Allure, the first and only magazine devoted to beauty, is an insider's guide to a woman's total image. Allure investigates and celebrates beauty and fashion with objectivity and candor, and places appearance in a larger cultural context.
Let’s talk about influence (not to be confused with influencers). How you practice beauty can be determined by many different points of influence: the shows in your most-watched queue, the traditions in your family, friends in your group chat, celebrities in your feed, stamps in your passport—and the colleagues in your office. More than once a fellow Allure editor has convinced me to try a beauty trend merely by looking amazing in it. After you determine your primary point of influence, you can find others who align with that. In beauty, we often congregate along these community lines—people we can relate to because we have similar loves or practices or a shared history. My first beauty community was all about natural hair. I was a college freshman in North Carolina,…
Allure: First things first: How did you two meet? Grace Gaustad: I was looking for a makeup artist for my [album] and asked my manager who could create amazing looks for music videos. He was like, “I know one person: Jo Baker.” She came to the house and walked in with this massive case. It looked almost like an artist’s palette with every color in the rainbow. I saw makeup in a whole new way after meeting Jo. My face is the canvas; she’s got the paintbrush. Jo Baker: Grace is one of those muses that is so utterly inspiring you feel like there’s nothing you can’t do: neons, gems, hyper-glamour… [We thought], How do we make it so everyone can feel the magic that we do? That’s how Bakeup…
Allure: What first sparked the idea for you to create a show? Davis: This came out of catastrophe. I was a cultural critic on CNN through the Obama years. From the moment Trayvon Martin was [killed in 2012], I became a go-to for talking about Black death. If you remember that period, it was nonstop pain and death. I had to analyze that imagery. It was a constant loop on my screens. By the time we got to Charleston [in 2015], I thought something was going to break in me. I decided I wanted to do something that was about Black life, resilience, joy, and beauty. Allure: How did those experiences and emotions evolve into The Hair Tales? Davis: My background was in fashion, and mostly Black media. I was…
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COMFORT ZONE Nestled in a vast agricultural landscape just outside Parma, Italy, the new European Regenerative Organic Center incorporates practices such as companion planting (growing two crops close together) and composting across its 25-acre research garden (above, right). A partnership between the Davines Group and the US-based Rodale Institute, its aim is to share regenerative practices with farmers who grow plants like elderberries used in products such as Comfort Zone’s Sacred Nature Hydra Cream. “This approach strengthens the local farm economy,” Dr. Rowntree says. “Taking soil health principles from a small farm and implementing them on big farms is a win-win.” TATA HARPER “It’s imperative for us to solely use regenerative farming techniques to help the planet,” says cofounder Tata Harper of her 1,200-acre organic farm in Vermont (above, left).…
I was born on the Ivory Coast, in the city of Abidjan. [West Africa is] still deeply impacted by colonization, even though we’re independent now. Growing up, the dolls I had were all white and had straight hair. I would remove it and buy extensions at the markets and sew them in. I first got my hair relaxed when I was five years old; it was the norm. When I went into middle school, I was forced to shave my head completely. In a lot of public schools here, it’s believed that if girls let their hair grow, they will be too attractive and the boys will not focus. My high school was private, so I was allowed to let my hair grow—and I was back to relaxing it again.…
