Category Archives: Beauty

‘Her biggest challenge will be credibility’: Can Jennifer Aniston conquer skincare?

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The Friends star’s LolaVie range launches this week in an already overcrowded celebrity beauty field – so how does she make it stand out?

Jennifer Aniston is to launch her own beauty brand, LolaVie, on Wednesday. But can the star of Friends and The Morning Show make it in the ever more crowded celebrity beauty space?

The competition is fierce, with Ariana Grande, Hailey Bieber, Kim Kardashian and Harry Styles all rumoured to be following Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Jenner and Alicia Keys into the skincare market.

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A look in the mirror: the existential threat facing beauty halls

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Covid pandemic has accelerated shift to online purchases, with big brands buying up startups

The department store beauty hall is facing a fight for survival: the pandemic has accelerated the shift to buying cosmetics, skincare and other pampering products online, and a growing number of sales are now via a smartphone rather than over the counter.

Manicured sales assistants, testing pots and makeovers are being replaced by powerful influencers and digital beauty halls that can switch up the products on offer at the tweak of an algorithm.

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‘My son reeks of Persona’: a week with a scent inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s most challenging film

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The perfume was specially commissioned by organisers of the annual Bergman Week festival on the island on which the Swedish director was born. But what does it smell like?

On Monday morning the postman delivers a parcel from Sweden. Inside is Persona, a perfume inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s most demanding, difficult, abrasive film. It gives us Bergman in a bottle; the arthouse atomised. I spray it on my wrist and then on my wife’s and we stare at each other through a mist of droplets. The perfume is distinctive, but does that mean it’s good?

After a long, anxious moment, my wife nods in relief. “This is actually all right,” she says. “It’s herby. It’s lavender. It smells like the sea.”

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Alicia Keys: ‘I’ve always had to be strong’

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Alicia Keys reflects on 20 years of stardom, going makeup free and where she gets her ‘grit energy’

In 2016, when Alicia Keys released her sixth studio album, Here, she celebrated the launch with a gig in New York’s Times Square. An article written in the Guardian by a journalist who was on the promotional junket described the machinery of her management system at the time, as functioning “like an onion”. A formidable, multi-layer of managers, confidants, coaches, assistants, a personal film crew and various people with ambiguous job functions formed around Keys, like a “shock absorber”. Fast forward to 2021. I am waiting to interview Keys via Zoom on the day she launches a special edition of Songs in A Minor, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking award-winning debut album that started it all. When she appears on screen there is no “onion”, no entourage, no shock absorber. Just her. She is sitting on a light-coloured sofa in front of a floor-to-ceiling wall of immaculately lined-up books. And she is trying to pull a jumper on. Her voice – smooth, deep and slightly gravelly – calls out, “Good morning!” and as she inches in to take her position close to the screen, she smiles so fully that every crevice of her face lights up.

Looking at a barefaced Alicia Keys, hair pulled back into a bun, one can’t help marvel at how much she still resembles the 20-year-old who made her 2001 TV debut singing Falling on The Oprah Winfrey Show. (Winfrey, who calls herself Alicia’s “mother-sister-friend” has since said, “Even before she belted out the first soulful notes of the lyrics that made her famous, I could feel the power of her presence.”) Following the God-like endorsement of the influential Winfrey (and the backing of Clive Davis, the legendary music producer who gave Keys her big break), the song topped the charts. The album sold millions (10.5m physical sales and 645.8m streams to date) and Keys was nominated in six Grammy award categories. She won five of them and has since gone on to win 10 more. Keys is still awestruck that she, and the album that brought her global fame, still have a presence today.

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The male beauty myth: the growing acceptance of feeling comfortable looking good

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Men who want to look good used to be disparaged and labelled vain. But times are finally changing…

Until recently, male motivation for looking good or strong was often born from an inherent desire for us to feel and appear more successful, competitive, virile and powerful – what some now refer to as toxic masculinity.

Of course, there have always been men who’ve enjoyed discussing clothes, watches, even grooming regimes but, for many, this open appreciation of what they wore was often merely a game of one-upmanship disguised as an appreciation of the finer things in life. Think of the 1980s and its bullish Wall Street status stamps, such as pinstripe suits and red braces (Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko); the scene in American Psycho where rival stockbrokers battle over business cards, like a game of Top Trumps. Or in the 1990s, when showing off got even easier and even off-duty symbols such as underwear, jeans and luggage were plastered with a riot of logos.

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Hyram Yarbro, Gen Z’s skincare saviour: ‘YouTube gave me a reason to live’

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How did a boy from a Mormon farming family become social media’s most powerful ‘skinfluencer’?

Truthfully, I didn’t expect to blow up to this scale. And yes, I know this is going to sound clichéd, but if you told me, even a year ago, that it was going to be this big, I would not have believed it.” Considering the trajectory of Hyram Yarbro, the 25-year-old Gen Z skincare guru set on making skincare “accessible”, it is easy to believe him.

His success in the past year, driven by a lockdown-fuelled obsession with skincare and social media, has made Yarbro the world’s most powerful “skinfluencer”. His young, captivated, skincare-obsessed disciples – 1.2m on Instagram, 4.5m on YouTube, 6.8m on TikTok (pre-lockdown 1.0, it was 100,000) – all diligently follow his skincare recommendations via his unfiltered, straight-shooting videos. At the beginning of the pandemic, he says he was uploading content on YouTube five to six times a week and posting three TikToks a day. “But I’ve scaled it back a little,” he says now, “because I was literally not sleeping”.

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‘My hairline threatened my identity so much the ground felt shaky’: why hair transplants are booming

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Celebrity endorsements, new techniques and lockdown have led to rising demand for follicular transplants. But with patchy regulation, are men being exploited when they are vulnerable?

Hamish says he’s not at all vain. He wouldn’t consider getting his teeth whitened. He has an average life, with a happy marriage and two children. But when he caught sight of the top of his head in a family photo about eight years ago, something consumed him.

“I just saw this massive receding hairline and it triggered intense emotions,” he says from his home in Edinburgh, where he works in marketing. “I can feel my heart rate has increased just talking about it. It somehow threatens my identity so much that the ground feels shaky.”

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‘It resembled a chinchilla’: 10 men who changed their hair radically in lockdown

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From the film extra who now gets parts as wizards rather than lawyers to the office workers who just decided to go for it, readers who have tried something new with their locks explain why

Before the pandemic, my personal image was dictated by the constraints of corporate office culture, and I always felt tense. But while furloughed, as I was for most of the last year and a half, I found myself with a lot of time to relax, go for walks, listen to jazz and spend more time in the kitchen experimenting with vegetables. I realised that my hair was changing, too, and there was no pressure from anyone to get it cut. The length of my hair became symbolic of my new ability to appreciate the simple things in life. I’ve retrained, and my capacity for self-expression has multiplied. I have so many more options when I style it in the morning. Will, plumber, Bristol

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‘Pray for Myanmar’: Miss Universe pageant gets political

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Thuzar Wint Lwin, in dress of besieged Chin minority, highlights brutal repression since coup in Myanmar

In the months leading up to the Miss Universe pageant, most contestants were busy making promotional films and rehearsing for their moment in the limelight. Thuzar Wint Lwin of Myanmar was on the streets of Yangon, protesting against the country’s brutal army.

As the military used increasingly deadly force to crush rallies opposing its February coup, she visited the relatives of those who had been killed, donating her savings. Online, she raised awareness of military violence, despite the risk of retaliation.

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‘Teeth have become the new boob job’: the rise of oral tweakments

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With $55 toothpaste and whitening treatments road-tested on TikTok, looking after your teeth is becoming fashionable. It’s even been rebranded as ‘oralcare’

If, once upon a time, going to the dentists was routine at best, your local dental practice is on the way to becoming something of a destination. At the same time, previously unglamorous dental products such as toothpaste, toothbrushes and mouthwash are more likely to be deemed worthy of a bathroom shelfie posted to Instagram. Teeth – and the right products and treatments for them – are now part of the self-care beauty boom.

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‘Own your grey hair and be powerful’: women on no longer dyeing their hair

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With hairdressers closed for most of the pandemic, we asked you to tell us why you stopped dyeing your hair and what it means to you

I had an epiphany one day. I couldn’t stand the demarcation line. My hair had been so damaged from all the processing. Covid had everything shut down. It was time. I didn’t feel it was necessary to hide behind hair dye any more. I took the shears to my own hair and mowed it all off. The second picture is two and a half months of new, fresh, regrowth.

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‘Virtual meetings aren’t going anywhere soon’: how to put your best Zoom face forward

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Has a year of video calls made you self-conscious? Don’t turn your camera off: just relax and deploy a few of these beauty tips

Thought we were a nation of narcissists pre-Covid? Well, a global pandemic has taken things to a whole new level. It’s safe to say nobody planned to spend quite so much of the past year staring at their own grainy reflection, but with everything from weddings to work meetings forced online, our bid to stay connected with others has meant being constantly confronted with our own faces.

And not all of us like what we see. There’s a big difference between sharing a carefully filtered selfie on Instagram, and catching yourself slumped in front of the screen during your fourth video chat of the day, the cat cleaning its paws in the background as you stare in horror at your dark circles. What with the unflattering lighting, unforgiving camera angles and the fact that none of us has been inside a salon in months, it’s no wonder we’re sick of the sight of ourselves. But what effect does it have on our self-esteem? And can we do anything to boost it?

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‘It can leave your self-image fractured’: how hair loss hits men – and what they can do about it

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Michael Segalov is only 27, but already fears baldness isn’t far off. He talks to experts and scientists about hopes for a hirsute future

My dad is bald, and always has been. He’s had a shiny, hairless head with some growth protruding around the edges for the 27 or so years that I’ve been around. Throughout my childhood, his father always had the same carefully crafted combover – grey locks pulled forward neatly hid the tanned, hairless crown which sat underneath.

Mum’s dad – my Grandpa Oskar – just had a giant forehead for as long as anyone can remember: rear bushy follicles formed what could generously be described as a highly pronounced widow’s peak. Mum’s two brothers are the only other older male blood relations in my immediate family. They’ve both fared better. Receding? Yes. But still, hair is hair.

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‘Hydration is a simple thing’: has the quest to improve water actually worked?

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From alkaline waters to beauty elixirs, added oxygen and probiotics, many brands claim they have ‘enhanced’ water – but what do the experts think?

Today, when I woke up, I made myself a cup of warm lemon water. After lunch I dropped a Berocca into a glass to power me through the afternoon haze. Running errands I considered treating myself to a Coke but opted instead for an expensive, vegetable-tasting water.

H2O classic may be a prerequisite to all known forms of life, but countless brands insist they have found ways to “improve” water. From a business standpoint, it’s working. Industry researchers IbisWorld estimate Australia’s “functional beverage” industry is worth $445.6m; and as people become more health conscious, the growth of the sector is outpacing the economy overall.

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The forever ponytail: woman shares ordeal after using Gorilla Glue on her hair

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Tessica Brown has gained a captive audience on TikTok and Instagram after mistakenly using super-strength adhesive on her hair

“Stiff where?” Tessica Brown asked TikTok, one week ago, before the world was aware of her struggle. “My hair,” she finished.

And stiff it has been, for more than a month now, as Brown continues battling against what so far seems to be an irreversible decision: mistakenly using Gorilla Glue to hold her hairstyle in place.

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Brazilian butt lift: behind the world’s most dangerous cosmetic surgery

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The BBL is the fastest growing cosmetic surgery in the world, despite the mounting number of deaths resulting from the procedure. What is driving its astonishing rise?

The quest was simple: Melissa wanted the perfect bottom. In her mind, it resembled a plump, ripe peach, like the emoji. She was already halfway there. In 2018, she’d had a Brazilian butt lift, known as a BBL, a surgical procedure in which fat is removed from various parts of the body and then injected back into the buttocks. Melissa’s bottom was already rounder and fuller than before, and she was delighted by the effect, with how it made her feel and how it made her look. But it could be better. It could always be better.

On a recent afternoon, Melissa visited the British aesthetic surgeon Dr Lucy Glancey for a consultation. Glancey had performed Melissa’s first BBL at her clinic on the Essex-Suffolk borders, a suite of rooms boasting shining white cupboards, a full-length mirror and drawers stuffed with syringes. As she waited for Melissa to arrive, Glancey showed me a picture of Melissa on the beach in Dubai, wearing a palm-print bikini and posing in a kind of provocative crouch – arms, breasts, thighs and buttocks all arranged for optimum effect. “Look how good she looks,” said Glancey, admiring Melissa and her own work. “I said to her, I don’t see what else we can do.”

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From ancient Egypt to Cardi B: a cultural history of the manicure

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Nail art dates back millennia, taking in complex social codes, cultural appropriation, modern slavery and the sexism of lockdown rules for beauty salons

“How to Take a Nail Selfie!” “Fruity Manicure Inspo!” “Kylie Jenner Slammed by Fans for Nearly Poking Out Stormi’s Eyes With Ridiculous Claw Nails.”

The glut of hyperbolic nail-related headlines online points to our obsession with the endless possibilities open to the plate at the top of our fingers. In the internet age, the manicure, in all its incarnations, is a traffic winner. It peppers a plethora of Pinterest boards; the hashtag #nails has been posted 151m times on Instagram; nail artists are stars in their own right; and countless women will assert that manicures are a form of self-care. Detractors dismiss it all as frivolity.

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Seasonal makeover: from couch potato to festive diva

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Lockdown has not been kind to our beautiful selves, but now it is time to shape up. Emma Beddington gets to work on her pre-Christmas, full-body makeover. But where to begin?

How do you look at the moment? It’s a loaded question, I know. “Asking me to choose one physical feature I feel bad about is like asking me to choose my least-favourite family member since lockdown,” says my friend F. An unscientific poll of friends and acquaintances reveals a tally of 2020 woes: worry wrinkles, “maskne”, “Zoomface”, “presidential” hair and Covid kilos. “Weird grief seeps out of me and my eyes are tired,” read one extremely relatable response.

Eating more, exercising less, sleeping badly, scrolling and worrying constantly… barring some boastful Instagram blowhards, we are all looking and feeling suboptimal as 2020 draws to a distinctly unfestive close. My own tally is standard but dismal: I look like a parboiled potato, in both face and body.

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Go with the Flowbee: George Clooney reveals how he cuts his hair

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Award-winning actor admits cutting his own hair with device long before salons closed this year due to Covid

With salons largely closed until this week, male grooming has been in freefall since the start of the spring lockdown. DIY haircuts have not been successful for all. Yet one Hollywood star has proved that even in a global pandemic, bad hair is not the great equaliser we hoped it would be.

George Clooney, the 59-year-old award-winning actor and human rights activist, has admitted to successfully cutting his own hair at home using a device called a Flowbee. “My hair’s really like straw, so it’s easy,” he told CBS Sunday Morning.

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‘I stopped trying to control my body’: the women who gave up grooming in 2020

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From shaving to threading to dyeing to painting, the little touches that used to seem so important have been squeezed out by the pandemic. And many Britons are all the happier for it

During the first lockdown Afsaneh Parvizi-Wayne, a 55-year-old entrepreneur, went for a drive around London. “I remember looking in the rear-view mirror,” she says, “and I noticed all these little hairs coming out of my chin. That was a bit of a shock. Like, bloody hell, I’ve really been growing these out.”

Parvizi-Wayne is of Iranian heritage, and hair removal is a big part of her culture. “Grooming, for Iranian women, it’s essential,” she says. For her entire life, from puberty onwards, Parvizi-Wayne had scrupulously removed her facial hair. “It was like a jack-in-the-box reaction,” she says. “If I saw a hair, I’d go to the salon.” If she failed to do so, a relative or family friend would take care of it for her. “Iranian aunties literally pin you down if they see a stray chin hair,” she laughs. “They pull out a piece of string to thread you then and there.”

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