May 2018 was the most beauty-coded month we have written about in years. The Met Gala on May 7, themed “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” gave us a red carpet that read like a curated gallery — Rihanna in a white-and-silver bishop’s mitre, Sarah Jessica Parker in a gold halo, Zendaya in armoured Versace. Twelve days later, the Royal Wedding on May 19 (Meghan Markle and Prince Harry) delivered the year’s most-watched bridal beauty look — a freckled, almost no-makeup face, a low chignon, the simplest lip imaginable. The two events bracketed a month that, more than any other in recent memory, made the case for both the maximalist and minimalist directions American beauty was traveling in. We watched both, copied bits of each, and ended the month with a bathroom counter that felt entirely spring.
The Heavenly Bodies Met Gala beauty
The May 7 Met Gala leaned harder into theatrical beauty than any in recent memory. Pat McGrath alone painted dozens of looks — gilded eyes for Lily Collins, glittering lid for Cardi B, the metallic Rihanna mitre look. MAC‘s artist team had a similarly busy night. The takeaway products from the carpet — beyond the editorial shock value — were Pat McGrath’s metallic glitter pigments and the new gold-and-silver liquid-leaf product Pat had developed specifically for the event. The conversation about whether the 2018 Met Gala had crossed a line or simply leaned into theme will continue, but the beauty looks were unimpeachable. We pulled out a single gold pigment for our own May daytime look and felt slightly more deliberate than usual.
The Royal Wedding’s quiet beauty answer
Twelve days after the Met Gala, the Royal Wedding handed us the opposite extreme — a freckled, almost-bare face, a soft natural lip, an unfussy chignon, no contour, no winged eye. The look was reportedly created by Meghan Markle’s longtime makeup artist Daniel Martin (known for an extremely soft hand and a long history with Dior‘s Capture Totale line). The wedding-beauty conversation in the week that followed was about whether other brides would feel emboldened to skip the heavy makeup. The answer turned out to be a partial yes — beauty editorial through May reported a real uptick in interest in barely-there bridal makeup. We are not in the bridal market, but the influence was wider than the bride. The look had been quietly winning the editorial argument all year; the wedding sealed it.
Mother’s Day skincare, third year of the conversation
Mother’s Day fell on May 13 this year, and the gift-set conversation had refined itself further. The most consistent winners of 2018 were Tatcha‘s Rice Polish gift sets (third year running), Drunk Elephant‘s Littles set (the brand’s mini-bottle multipack, which turned the line into the most-gifted skincare set of 2017–2018), and the Olaplex No. 0 + No. 3 duo. The cheaper thoughtful pick of the year — the gift to give a friend testing the prestige skincare conversation — was Glossier’s full Phase Two starter kit. The takeaway from three years of writing about Mother’s Day: prestige skincare has effectively replaced fragrance as the default thoughtful gift, and the brands that have leaned into mini-bottle gift sets have built a genuinely better Q2 business than the ones that have not.
The wedding-guest beauty bag, finalized
By the third week of May the calendar was full of save-the-dates, and the wedding-guest beauty bag for 2018 settled into a configuration: Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r foundation (matched to the day’s lighting), the Pat McGrath Mothership III for evening eyes, the Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk for daytime ceremonies, the new Stunna Lip Paint in Uncensored for the rare evening-wedding event. We did three weddings in May — two outdoor afternoon, one indoor evening — and the bag held up to all three. Pillow Talk remained the universally flattering wedding-guest answer of the decade. The Fenty foundation had earned its slot. The wedding-guest beauty conversation in 2018 had simplified considerably.
Glow Recipe and the K-beauty crossover
The brand we kept hearing about through May was Glow Recipe, the K-beauty-meets-American-prestige line that had built a genuine cult following through 2017 and was now landing on Sephora endcaps in real volume. The hero products — the Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask, the Blueberry Bounce Gentle Cleanser — were the entry-point K-beauty experiences for friends who were just starting to explore the category. We bought the sleeping mask, used it three nights in a row, and confirmed that the texture was as cushy and the next-morning glow as real as the editorial press had been claiming. The K-beauty crossover into American prestige was now a permanent feature of the market, and the brands that had built specifically for the crossover (Glow Recipe, Then I Met You, Soko Glam) were having a genuinely good year.
Closing
By the last week of May the cabinet had reorganized itself around summer — three SPFs, the Watermelon Glow mask, a Pat McGrath gloss, a Fenty foundation pump, the Pillow Talk in the wedding-guest pouch. The Met Gala had inspired one daytime gold pigment moment. The Royal Wedding had inspired a permanent retreat from heavy makeup. June will bring the start of full-strength summer — sunscreen testing in actual sun, the swimsuit beauty bag question, the gua-sha conversation that has been quietly building all year. We will see you on the first Tuesday of June, and on the third Tuesday for the summer jewellery roundup.