Innehållsförteckning för September 2020 från Allure

From top: Iris van Herpen headpiece. Makeup colors: Essentialist Eye Palette in Namiki Street Nature, Kajal InkArtist in Gunjo Blue and Lilac Lotus, and ControlledChaos MascaraInk in Sapphire Spark by Shiseido. Bottom: Undercover ruffle jacket. Makeup colors: Kajal InkArtist in Gunjo Blue and Lilac Lotus, MicroLiner Bo Ink in Black, and ArchLiner Ink by Shiseido. Details, see allure.com/credits. Photographed by Daniella Midenge. Fashion stylist: Nicola Formichetti. Hair: Rena Calhoun. Makeup: Holly Silius. Production: Viewfinders.…

Much of the magic of a mascara lies in the wand, but it’s rare that we see a truly new brush design. So this paddle-like shape on BareMinerals Strength & Length Serum-Infused Mascara was major news in our virtual offices. It’s inspired by the old trick of reaching into the kitchen utensil drawer and using a spoon to lift your lashes. On one side, a row of ridges sits on a slight curve—like the back of a spoon—that can be pressed against the center of your lashes to curl them, or swept from root to tip for even more lift. On the other side, five rows of bristles are separated by wide reservoirs to evenly deposit a ton of mascara, while side bristles help comb through it for a clump-free,…

1. Lancôme L’Absolu Mademoiselle Lip Balms. Who has gorgeous lips and fantastic-smelling breath? Lancôme ambassador Zendaya, or so we imagine. You can too, with one of these glossy, peppermint oil-spiked tints. Bonus: The mint also has a subtle plumping effect (shown here, from left, in Plumpink, Fancy Fuchsia, and Dewy Orange). 2. YSL Pure Shots Light Up Serum. If you want your skin to glow on Zoom, get a ring light. If you want radiance to follow you everywhere, try this serum with a dewy finish and light pink tint that brightens all skin tones. Vitamin C evens things out long term. 3. Gilded The Marble Body Brush. Sweep the sturdy bristles over dry skin in a swift, upward motion. Besides boosting circulation, you’ll slough off dead skin cells you…

$375: The flat fee for Botox at Peachy, a New York City studio that uses digital imaging to analyze present and predicted wrinkles. The images are run through a “dosing” algorithm to create a custom treatment plan. 43: The number of cameras installed in skin-care brand SK-II’s the Future X Smart Store, which debuted in Tokyo. Visitors undergo a skin scan that prompts personalized recommendations to pop up as they shop the store. 14,506,436: Views, as of this writing, of a video with Sophia the Robot and Jimmy Fallon singing a duet of A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera’s “Say Something.” It was the second time the humanoid robot—who can laugh, smile, and engage in small talk—had appeared on The Tonight Show, and her first time singing in public.…

“Well, everything comes from Miquela,” insists Nicole de Ayora, chief content officer at robotics focused entertainment company Brud. She is referring to her employer’s hero product, a 19-year-old digital apparition named Lil Miquela. “We’re just her managers; she’s acting alone. Her life will continue to evolve. She just found out she was a robot,” de Ayora says, pausing to search her memory, “I guess, two years ago, now? So she’s still figuring out what that means. And she’s been an influencer since she was born.” When Miquela began posting on Instagram shortly after her birth, human onlookers were perplexed by her photos, which seemed to show the rubbery-smooth skin and digitally rendered hair of an online avatar somehow grafted onto the body of a teenage Instagram model. Many wondered aloud…

For its nearly 30-year history, Allure has been steeped in science. But working with mascara, serums, and mousse is sometimes unfairly written off as frivolous. While Allure editors may be testing brow pomades one minute, they’re often interviewing a cosmetic chemist about molecular science the next. So this month, in our Future of Beauty issue, we thought it would be fun and eye-opening to explore how science, technology, and innovation will shape beauty in the next decades of Allure’s history. Beauty was already on a trajectory for a tectonic shift, thanks to innovations that are being rolled out and refined today, including augmented reality, injectables, 3D printing, and skin-care personalization based on DNA. Then came COVID-19. The ensuing lockdowns turned time itself into a loose, sometimes confusing construct (what day—or…

When dermatologist Jeanine Downie reopened her Montclair, New Jersey, practice this spring—after COVID-19 cases had declined and she got the go-ahead from the state—she wasn’t surprised when patient after patient showed up with acne as a top concern. Or when psoriasis cases went off the charts. And when the country was in protest, Downie saw an additional spike in those skin concerns among her patients of color. “There’s a profound connection between how we’re feeling emotionally and how our skin behaves,” says Laurel Naversen Geraghty, a dermatologist in Medford, Oregon. The level of stress that prompts a flare-up can vary from person to person, and you may notice your skin changing just a few hours after a stressful event, she says. Even before your mind registers anxiety, those feelings may…

Perfumes may smell like raspberries or jasmine but, paradoxically, fragrances are the last frontier of natural beauty products. Unlike skin care, hair care, and cosmetics—which chemists can formulate entirely with botanically derived ingredients, rather than synthetics—the perfume industry has been fueled by the exact opposite: synthetic mimicry of natural ingredients. When you smell lavender or rose in a perfume, maybe 90 percent of the time what you’re actually smelling is a linalool or geranyl acetate compound, lab-made replicas of the flowers in bloom. It’s been that way since the late 1800s, when synthetic aromatic molecules were introduced. For the first time, precious scents were available at prices that the rising middle class could afford. “The artificial products were stronger, more lasting, and cheaper,” says Mandy Aftel, a perfumer and author…

More than one in three Americans takes a multivitamin, according to the National Institutes of Health. That means more than 100 million of us use the same kind of magic pill in the hope of warding off diseases and filling the gaps in our diets. “Traditional multivitamins are one-size-fits-all, but they’re really one-size-doesn’t-fit-anyone,” says Whitney English, a registered dietitian and nutritionist in Los Angeles. “Depending on age, sex, diet, genetics, family history, and medical condition, you may need more or less of certain micronutrients than someone else.” That’s where customized vitamins come in. Once upon a time, building a supplement lineup tailored to your needs involved deep diving on WebMD, then navigating the aisles of the Vitamin Shoppe. Today, a slew of services has changed all that by generating a…

STRESS CONTROL By Ivy Smith, model and actor After I gave birth to my second child, I started seeing flakes on my scalp. I thought it was dandruff. Then I noticed white scaly patches on the back of my ear, my neck, and my arms. I figured I’d just had a baby, my skin was acting up. Over the course of a year, it got progressively worse. I tried anti-dandruff shampoo, but my scalp physically hurt. I worried, Is my hair going to fall out? Am I contagious? Everything was going through my head. I was already very stressed out because I was a new mom, and I was having relationship issues, which didn’t help. My primary care physician told me I had psoriasis. It was scary because I didn’t…

Humans are born with an expiration date. From the moment of conception, we’re assigned a shared fate—that someday, in some way, we all die. It used to come earlier. In ancient Roman times, people could expect to live 30 to 35 years. By the mid-20th century, life expectancy in the United States had risen to 65 for men and 71 for women. Today, the average American life span hovers around 78 years, though that’s far from the bounds of what is possible. Scientists believe that the capacity of the human body currently reaches its limits at around 115 years old. But most people fall short of that due to the ailments and vulnerabilities that accompany old age, a fact that has been tragically underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic. But what…

If you’re tossing and turning, you’re not alone. In a good year, 30 to 35 percent of Americans have insomnia (defined as difficulty going to sleep, staying asleep, or waking too early). Those numbers have likely skyrocketed during the pandemic, say researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: Big changes to your quality of life, like rarely leaving home, can trigger short-term insomnia. Sleep-tracking wearables (which are similar to, or built into, fitness trackers) promise a better night’s sleep. Out of all of them, I found the Fitbit Charge 4 wristband has the best hardware and software available. It records your time spent asleep and in different stages of sleep (using a heart rate sensor and a motion sensor called a three-axis accelerometer) and blood oxygen levels…

Rihanna has been all around the world—and still couldn’t find a sunscreen that wasn’t chalky or caused flashback. But “you gotta protect your skin from the sun no matter what your skin color is,” says the founder and CEO of Fenty Skin. And that is how a world-famous megastar wound up joining skin-care researchers from around the globe in pursuit of a common goal: innovative sunscreens that everyone can—and wants—to wear. The sobering reality is that “only one in three adults regularly use sunscreen when spending time outdoors,” says Dawn Holman, a behavioral scientist for the CDC. This is an issue that disproportionately affects young people (“If you’re under 25, you’re less likely to wear sunscreen,” says Holman) and people of color: Only about 11 percent of non-Hispanic Black adults…

On days when I don’t get enough sleep, Verso Super Eye Serum doubles as my wake-up call. This lightweight gel instantly depuffs tired-looking eyes with peptides. It also absorbs in seconds and, over time, brightens with turmeric and smooths lines with retinol (this isn’t your average retinol—it’s gentle around the eyes). With the added benefit of hydrating squalane, my undereyes are fresh and dewy, and I look wide awake—all before I’ve had a sip of coffee The October Allure Beauty Box includes the Verso Super Eye Serum along with seven other products ($15 per month; allure.com/beautyreporter).…

The most famous person in the world right now is Charli D’Amelio. “I feel like there are so many things that I can do,” she says. D’Amelio and I have paused our respective, mindless, tiny-screen scrolls to connect with each other through the white glare of the larger screens on our laptop computers. D’Amelio describes her life as full of “teen stuff”—”I still do school online. I go get coffee. I go swimming”—with the added layer of being one of the most recognizable humans on Earth at this point in her life, just a month after her sixteenth birthday. D’Amelio’s rapid ascent can only truly be understood through the sudden relevance of TikTok, the Chinese video app owned by ByteDance, formerly known as Musical.ly. In 2018, when the app reached…

“There aren’t many other jobs that require such intimate closeness for an extended period of time. I wear a KN95 mask and face shield [9] with a few stickers added, so my clients have something fun to look at. I started wearing a lab coat too. I take it off before I get in my car and wear normal clothes under it. Any fabric-lined bags I used in my kit have been switched to PVC ones, which are great for storing single-use applicators and can be wiped down, like the Proma Kit Short Section Bag [8] and MyKitCo. My Small PVC Pod [6].” “My regulars [like Gabrielle Union] have their own labeled sponges [5]. Brushes go in one of my embroidered ‘Dirty’ or ‘Clean’ bags [1]. I missed doing small,…

Hunter Schafer recently saw something magnificent. But first: She bought a truck. At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Schafer found herself alone in Los Angeles. As one of the lucky Americans who could afford the pause in work, she spent those initial weeks in excited, nocturnal bursts of creative writing. (She took Shonda Rhimes’s TV-writing course on Masterclass.) “But I couldn’t handle the severe sense of isolation—being alone in the apartment and having no mode of transportation,” she says. (“Outside of a skateboard,” she adds, like a cool teen.) So she bought the truck, and then drove across the nation to her sister’s house in North Carolina. “It was probably the most stable I felt throughout all of quarantine,” Schafer says. “I just had one objective, which [was] stay…

Our phones are extensions of us, and being connected at all times makes it hard to let go, even for a second. But what if those glowing appendages could actually bring us the moments of relaxation we so desperately need? Apps like Headspace, Calm, and Unplug (all available on iOS and Android) offer libraries of guided meditations from mindfulness experts. No matter where you are, you can pop on headphones and get centered using speedy resets (Headspace’s minute-long “mini” meditations), mood-boosting series (Calm’s Seven Days of Gratitude, a practice linked to greater happiness), or targeted guides (Unplug’s series for kids and teens). The Core meditation trainer is a small, even cute, device that you hold while following a guided meditation on an accompanying app. It gently vibrates in sync with…

BEST BEAUTY TIP? “The only thing I do beauty wise, really, is moisturize.” MOST USED ITEM IN YOUR MAKEUP BAG? “Shiseido Essential Energy Moisturizing Cream.” [Schafer is a Shiseido brand ambassador.] LAST PRODUCT YOU FINISHED? “My previous jar of Shiseido Essential Energy Moisturizing Cream!” FIRST THING YOU DO WHEN YOU WAKE UP? “Figure out the coffee situation. Whether I’m making it or finding it somewhere.” LAST THING YOU DO BEFORE YOU GO TO SLEEP? “Turn on a TV show and take melatonin. I don’t like sleeping, but you have to do it.” IF YOU HAD TO GET A TATTOO RIGHT NOW… “I always liked the idea of having hand tattoos. I hallucinated this shape that looked really crazy and terrifying that I’ve been thinking about so much. It’s a little…