaningful upgrades
The drugstore foundation launches we had been watching since August landed properly in mid-September. Maybelline’s Fit Me Matte + Poreless picked up an expanded shade range; L’Oréal Paris’s True Match Lumi launched as the brand’s long-wear hydrating reformulation. The prestige tier kept its standards: Giorgio Armani Beauty’s Luminous Silk continued to be the editor stockpile reference; NARS Sheer Glow held its position.
What we’re watching for October
October 2015 brings the year’s loudest launch wave — holiday gift sets at every retailer, the Halloween-makeup conversation at peak intensity, and the deep-fragrance Q4 push. We will see you on the first Tuesday of October.