Innehållsförteckning för June/July 2021 från Allure

Before my first pregnancy, I had read about postpartum hair loss, that the lustrous mane you’re blessed with for nine months commonly sheds. And after the birth of each of my three kids, it certainly did. This last time around, it was particularly intense. For a few months, our shower drain was regularly covered in a nest of hair. The floor around my desk was littered with the day’s fallout. The rotating attachment on our vacuum cleaner got so entangled in a rope of lost strands that it actually came to a grinding halt. My whole head of hair seemed to be shedding. But the most curious change was to my hairline. As a kid, it sat notably low (if a high forehead is a fivehead, I suppose that made…

Every month we fill the Allure Beauty Box with our favorite moisturizers, lipsticks, and more. But this time we’re bringing you something a little different: the new One to Watch seal, debuting on MAC Magic Extension Mascara. Subscribe to the Allure Beauty Box now for the opportunity to be among the first to get your hands on this mascara* (and check back for upcoming One to Watch exclusives for Allure Beauty Box subscribers). I had the chance to try MAC Magic Extension Mascara before almost anyone else (MAC R&D did beat me to it). Even though I test makeup all day long (insert smiley face emoji), no mascara has come close to the volume and length I get from eyelash extensions—until now. A few swipes of this deeply pigmented mascara…

Foundation MAYBELLINE NEW YORK FIT ME! MATTE + PORELESS FOUNDATION Formulated without waxes or oils, this lightweight pigment glides on, rendering a clean, matte finish—never a heavy mask. Tool BEAUTYBLENDER THE ORIGINAL With a pointy tip for stippling and a round base for buffing, this teardrop sponge has been nesting in our makeup bag—and nabbing awards—since 2007. Mascara L’ORÉAL PARIS VOLUMINOUS LASH PARADISE WASHABLE MASCARA Boasting 200 bristles, this fluffy brush amps up every last lash, producing the fullest fan imaginable. Nail Polish ESSIE NAIL POLISH IN BALLET SLIPPERS The sheerest pink with the cleanest finish, this repeat winner looks plush on hands and feet, making it the ultimate pas de deux. Brows BENEFIT GIMME BROW+ VOLUMIZING EYEBROW GEL The impressive array of 10 shades (including gray) and minuscule spooley…

Antiper-spirant DOVE ADVANCED CARE ANTIPERSPIRANT IN COOL ESSENTIALS Any antiperspirant can stop sweat and odor. But this creamy formula goes above and beyond for underarms, ridding them of clingy wetness and shaving irritation by delivering potent moisture in addition to budgeproof protection. Hand Lotion MARY KAY WHITE TEA AND CITRUS SATIN HANDS NOURISHING SHEA CREAM This intensely hydrating formula absorbs in a snap, softens ragged cuticles, and gives our brittle nails—which have been sanitized within an inch of their lives—an almost-buffed gleam. Hair Removal GILLETTE VENUS EXTRA SMOOTH SENSITIVE RAZOR Razor burn is the pits, which is why this tool deserves all the props. Cushioned in light moisture, the springy blades and pivoting head steer around curves and reach awkward angles, so you never have to shave tender skin twice.…

HAIR-RAISERS With David Lopez, a hairstylist in New York City What’s the secret to loose, effortless-looking waves? “My biggest tip is to hold your curling iron more vertically, versus horizontally,” says Lopez, who suggests a 1.25-inch barrel. (If you have natural curls or coils, flatiron first, but don’t worry about getting them supersleek.) Brush through the waves and massage your scalp until you’ve broken up the delineation that happens between curled sections. Then spritz hairspray into your palm, mix in a drop or two of finishing oil, and run the combo through lengths for hold, lift, and shine. Lopez likes Kenra Professional Volume Spray 25 (he’s an ambassador for the brand) and IGK Crybaby 72-Hour Frizz Control Smoothing Serum. There’s not enough dry shampoo in the world to degrease my…

For this special Readers’ Choice edition, you picked the look we should illustrate (remember that poll on our Instagram?). Jkissa wasn’t surprised by the result: “I kind of knew that ’90s-inspired would win. I just felt it in my soul. I love the color palettes of the era: browns and blacks on the eyes, with a deep lip. I just like that whole grunge aesthetic. And I really like it [paired] with bleached brows, which is what I tried to show on this chart. I think it looks so—am I allowed to cuss?—badass. I did add some touches, like peach blush, to make [the look] feel a bit more modern. And I brought down the shadow and made it really dramatic on the inner corners [of the eyes], which a lot of…

Awkwafina and I are going deep on our love for true crime. “Dateline is, like, king,” she says. We trade favorite episodes and she offers a spot-on armchair analysis of the typical perps. “It’s always the husband and it’s usually some kind of infidelity. And it’s…it’s…stupidity because they never cover their tracks, right? You know what I mean?” Her affection spans the full spectrum of the genre (Forensic Files, The Inventor, even a detour down the true-crime-adjacent Sex Sent Me to the ER rabbit hole), but her sweet spot is scammers, elaborate cover-ups, and scandals like American Greed. The psychological itch it scratches for her, she suspects, is a bit of schadenfreude: “I’m so glad that I’m not this stupid and this greedy.” During a short spell of downtime as…

1. DAVID LOPEZ HAIRSTYLIST @davidlopezzz Career trajectory: “Being from the Caribbean, we are very into self-care and beauty. It’s a part of the DNA of my family. In my early 20s, I was acting and bartending, and said, ‘I’m going to do hair.’ I was already doing everyone’s hair and loved it, so why not get paid for it?” No-product-required styling tip: “Set realistic expectations and love your hair as it is.” But if you’re going to buy one product…Bumble and Bumble Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil. Read Lopez’s advice for achieving loose waves, on page 50. 2. JKISSA BEAUTY CONTENT CREATOR @jkissa Most recent makeup inspiration from Allure:“The cover with Ellie Goldstein. The makeup was breathtaking, especially the look featuring all of the pearls. I was so inspired, I had to do…

Taylor Swift and Huda Kattan have at least one major thing in common: They both refuse to be confined to a single genre. Makeup artist-turned-entrepreneur Kattan rose to fame for her mastery of faux lashes and contouring, which she channeled into a wildly successful makeup line, Huda Beauty. (You voted her one of your all-time favorite beauty idols and makeup artists to follow on Instagram.) But her new brand, Glowish, is all about a more natural look. It debuts June 1 with two products: Multidew Skin Tint, a barely there base with hydrating rose oil and vitamin E, and Soft Radiance Bronzing Powder, which imparts the slightest hint of warmth—a far cry from flagship Huda Beauty’s Tantour, a cream bronzer with oomph. “We have a lot of really close partners who are…

PREP. Moisturizer doubles as a primer, says Hughes, who prefers a light formula like Sisley Ecological Compound in the summer (heavier ones can exacerbate our tendency to get “oiler and shinier” in the heat, she says). Apply foundation or concealer just where you need it, such as the T-zone, corners of the nose and mouth, and under eyes. “Use a small amount of product and blend with a small brush to get into those detailed areas—a larger amount of product will slow you down,” says Hughes. START STRONG. You’re playing up your lips, so paint them first, then you can be sure the rest of your makeup takes a back seat, explains Hughes. Apply a matte hot pink liquid lipstick (Hughes used Bodyography Lip Lava Liquid Lipstick in Free Spirit…

Cleanser CETAPHIL GENTLE SKIN CLEANSER This soap-and-fragrance-free formula has been coddling sensitive skin for 74 years, contains only eight ingredients, and vanishes from the Allure beauty closet in approximately three seconds. Tool MICHAEL TODD BEAUTY SONICLEAR PETITE SONIC CLEANSING SYSTEM No spin here: This vibrating brush draws out deep-seated grime with tiny oscillations, making it more effective than rotating heads that distribute debris around your face. And the antimicrobial bristles help prevent product buildup and breakouts. Lip Balm LANEIGE LIP SLEEPING MASK The satin top sheet of overnight treatments: Hyaluronic acid and fruit extracts form a light, protective layer over lips while you sleep, creating a creaseless canvas for matte makeup. Moisturizer FIRST AID BEAUTY ULTRA REPAIR CREAM Loaded with ceramides and anti-inflammatory ingredients, this calming emulsion relieves dry, prickly…

Body Moisturizer LOVE BEAUTY AND PLANET DELICIOUS GLOW MURUMURU BUTTER & ROSE BODY LOTION Spiked with rose oil, this decadent moisturizer transforms garden-variety dullness into dewy perfection. Foundation BAREMINERALS ORIGINAL LOOSE POWDER FOUNDATION It looks like a powder and airbrushes like a powder, but this gossamer-fine formula gives skin the luminous sheen of a liquid foundation. Concealer KOSAS REVEALER SUPER CREAMY + BRIGHTENING CONCEALER Pumped with peptides, this hydrating liquid blends seamlessly, disguising circles without settling into lines. Lipstick BURT’S BEES GLOSSY LIPSTICK Each botanical bullet saturates lips in color and shine—without turning your mouth into a Venus hair trap. Mascara HONEST BEAUTY EXTREME LENGTH MASCARA + LASH PRIMER This dual-sided wand lifts and separates in two steps: Prime with a glossy base coat, then wait 30 seconds before sweeping…

Growing up in Brooklyn, the barbershop was where you would go not only to get a haircut, but also to buy CDs. You got to talk about who’s the best artist out right now—rapper, R&B singer, and whoever. You’d go to the barbershop to talk about what happened on the block yesterday. Sometimes I’d go to the barbershop just to hang out; I wouldn’t even go to get a haircut. Over the years, I’ve had a few barbers. There was a gentleman, named Kenneth, who gave me my first haircut on Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick, [Brooklyn,] at a shop called Blazing Skins. Then I went to a guy named Kay, and then one of my boys who I grew up with and played baseball with, Andrew, started cutting my hair.…

OCTOBER 2019 I started noticing hair loss in my early 20s, at the front. I was constantly trying to cover it up. I can’t tell you how many times I put eye shadow on my scalp. It was scary to admit that I was losing hair. I got it under control by adjusting my hair-care routine to be super-gentle—using hydrating skin-care serums on my scalp, even rinsing with bottled water when I travel because the water quality is so different everywhere. My hair is that sensitive. But now, in my mid-30s, the shedding starts up again. And on a campaign shoot for Huda Beauty’s new Mercury Retrograde Palette, it gets serious. I had been wearing a heavy, faux ponytail. My hairstylist Dom Seeley takes it out one day—and it just…

Nearly two decades ago, Jessica Simpson had an edible cosmetics line called Dessert Beauty, sold at Sephora. It was sugary and sexy, a shimmering distillation of the spirit of the early aughts. Then it disappeared. At the time, Simpson and her then husband Nick Lachey starred in one of the earliest celebrity reality shows, MTV’s Newlyweds. It was a simpler time, predating Instagram, Kardashians, and sponcon. Celebrity beauty looks were documented and dissected primarily on red carpet shows and in gossipy magazines like Us and Star. For the first time, their beauty businesses were tabloid fodder too. When People reported on alleged trouble with Dessert’s business side, they quoted a representative for Simpson distancing her from the brand. She was a “spokesperson” with no knowledge of or responsibility for any…

“Society said to me and so many other dark girls that beauty was our only inherent value as women, but our skin was an obstacle to this beauty that was our currency.”By Zeba Blay There are too many studies and statistics that try to quantify what it is to be a Black woman with dark skin: Dark-skinned women are generally considered less romantically desirable or professionally hireable than lighter-skinned women. Dark-skinned women are criminalized and jailed at a higher rate. Dark-skinned women have historically been either underrepresented or represented in the form of harmful stereotypes in film and TV. But what these studies will never be able to capture is what this feels like, on a personal, day-to-day level. They will never capture the burden of performance and perfection that…

This year, Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion won our first-ever Readers’ Choice Hall of Fame Award (following 10 previous wins). There is simply no other body moisturizer you love as much as this one. “On an annual basis, we sell 363.8 million fluid ounces of Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion,” a communications manager wrote to us. “Plenty of fun can be had determining how much 363.8 million ounces can fill.” Let’s put that suggestion to the test: Every year, the world buys enough Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion to fill more than four Olympic-size swimming pools. The entirety of Iceland’s Blue Lagoon and then some. Nine Boeing 747 jets, nose to tail. It all adds up to 26,452,396 bottles sold a year. That’s almost one bottle every second. Time to buy another. !…

Microdermabrasion “Medical-grade crystal [or diamonds] sand off dead skin cells. If a vacuum is attached, it also unclogs pores to uncover that glow beneath,” says Marnie Nussbaum, a dermatologist in New York City. Let the tool do all the work: “Remember it’s pulling the skin, so [don’t] apply too much pressure,” says Corey L. Hartman, a dermatologist in Birmingham, Alabama. (Skip it altogether on active acne, sensitive skin, or rosacea.) Try It: Michael Todd Beauty Sonic Refresher Wet/Dry Microdermabrasion System has three textured tips designed to buff away dead skin cells. There’s also a built-in mister on the wand if you want gentler exfoliation on damp skin. LED Therapy “Collagen production nosedives after the age of about 22,” says Hartman. Light emitting diodes (aka LED) can help counter this plummet.…

Shampoo OGX RENEWING + ARGAN OIL OF MOROCCO SHAMPOO Rich in omegas and antioxidants, this shine-inducing formula had us lathering, rinsing, and reaping the visible rewards of argan oil after just one wash. Conditioner BRIOGEO DON’T DESPAIR, REPAIR! DEEP CONDITIONING MASK Cool things happen on a molecular level when you apply this treatment. Encapsulated lipids attach to damaged areas in the hair shaft, smoothing things over and imparting exceptional sleekness. Curl Definer MOROCCANOIL CURL DEFINING CREAM If our hair only craved moisture, we’d slather on some shea and call it a day. But quenching curls without compromising bounce requires a more nuanced approach. One pump of this cream delivers softness, glossiness, and unprecedented springiness. Hair Color ESALON CUSTOM HAIR COLOR SET What are these “roots” people speak of? With this…

RARE OPPORTUNITY “I would definitely like to say I’m an entrepreneur…but I’m new,” Selena Gomez told Allure when she launched Rare Beauty last September. Cheeky, sure—also an understatement. In a world where celebrity brands proliferate, Gomez makes the kind of sheer blushes and dewy glosses that we keep reaching for long after their buzzy launch—and we’re in good company. You voted Rare Beauty the year’s best new brand for its thoughtful foundation range (Allure contributing editor Jessica Chia found “the closest match I’ve ever had to my skin’s precise mix of olive-yellow-brown”), its dramatic matte-black liquid liner (Perfect Strokes is a best seller), and its Soft Pinch Liquid Blush (the most popular shade, Joy, “is the perfect flush of peachy pigment for my olive-toned complexion,” says beauty assistant Talia Gutierrez).…

Skin NEUTROGENA HYDRO BOOST NIGHT PRESSED FACE SERUM WITH HYALURONIC ACID Wearing a moisturizer overnight—when skin often loses the most water—can be key to achieving dewy skin. And this novel nighttime treatment gets the job done beautifully, with hyaluronic acid, glycerin, and trehalose sugar to attract water molecules to the surface of the skin, plus beeswax and dimethicone to help seal them in. It’s also got the added benefit of being a joy to use: The formula is thick and bouncy in the jar, but melts into skin. “It’s a very unique texture,” says cosmetic chemist Ginger King. “The concept is similar to the ‘pressed serums’ of Korea, but created in a different way, using polymers.” Here, acrylate copolymer chains form a 3D matrix that’s dense in the jar but…

“I’m allergic to shea butter, so I’m always on the hunt for hydrating alternatives. DryerBuzz Original Soaps [8] [with castor and olive oils] leave my skin feeling clean without stripping it. Iwi Fresh Skin Farming Spa Hot-Butter-Grits Body Scrub [7] is delicious and locally made. Gold Bond Ultimate Diabetics’ Dry Skin Relief Hand Cream [9] seeps into my skin, moisturizing from the inside out. [For my face], Tierra Goes Green Facial Toner Mist [10] is a staple. It wakes me up.” “At home, candles are burning at all times. If it has a clever name, smells great, and has interesting packaging, like Posh Candle Co. Allergic to Bullshit [2], I’m going to buy it. I also sage my house as a way to relax and clear out bad energy. I’ll…

*who happens to be Atkin’s husband By design, this is the headquarters for Ouai, a hair-care company founded by Jen Atkin. By default, this is an extension of Atkin’s home. The hairstylist-turned-beauty executive tapped interior design firm Maison Trouvaille to decorate both spaces at the same time. A breezy, visual language—blonde furniture, California flora—is more than just photogenic. “I wanted it to be inviting. I wanted people to want to take a selfie,” says Atkin. “I wanted people to be happy being at work.” It’s also uncannily contemporary: an office you could live in. Inside the Los Angeles-based workspace, kombucha and cold brew coffee are on tap because “everyone needs to be caffeinated,” Atkin emphasizes. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out over LACMA, the La Brea Tar Pits, Hollywood, and all the…

This year has made it evident that whether you’re a Minnesota man celebrating Memorial Day or a member of the British royal family, your skin tone, facial features, and hair texture can determine how you are treated in this world. These three essays about navigating the world with Black skin are part of a larger project, called The Melanin Edit, in which Allure will explore every facet of a melanin-rich life—from the most innovative treatments for hyperpigmentation and how to spot melanoma to the social and emotional realities—all while spreading Black pride. Read more at allure.com/the-melanin-edit.…