2018 in 3 words? Healing, feeling and sleeping.
Ayurveda, sleep-centric beauty and wellbeing brands and power berries will steal the stage, Japan will give Korea a run for its money, oral care and self care are squeezing in under one big beauty umbrella, more of us will try DNA home testing and here’s a sure thing – we’ll be seeing more masks than the Venice Carnival.
biocollab’s Something For…health and mood boosts
the Lisbon co. started out in 1977 and has never been more “now”
We already are, we’ve tested a LOT of masks for the 2018 Beauty Shortlist Awards, and the superfood and collagen/Hyaluronic Acid marks are up there among our favourites this year – iSUN’s Chlorella Algae Mask and InLight Beauty’s Superfood Mask being two of my personal favourites – Dr Alkatis’s original supergreens powder mask which technically was edible, was one of the first of its kind way back).
Clumpy lashes and here comes colour eyes
By a long shot, 2018 is shaping up as The Year of Feeling & Sleeping Beauty. So, here we go…
- FEELING (AND HEALING) BEAUTY. Aromatherapy is upping its game – Tisserand have just rebranded, with exciting plans for the year, while Cult Beauty favourite Therapie by Michelle Roques-O’Neil (ahead of its time when it originally launched) taps perfectly into our need for more comforts and joys in an increasingly uncertain world. We’re seeing spa brands shift to more emotional-sensory place. Not just calming but grounding. Not just energising but inspiring. Tapping into more emotions, more happy places, in other words, the healing beauty tree has more branches this year – not just HAPPY, CALM, STRESS LESS but branching out into hope, gratitude, bliss, balance, grounding…more spiritual shoots, if you like.
- SLEEPING BEAUTY. Hands down one of the biggest trends coming out of our Awards this year is that elusive ultimate luxury – the one even millionaires can’t get enough of – sleep. Sleep-centric brands like Kiss The Moon, NEOM ORGANICS’ new sleep facial oil (launching soon), an array of pillow mists, supplements to help us sleep, plump and renew our skin (and cells) overnight (Rejuvenated’s Collagen Shots and H30 hydration drinks are a good example, as is Lumity Life’s Morning – Night skin-boosting programme).
- COACHING. Sleep coaches, health coaches, spiritual coaches…as the world gets tougher it’s easier when you have someone rooting for you, so while baby sleep coaches aren’t new, adult sleep coaches could well exploit a gap in the market. More spa breaks with coaching included, less just lying on a massage table – it’s all about self-care, soaking up wisdom and ways to keep ourselves in better shape mentally, emotionally and physically once we’re back in the office catching the 06.32 to Waterloo.
- DONALD CLUMP. Lashes have been sticking together for a while now but we’re more seeing lashings of spidery, clumpy and “just rushed out the door” mascara this year. And longer, lower lashes. Thanks Twiggy.
- FRUIT LOOPS AND HAIR CLIPS. Raspberry, cherry, strawberry…lip shades as bright and glossy as the fresh fruit at a June farmer’s market. And hair? Clip your long fringe to one side – Nicole Kidman-style.
- EYELINER PART 1 – WINGING IT. Eyeliner is here to stay. Graphic, “freestyle”, thick as a marker pen. Feline flicks are longer and flickier and we’ve never had so much fun with black pens. And for night, paint on the diamond-dust charcoal eyeliner to catch the light.
- EYELINER PART 2 – HERE COMES COLOUR. Good to be alive greens, mandarin, yellows, blues, seafoam, neon pinks, purples (hello Pantone colour of The Year!) and reds. Eyeshadow and eyeliners everywhere, in exotic fruit, sea and sky shades. We’ve been using them already but the colour palette’s just much bigger this year as bolder trends from the catwalk cross over onto the street.
- LIPS GET GLOSSIER. Hi gloss, goodbye matte. Gloss returns to lips and I predict formulas will up their game with more comfortable, less sticky glosses launches. I don’t have a problem with lip gloss but I know a lot of women who just aren’t keen on the feel of them.
- COCONUT MOVES INTO THE ORAL CARE DEPARTMENT. Some cultures have been oil pulling for years but it’s still catching on with the rest of us. (Great way to whiten your teeth naturally). I sometimes make my own toothpaste when travelling, mixing a little coconut oil with peppermint and a tiny bit of clove oil and you can add bicarbonate of soda to the mix if you like, too. Coconut oil brand CHI has been quick off the mark with its take-them-anywhere coconut pulling sachets. Side note: if you’re looking for a new natural toothpaste, Taylor’s 32 Mint and Grapefruit gets my vote, I’ve squeezed the tube to strangling point – love this toothpaste!
- TURMERIC. Was, and still is, in our orange juice and smoothies and appearing more in skincare, shampoos, facial oils. SW Basics do a very dark golden facial “oil serum” with Geranium, Turmeric, Coffee and Avocado oil (wish brands would stop calling facial OILS serums – they aren’t). Turmeric in skincare hasn’t peaked yet – one to watch this year.
- ADIOS “ANTI-AGEING”. Aurevoir, bye bye. We. Are. Over. It. Yep, it’s starting to fade from our beauty lexicon. Michelle Lee’s op ed in Allure mag (last July, I think?) with Helen Mirren on the cover said it all. She wrote, “I hope we can all get to a point where we recognize that beauty is not something just for the young”. If you’re launching a brand, I’d leave out the “anti-ageing” on the labels if I were you…think up something cleverer.
- JAPAN…is the new KOREA. We’ve had a ton of fun with Korean beauty but Japan’s looking more interesting this year. JAPAN = timeless, ancient rituals, minimalist, clean, sleek, rice bran, trees, tea ceremonies, forest bathing, pearls, polishing…think 5 white bottles on your shelf with clean, zen, block letter branding on them. KOREA = fast-moving, innovative, fun, young, cute, poppy, a million different masks in a kaleidoscope of different colours and troops of emoji-style cats, girls but the branding’s generally too busy and plastic-y for me – claustrophobic like downtown Tokyo (ha!)
- SKINCARE GETS SIMPLER AND PRODUCTS ARE GETTING CLEVERER. Goodbye 7 products, hello 3. Multi-tasking heroes will be saving our days this year…who has time for complicated routine when sleep and time are the two things we could do with more of. We’ve seen a lot of cleansing balms that also exfoliate come in for Awards testing, or balms that moisturise – cleanse – double up as overnight masks. Same for ingredients, actually, which are forking out in two totally different directions: heavy cocktails of multiple – 20, 30, 40, even – ingredients in a facial oil v. a simple four oil facial oil. I love both, it’s a matter of choice. Tip: if you’re after a SINGLE oil, I’ve seen some of the best results over time with rosehip or argan but there are some gorgeous other single oils out there to explore like Cacay (PR co’s nightmare name when the intern leaves off the “y” at the end and hits “send”).
- AGELESS BEAUTY. Who’s reading this, who’s over (say) 45? Let’s turn the whole “old” things on its head this year and get out there and stop obsessing about our age. Old is the new gold. Beauty has no age because any age is beautiful. We’ve got heaps of role models from Cindy Crawford and Nicole Kidman to Iris Apfel and Tao Porchon-Lynch (who’s still practising yoga in her 90s and has always said never let age define what you can and cannot do). Beauty, strength, activism, intelligence: Susan Sarandon. If I’m half as good as she is when I’m 70 I’ll be over the moon (and eternally grateful). BEAUTY HAS NO AGE. Age has no boundaries. Health does though.
- FACE YOGA. Might be seeing more of this, those who do it tend to swear by it.
- HEMP BEAUTY (AND CHOCOLATES) Years after The Body Shop’s hemp range took us by surprise, hemp is back big time. It’s the basis of Greek grooming brand HOMMER (lots of praise from our grooming testers so far). Switzerland legalised hemp cigarettes last July which you can buy at the Coop there and pick up a can of C’ICE SWISS ICE HEMP TEA to sip in the Alpine sun this summer. Meanwhile, California brand Ojai Energetics gives coconut oil a new twist, their CBD Coconut oil launched last year, and they followed it up with a CBD moisturiser. NY brand Malin & Goetz’s hair pommade features cannabis sativa seed, and if you’ve got an Obsessive Compulisive Lip Tar in your bag, there’s hemp and peppermint oil in there. Marley Naturals (as in Bob’s family) have a range of SIP, SOAK, VAPE, SMOKE herb formulations and a Marley Natural Hemp Seed Body Wash. Lord Jones do “pure CBD infused Dark Chocolate Espresso Chews” made from Ecuadorian dark choc, a pinch of espresso and 20mg of full spectrum CBD to provide pain relief, mood stabilization and a comforting sense of well being.” So there you go. I’m vehemently anti-smoking so I wish I hadn’t mentioned the hemp cigarettes now.
- SELFIES AND TEXT NECKS. Personally I’d like to see selfies fade into oblivion – rapidly, but on a more serious note, I think we’re looking at a new generation of neck and spine problems. I was watching a stunning winter sunset before Christmas – big fuschia, orange and gold sky painting stuff – but the 4-5 people standing next to me at the bus stop had their heads in their smartphones. Nobody saw the sunset. LOOK UP PEOPLE. BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. Cue a generation of future hunchbacks. We need more health advocates in the media to talk about this. It’s ridiculous. Life is passing you by while you’re glued to your phone. Bad. Very sad. Bev Hills skin doctor Dr Zein Obagi said recently in an interview “Your cellphone will damage your skin, the blue light is ageing. Its not documented, but in my clinical observation I can tell whether someone uses their right hand or left, to hold their phone. You start to see this dull dirty looking texture that you cannot identify, on one side of the face.” SPF doesn’t protect against magnetic fields/blue light, so your best bet is upping your antioxidants which Dr O. says can help prevent DNA damage. I thank my lucky stars I was a teenager without an iPhone or a laptop. My summers were spent on my bike, we had picnics and took the train to the nearest town with a cinema on Saturday nights. The simple, phone-free things.
- DNA HOME TEST KITS. Speaking of DNA, DNA testing kits like 23andme, Thrive, Orig3n have been in the news. Thrive does an advanced thyroid panel kit so if you’re frustrated with T4 and T3 only results and you suspect you may have Hashimotos or hypothyroidism, it might be worth a look. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of these and I’ve never used one. But I think we’ll see more reporting on these, this year, especially in the light of the escalating Alzheimer’s epidemic. (If you know someone with this disease, I’ve just read Dr Dale Bredesen’s The End of Alzheimer’s and it’s excellent. He’s been reversing/halting Alzheimer’s (YES – REVERSING/HALTING) in the US, word is spreading (Australia and the UK) but this is cutting edge stuff. It’s not a pill, it’s a 36-point holistic plan targeting inflammation, sugar levels, homocysteine levels, vitamin deficiencies are more and the results are promising (and proven, so far) but there are many, many more trials to do to take this to a bigger, wider audience. Maria Shriver’s Alzheimer’s site is also a great source of interviews and info. Read The End of Alzheimer’s then tell someone whose parent(s) have it. The more wisely-sourced information we have, the better.
- INDIE NATURAL BRANDS SELLING OUT TO BIG NON-GREEN BRANDS LIKE UNILEVER. Oh it’s complicated. Pukka Herbs sold out to Unilever last year and my Instagram post is packed with disgusted, disappointed ex Pukka fans. Pukka contacted me and wanted to speak to me about it but nothing could convince me that Unilever was the right new parent. Weird choice. Now Schmidt’s dedodorants is the latest natural brand to join the Unilever family (Schmidts I think is a very boring brand, frankly). Anyway, I posted a comment on Schmidt’s Instagram page and got a very robotic “We are committed to continuing blah blah” reply. I replied to that comment and got another – identical – robotic auto corporate reponse”. Cut and paste, Schmidts social media intern! “We are committed to continuing blah blah” – again. As a side note I think cream natural deodorants suck. And stain clothes. I never buy them. Terrible in summer. OK, I’ve gone off track but there are two sides to a buy out: a) Oh good, this is hopeful? Big giant Unilever is going green! Or (b) Hmm…big not at all green giant pretending to go green eats up small artisan brand whose founder(s) takes the money and runs while assuming they can retain creative control…or takes the money and starts up a new eco brand and round and round we go. My take? AN INDIE “GREEN” BRAND THAT SELLS OUT TO A CORPORATE PARENT COMPANY THAT TESTS ON ANIMALS AND SELLS TOXIC PRODUCTS WORLDWIDE IS OFF MY LIST unless there’s a very convincing argument behind it and the parent company is making genuine steps to go greener (as they know green is the way forward of course). We’re talking two totally different business “ethics” and mission statements that just do not align. Schmidt’s was never on my list but I did love Pukka. (Which has made 2017’s tea quest interesting, I’ll do a post on Pukka alternatives and thanks for all the suggestions on Instagram by the way. Room for a new tea brand with gorgeous branding, if I had the time I’d be working on it!)
- FOREST BATHING. Trees do talk to each other. If you saw the Judi Dench documentary, or have watched the Ted Talk about how trees communicate, they thrive as communities, “communicating” and feeding each other via a clever network of underground roots. And they’ll be in the spotlight this year. We’ll be planting more, learning from them, healing with them. Maybe it’s the comfort of their rooted strength in our unpredictable world. And they’re more like us than we think (or we’re more like them). When leaves fall in autumn, that’s actually a detox. I remember driving up to Malibu after a big fire many years ago. The trees were charred, houses had burned to the ground, it was heartbreaking. Black, sooty, dead. But there, amid the blackness were the brightest, most vital lime green tiny little shoots emerging from all-is-lost charred branches. Resilience!! Trees are my sanctuary in summer, their cooling shade, a break from solar energy for a bit, rest for the eyes out of bright sunlight. Skin-cooling, calm and strong. The whistling of leaves in the breeze, summer’s wind chime. If you only do one thing this year, why not plant a tree (and maybe some blue flowers for the bees?). I think forest bathing will be all over TV and the spa mags year, and the best thing is, there are no rules. Walk, pause, sit for a while, explore, honour nature in the green-ness of summer or the copper carpet of autumn. The Japanese have it down to a fine art.
- AYURVEDA SKINCARE. Ayurvedic brands are winding their way more into the mainstream mainly via the yoga and spa world. And for good reason. The original healing skincare and hair care, now we have brands like SAMAYA AYURVEDA (one of the brightest newcomers), RASASARA SKINFOOD, UMA Oils, SAHAJAN, MAULI RITUALS and SHANKARA – all currently flying the flag for this ancient, originally oral tradition for health and healing that blends two words into its Sanskrit name – “ayus” LIFE + “veda” (SACRED) KNOWLEDGE.
- POWER BERRIES. From Scandinavia’s “liquid gold”, cloudberries (in Eleni and Chris’s products), to all the wild berries in our fields, forest and hedgerows, berries are 2018’s skincare superheroes. And the rarer, the better (from a marketing point of view). Arctic berries will be big. Exotic berries in facial oils from far off lands. I nominate the Wild Harvested Blueberry as the berry of the year (not the paler, juiceless one you find rolling around in plastic packs). I’ve been sprinkling them liberally into smoothies, the frozen ones give off the most delicious, purple juice but they’re very teeth-staining. Best enjoyed through a straw. Purple, like Pantone’s Colour of the Year.
- WILDCRAFTED (v. ORGANIC). Yes, wildcrafted is having a big moment. Arguably the ultimate natural (medicinal) herbs and plants, wildcrafted ingredients grow in the wild, untouched, pristine…in their native habitat (as opposed to cultivated on unpolluted, organic soil on farms, gardens, etc). For me, wildcrafted products really do have a special energy, often harvested according to lunar cycles. Organic is wonderful, too. For some this is splitting hairs but for purists there’s an arguable difference. Organic, natural, wildcrafted…all delicious for us, all good. But you’ll be seeing more “wildcrafted” brands popping up this year. Wildcrafted plants have an amazing vital force and strength because they’re out in nature, in often harsh conditions (e.g. arctic berries – from No. 22!) their resilience is extraordinary and for me, they just feel more healing. More life force, if you like. Wild and wonderful. Just as nature intended.
Actress Anouk Aimee (timeless, stylish and still beautiful now at 85)
#eyelinergoals
Here’s to all the wondrous new discoveries that await all of us over the next 12 months!
See you on Friday 2 March for the
2018 BEAUTY SHORTLIST AWARDS
Lots to share and celebrate soon!
Wishing you a happy and healthy new year.
Keep a light heart and keep it in the day. x