The Business of Beauty Haul of Fame: The Devil Wears Prada … for Beauty?

Welcome back to Haul of Fame, the weekly beauty roundup of new products, new ideas and the most Instagram-worthy basketball court in all of New York.

Included in today’s issue: Agent Nateur, ColourPop, Coola, EvolveTogether, Glossier, KISS, LoveShackFancy, Mooncat, Moroccan Oil, Pat McGrath Labs, R+Co, Tarte, Tatcha, Verb and Katy Perry.

But first …

Last summer, I devoured the Kim Cattrall comeback machine “Glamorous,” a goofy-but-glam Netflix show about a beauty mogul and her minions, with yawningly bitchy one-liners about Botox and hair weaves. Yes, the show was dumb, but the cast — including Cattrall and the winningly full-hearted Miss Benny — was adorable. It also offered a new take on an old trope: while fashion had long been part of the pop-culture zeitgeist, beauty wasn’t often in the picture.

Slowly, that’s starting to change. After “Glamorous,” Hulu introduced “The Other Black Girl” in September, a thriller series with a hair care-centric twist. Makeup artist Val Garland’s reality show “Glow Up,” about aspiring MUAs, hit the Netflix Top 10 list in April 2024. “Natural Beauty,” the 2023 novel about a beauty store with a sinister side, is being developed for the big screen by Constance Wu and “Yellowjackets” producer Drew Comins; Marisa Meltzer’s 2023 book, “Glossy” is being adapted for TV by Amazon MGM Studios. “The New Look” on Apple TV, which premiered earlier this year, was essentially a history lesson about the origins of Miss Dior perfume.

There’s still more to come: In August, Elizabeth Banks will star in “Skincare,” a movie about an aesthetician (Banks) launching her own beauty line, and maybe getting murdered in the process. IFC Films bills it as “a revenge thriller” and the imagery looks campy as hell — in the absolute best way. It also features Charlotte Tilbury face Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, and is directed by Austin Peters, who has framed celebs like Dove Cameron, Lauren Jauregi and Sophie Turner for his music video work. It hits the big screen on Aug. 13. It may not create a new “Devil Wears Prada” moment for lipstick junkies, but it does hint that beauty-as-entertainment is beginning to have a Hollywood push.

Considering the product placement possibilities, it’s hardly surprising. A major makeup sponsorship could even double the studio ad revenue for a smaller-budget show. (Hello, CoverGirl and “America’s Next Top Model.”) And last summer’s endless stream of Barbiecore apparel, accessories and more showed that when the content is compelling enough, products about a movie or TV show can be equally enticing. It’s all just world-building, after all, and that can work whether it’s a Sol de Janeiro fragrance fantasy or a fictional skincare line on Hacks. (Deborah Vance, we dare you…)

Will the “Skincare” movie keep the onscreen beauty boom going? It’s still too early to tell. But as fashion imagemakers like Tom Ford and Saint Laurent invest more time in cinema (Saint Laurent produced three films that premiered at Cannes this year), and shows like “The New Look” and Hulu’s new arrival “Becoming Karl Lagerfeld” turn perfumes into plotlines, it’s likely that beauty brands will try to seize the story behind their own brands as potential Hollywood IP, too.

What Else Is New

Skincare

Coola’s Dew Good Body Melt sunscreen hit shelves on June 24. It claims to be “powered by probiotic technology” to better hydrate skin, but the real hero is its 40 minutes of water resistance. See you at the beach, Coola!

In 1678, Dr. Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek — one of the founding fathers of the microscope — was looking at semen, as one does. The Dutch scientist discovered it had a crystalline amino acid structure, later synthesised and called spermidine, that would become a key anti-aging ingredient in skincare. That’s still the case today: On June 24, Agent Nateur introduced their own spermidine and taurine supplement, called Calm (Beauty), that claims to support better sleep and stronger skin, hair and nails. It costs $72.

In retail news, eco-friendly skincare label EvolveTogether hit Amazon Beauty on June 25 with its four core products — deodorant, bar soap, hand cream and lip balm — now available worldwide.

Skincare seller Good Light released their Alphabet Oil on June 26. It gets its name from Vitamins A, B5, C and E. Founder David Yi said they wanted to drop skin oil in the summer “to prove it works in any climate, even in sweatier months.” He noted that the formula is specifically for oily skin, too.

Body care brand Truly introduced three new body oils, including one called Birthday Sex, on June 23. It promises to “visibly tighten with peptides and hyaluronic acid, banishing dull, saggy skin.” I think great sex, in general, can also help brighten one’s skin, but this seems nice, too.

Makeup

On June 24, Pat McGrath Labs debuted its new Dramatique Mega Lip Pencil at Vogue World, with Katy Perry and Sabrina Carpenter as her first models. That’s a hell of a hard launch, especially since Carpenter currently has other beauty contracts!

Westmore Beauty’s three Supreme Balm — which can be used as blush, lowlight, eyeshadow, lip or cheek colour — dropped on June 24 in three shades. To see them in action, tune into QVC. (Really!)

We’ve all grabbed a stash of Kiss press-on nails from CVS in a bind. They’re good. What’s great is their marketing imagery from June 24, which includes many larger and older women, and larger and older hands, wearing their designs. This should not be notable, and yet, it really is. Kiss has also signed Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Sunni Lee, who also has a new collection with LoveShackFancy. You know who makes LoveShackFancy’s floral printed press-on nails? Kiss! Ah, the circle of life.

Also in nail-land, Mooncat introduced a Powerpuff Girls line on June 21. It includes six colours, including a black glitter shade called Chemical X.

On June 26, Tarte unveiled Creaseless Creamy Concealer, their biggest launch of the year. Developed “with AI-driven social listening tools” that scrape consumer feedback from across the web, the concealer comes in 34 shades and six undertones, and promises a seamless blend on skin. It’s $30, and shoppers can choose to donate 1 percent of their buy (30 cents per product) to a variety of mental health organisations. Is this an attempt to counteract the tainted legacy of the Tarte influencer trip? Probably, but it’s also a nice thing to do. As for the formula, I’ve tested it, and yes, it’s quite effective.

Colourpop’s liquid blush launched on June 27. It’s in similar packaging to Rare Beauty’s blush, but costs $10 instead of $23, and the shades have text-y names like IKTR and THX. I think it’s adorable.

Tatcha’s Kissu lip scrub and treatment arrived on June 17. They claim to hydrate and plump pouts with sea fern and camelia extracts.

Hair Care

I already have a crush on R+Co’s Dry Wax Finishing Spray, which launched on June 24. It’s an aerosol mist that somehow imparts the same hold as a hair texturising balm, which is especially great for beachy loose curls.

Verb debuted its Hydrate Oil and Hydrate Styling Cream on June 25 to help address breakage and frizz during summer. They claim to reduce frizz by up to 75 percent; let’s see if that’s true during July’s continuing heat wave.

On June 25, the actress Joey King became a Moroccan Oil model during couture week, when she debuted new blonde hair on social media with a shot of the brand’s Treatment Purple elixir. Like Lucy Hale and Nina Dobrev before her, King is one of those stealth influencers who doesn’t seem super-famous if you’re not a teenage girl. But among that demographic, she can sell almost anything. Let’s see if that includes hair oil.

Fragrance

It’s gonna be a seaweed summer. First D.S. & Durga dropped their whale perfume, and now Armani’s Acqua di Giò Profondo scent is here, and “inspired by the deep sea and the intense attraction of the sea’s unknown depths.”

And finally…

Game on! Glossier hired the artist Na Chainkua Reindorf to help redesign the public basketball courts at New York City’s Tompkins Square Park, which have also been refurbished with new turf.