Innehållsförteckning för November 2019 från Allure

Proenza Schouler suit. La Perla bralette. Tod’s shoes. David Yurman ring. Makeup colors: Telescopic Original Waterproof Lengthening Mascara, Brow Stylist Definer Waterproof Eyebrow Mechanical Pencil in Dark Blonde, and Infallible Pro-Matte Liquid Lipstick in Stirred by L’Oréal Paris. Details, see allure.com/credits. Photographed by Emma Summerton. Fashion stylist: Simon Robins. Hair: Giannandrea. Makeup: Pati Dubroff. Manicure: Marisa Carmichael. Set design: Din Morris. Production: Viewfinders. Location: Villa Carlotta, Hollywood. Allure Regrets In our “Best of Beauty” story in October, we misidentified a winning product in the acne category. The Peace Out Acne Healing Dots won the award for best spot treatment. Allure regrets the error.…

The year is 2119. It’s sunny outside, which means weather conditions are too harsh for you to leave the temperate subterranean bunker where you live. The supercomputer that governs the United States of America has been unanimously reelected for its seventh consecutive term. Daily dispatches from the Martian colony continue to be encouraging. And beauty magazines (because they’re thriving) are writing about pink eyelashes, which are achieved by splicing the human genome and altering pigment alleles. Side effects include eyelid twitching and compromised immunity. You think nostalgically of a century ago, when your great-grandparents used “mascara” to achieve the same effect. Sigh. Those were the days.…

Big in Japan, adj. When things like small chocolate wafers and the youngest singing Osmond leave their native countries and find superstardom in the third-largest economy in the world. The best example may be Curél. Not the giant jugs of drugstore Curél you’re probably thinking of, but a ceramide-rich lineup that has been Japan’s #1 sensitive-skin-care line for a decade. And all that number-one-ness is finally coming our way. Be on the lookout for facial and eye essences, moisturizing milks, and foam and gel cleansers. The prodigal potions are on shelves now.…

product review WHITE GOLD It is unclear when humans decided white teeth were a status symbol worth striving for, but there is evidence that the ancient Romans bleached their teeth using ammonia-rich human urine. Apparently nothing telegraphed beauty in the Forum like a mouthful of pee. Millennia later, Colgate’s take is significantly more palatable and (in this writer’s opinion) more effective than whitening strips: 10 doses of a peroxide-based solution to squeeze into a blue-light-enhanced tray that you pop in for 10 minutes each day. A little over a week later, my teeth were lightened from a plebeian jaundice to a patrician dull pearl. If you saw Crazy Rich Asians and laughed, it was largely because of Nora Lum, who also goes by the stage name Awkwafina. Aside from her…

Makeup artist François Nars launched his empire with 12 lipsticks. Those dozen are available again, in honor of the brand’s 25th birthday. “At that time, lipstick was the number one cosmetic,” Nars says. “Today, everything changes so fast.” But Nars’s most popular products have risen above time and trend. There’s Orgasm, the peachy powder blush that customers love to wear (as much as ask for); the Multiple, born after Nars blended the same lipstick onto model Carolyn Murphy’s lids, lips, and cheeks; and glistening Monoï Body Glow oils, inspired by Nars’s time in Tahiti, where there is a tradition of using the oil on skin and hair. The secret? There is none. Says Nars, “When a product works, it works.”…

VASELINE Birth Year: 1870 This petrolatum goop has been saving our butts since we were babies (it’s a diaper-rash miracle) and has seen us through the chapped lips, rough elbows, and minor dustups of adulthood with aplomb. MAYBELLINE NEW YORK EXPERT WEAR TWIN BROW & EYE WOOD PENCILS Birth Year: 1920s These red wood pencils come in packs of two (one for eyes, one for brows). Their earliest fans used them to create their preferred delicately rounded, downward-sloping brow shape and heavily rimmed eyes. Today they create tight lines that won’t budge and—with short, feathery strokes—help brows reach maximum 2019 fullness. CHANEL NO. 22 Birth Year: 1922 The second perfume ever dreamed up by Coco Chanel and her perfumer, Ernest Beaux, this tuberose-laced fragrance followed No. 5 by one year.…

GET YOUR FIRST BOX FOR $10 ($80 VALUE) allure.com/box Plus, all new members will receive a gift valued at over $10. You will receive 6 of these editor picks with your November box. Vichy and e.l.f. product may vary. *Shade may vary.…

“My last makeup-counter job, I was fired. First time being fired! But that prompted me to make my move to New York. After being let go, I did a lot of weddings for cash and saved up enough money to move. Then I started my career assisting in New York; now I’ve done magazine shoots with Kim Kardashian West and Lizzo.” —GRACE AHN, MAKEUP ARTIST “Over a decade ago, I was hired to work at the postal office. The day I was supposed to start my training, the BET Awards called and asked me to paint nails at their gifting suite. I decided to take the job and never told my parents, who got me in at the postal company. I haven’t looked back.”—DAWN STERLING, MANICURIST “I worked as a waitress…

When freshly single 50-something Candace Bushnell signed up for Tinder (and wrote about it in her new book, Is There Still Sex in the City?), men her own age didn’t really swipe right. Firmly in midlife, even the real-life Carrie Bradshaw—patron saint of cosmos, new boyfriends, and Manolo Blahniks—had tumbleweeds rolling through her inbox. It’s hardly an unfamiliar narrative for women in our culture: With your first period, you become a sexual being, then maybe kids, maybe a messy divorce, until, inevitably, hot flashes, dry vagina, and…nothing. At this point—the menopause point—you become invisible. If you’re lucky, you reemerge as an old lady living in Miami with three roommates who love cheesecake and everyone’s wearing a caftan. Or so the horror story goes. Bushnell doesn’t buy into this outdated narrative. When she recalibrated her Tinder settings…

SLEEK Static Nails Reusable Pop-On Manicure in Peony A quiet, neutral manicure is a welcome upgrade to the very un-French French press-ons. It’s as simple as it looks: Apply glue to nails, press them on, et voilà! MILD Impress Press-on Manicure in Sway This short, demurely rounded nail kicks neutral up a notch with its marble effect and gold flecks. Just peel and press (they’re already sticky). WILD Très She Talons Press On Acrylic Nails in Stripper Heels Coffin-shaped nails (creepy but evocative, no?) are still a thing. Save yourself hours of filing by popping on these shimmering holographic wonders. FLASHY The Nail Shop by SB press-on nails in 24K They may not be made of actual gold, but who cares? They’re as fun and flashy as Swarovski-crystal-encrusted nail forms…

On staying relevant: “I’ve had some amazing roles as an actress, but it’s just so nice to be at this stage and for people to still be responding to projects, like Big Little Lies, as passionately as, say, Moulin Rouge, or The Others, or any of the films that I made earlier in my career. It brings me to my knees. It’s been an eye-opener for me. Sometimes there is nothing there, and sometimes there are extraordinary opportunities. But if the passion is there, it keeps you going.” On sacred rituals: “I’ve just wrapped a limited series called The Undoing, where I played a character that’s very intense, so I’m in the process of ‘shedding’ her now. It’s a very strange feeling. When I’m working on a film, I don’t…

In the same way that walking to school in a blizzard can build character, the idea behind “wild harvesting” (sourcing ingredients that naturally spring up in their habitats) is that plants that can survive in nature have a potency that makes them superior to their hothouse counterparts. But reality is a little less romantic. “When an ingredient [comes directly] from nature, the quality can vary from crop to crop,” says cosmetic chemist Ginger King. “There’s little consistency or reliability.” Then there’s that ultra-natural aspect of wild harvesting. That part is good, right? Well, that depends on whether the gathering is done sustainably, so the star botanical isn’t depleted in the process, says Marc Hachadourian, of the New York Botanical Garden. “American ginseng is a classic example: People were digging it…

2,500: Approximate number of rhinestones on the dress Marilyn Monroe wore to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy in 1962. Monroe called the look “skin and beads.” $4,810,000: Winning amount for Monroe’s dress at auction in 2016. The lucky bidder: Ripley’s Believe It or Not! 48 hours: Time it took for Kylie Jenner’s 22nd-birthday-themed makeup bundle (a $300 collection of 13 Kylie Cosmetics products) to completely sell out online in August. 798: Age of Santa Maria Novella, the world’s oldest apothecary. The Florentine company literally invented perfume: It was the first to use alcohol in formulations instead of olive oil. 1,400%: Increase in the amount of bacteria on a birthday cake after the candles are blown out. However, researchers have noted that it’s almost always safe to have…

Consider the times for a moment: We relax by watching Marie Kondo throw away suitcases of clothing, and pantry-makeover companies get Netflix deals. So it’s pretty tempting to believe a higher consciousness (or just an air of superiority) is waiting for us after we throw away all our possessions to live humble-braggy in a well-lit loft with a citrine mortar and pestle and 24 plants. The idea that life can be made better by redesigning your home is not new; there’s long been a correlation between health and home. Interior design has carried psychological power with it for centuries: Feng shui, which posits that a person’s destiny can be helped along by key home-balancing elements, dates to ancient China. But with a wellness industry that extends to vitamins and color…

“I have small eyes, but I want people to see them from the third row, so I line them with MAC Pro Longwear Eye Liner in Definedly Black [5]. When I’m onstage, I wear Nars Soft Matte Complete Concealer [4] and MAC Pro Longwear Nourishing Waterproof Foundation [1]. MAC products and I have been friends for a long time.” “One of my favorite fragrances is Tom Ford Fucking Fabulous [6]. People always ask me about it. I’m just a Tom Ford girl. When I started using his makeup, I was like, ‘Where has he been all my life?!’ I love the shadow quads in bronze and gold tones [3, in Leopard Sun] and his blue-based reds [2, Lip Color in Jasmin Rouge and Impassioned]. My lips are big, so I…

In seventh grade, my favorite outfit was a worn-out pair of floral Hanna Andersson leggings and a teal T-shirt featuring a skier midjump on the front, skis crossed, ponytail kicking out into the air, and “No Regrets” boldly splashed across the back. I had no idea what that meant, but I later learned that psychologists define regret as self-blame and self-criticism associated with an adverse or distressing life event. (At least in your head.) At 12, I had just recently earned the right to make decisions that could potentially have any meaningful effect at all on anyone’s life. Regret was slinking in the shadows, just waiting for me to make a wrong move. At 14, it began to strike. Suddenly everything I did felt momentous, and everything I didn’t do…

For all of the people who ask for bangs, I talk half of them out of it. Part of it is a lifestyle thing: Do you blow-dry your hair every day? Are you willing to start? Not everyone’s hair wants to cooperate. Everyone wants the ’60s, ’70s Brigitte Bardot vibe. But those bangs are the hardest to style. If you come in with your hair air-dried and natural, we can help customize your bangs. Sometimes I’ll get a vibe that it’s not going to go well. Once I had to sub in for somebody else’s client, and she said, “I want bangs.” And I said, “Okay, what kind of bangs?” And she said, “I don’t know, but I want them.” And I said, “Let’s look at some pictures, maybe.” She…

Like every woman my age (69), I’ve been through menopause. Also, like almost every woman who’s been through menopause, I’m intensely, acutely, wildly happy to be alive—when I’m not wishing I were dead. (All right, not actually wishing I were dead. But wishing it the way you might if you’d just had a great blowout and a pigeon shat on your head.) I can tell by the way you’re looking at me—eager, hopeful, full of irrepressible, early-midlife energy—that you want me to tell you menopause is not a horror show. And I want to tell you menopause is not a horror show. But I’ve also made a commitment to be honest with you, my younger sisters. So the truth is, menopause can be a little bit of a horror show, or…

The magic of fragrance… rests almost entirely in its ability to remind us of things. For some inexplicable reason, a collection of molecules arranged just so can conjure a memory with glowing intensity. Applied to our pulse points, a scent is capable of time-traveling us back to a Paris café, our grandmother’s kitchen, the afternoon we fell in love. But fragrance is at its most meaningful when it helps us to recall something important about ourselves. We asked four women at the top of their field to talk to us about the fragrance that always reminds them of who they are—and all they bring to the table. Here, the essence of power. TANYA MENENDEZ Tech wizard Menendez is a social-impact entrepreneur and the CEO of Snowball Wealth, an online platform…

I’ve never thought more about my age than I have in these past few months. As I write this, the new life growing inside me (making me feel seasick every day for the last seven weeks) is the size of a lemon—likely a pomegranate by the time you read this. And I’m reminded how age and pregnancy and society’s judgment of both are all intertwined. “How old are you?” a curious commenter asked when I announced my pregnancy on Instagram. At 44, already blessed with a teen and a tween, I’ll be an unconventional mother of a newborn. (I discovered earlier this year that one of my high school classmates recently became a grandfather.) Friends and family were surprised and happy for us. Some assumed our upcoming little one was…

Sometimes you want a subtle glow. Other times you want to outshine the heavens. The difference between the former and the latter is called Anastasia Beverly Hills Moonchild Glow Kit (in December’s Beauty Box). The six-pan palette features finely milled highlighting powders in the most ethereal shades (dusty yellow, indefinable periwinkle, and so on). For a more subdued gleam, a light dusting (on cheeks, lids, or collarbone) will get you there. But we’d love to talk you out of it. Did you catch the part about outshining the heavens? The Anastasia Beverly Hills Moonchild Glow Kit will be available, along with four other products, in the December Allure Beauty Box ($10 for the first month, then $15; allure.com/beautyreporter).…

1. R+Co Gemstone Color Locking Concentrate. A five-minute glycerin and vitamin B5 treatment that makes hair—of any color—look its most saturated and shiny. 2. Vanessa Mooney The Brittany Barrettes. These sparkling hair clips add equal parts fun, finesse, and function in a snap. 3. L’Oréal Paris Voluminous Original Mascara in Deep Green. It’s the ultimate indefinable shade: a deep-in-the-forest green that’s dark enough to delineate lashes while adding an ineffable hint of brightness. 4. Yves Saint Laurent Vernis À Lèvres Vinyl Cream in Rouge Transe. The sheerness of this vermilion shade leaves lips looking Popsicle-stained in the most grown-up of ways, thanks to its glossy, polished finish. 5. Pond’s Fragrance-Free Cold Cream Make-Up Remover. This cult-classic makeup remover has zero fragrance, making it eau so good for sensitive skin. (Sorry,…

WE’RE A COMPLICATED PEOPLE. On one hand, almost half of us believe beauty comes from within. On the other, we’re spending close to 25 minutes getting ourselves pretty in the morning. Of course, we all love beautiful things, but how and where that beauty comes from is as varied as we are. In an attempt to understand how we all feel about aging and beauty (and all the social media, products, and emotions in between), we are delighted—and truly fascinated—to feature the second annual AARP survey of 1,992 women 18 and over. And it seems the more things change, the more things…don’t. Last year, 61% of respondents did not feel represented by images of women in media. This year, 64% believe that “people my age are underrepresented by images in…

When I was 18, birth control pills came out, and it was this magical time. You’d have to have a prescription, which was terrifying because that meant you were maybe having sex and you didn’t have a ring. So you’d get a fake ring. I was too embarrassed to do that, but I think lots of people did. And somehow I got birth control pills. Right after that, it was jobs. I got a job to get through college. In 1962, I had a job in New Orleans on Bourbon Street as a waitress. I knew nothing. I learned so much on Bourbon Street. After work, we’d go out with whoever was visiting from New York, like Dizzy Gillespie. I was making $600 or 700 a week. A lot of…

From the day you bought your first tub of Noxzema, you’ve been told that your skin is oily or dry or combination or sensitive or, most curious of all, normal. “It constantly frustrates me,” says Mona Gohara, an associate clinical professor of dermatology at Yale School of Medicine. “People get thrown into these buckets, and it doesn’t make sense.” Then she adds, wryly, “It’s a soapbox I’m currently on.” And the message is this: We’ve taken for granted that these classifications define us and our epidermis, but almost nobody fits neatly into one. “People like categories, but in reality everyone has combination skin—no one is just dry or oily, and you have wrinkles on some parts of your face and not others,” says Amy Wechsler, a dermatologist and psychiatrist in…

BEFORE IT WAS OVER, WE WOULD TALK about our shadow selves, the wind and the dirt, beautiful days, and our mothers. Before it was over, we would cry (more than once, in fact, more than twice); before it was over, we would talk about sex and love and loneliness. Before it was over, I would come to think of her as a good witch. That was how we spent our time together, Sharon Stone and I. First we spoke on the phone. I started by asking about her beauty routine—the easy, I’m-not-a-threat questions. We spoke about lipsticks and body scrubs. I asked Stone her biggest beauty regret. “Overplucking my brows,” I expected. “Not enough sunscreen,” maybe. But she made it clear that she doesn’t give a shit about small talk…

No matter how amazing your attitude about menopause is, the symptoms are real. And real annoying. Doctors like Alyssa Dweck, an assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and coauthor of The Complete A to Z for Your V (Fair Winds Press), often consider prescribing antidepressants Paxil (paroxetine) and Effexor (venlafaxine) to some patients to curb anxiety and hot flashes. “Gabapentin, a medication commonly used for neurologic conditions, can also improve sleep by relieving anxiety and night sweats,” she says. There are plenty of nonprescription ways to assuage the symptoms as well. JOYLUX VFIT INTIMATE WELLNESS DEVICE. Yes, it vibrates, but this doohickey also uses red LED lights and sonic vibes to stimulate blood flow. Clinical research shows improved pelvic muscle strength, more natural…

BEST BEAUTY TIP FROM WORK: Do eye makeup before base, because a smoky eye will fall all over your face. It’s the Bette Davis eyes secret. BEST BEAUTY TIP FROM ANYWHERE: My mom was an Avon lady, and she gave me a jar of Avon Rich Moisture cream, and she said, “Put this on morning and night and you’ll thank me for the rest of your life.” BIGGEST BEAUTY REGRET: When you’re young, people envy prettiness, [and] no one wants to tell you that you’re pretty. I wasn’t really secure in my beauty, because people weren’t secure enough to allow me to be beautiful. Now I look at films or clips and I think, Oh, I was such a pretty girl. I wish that I knew it. BEST CHARACTER YOU’VE…