Summer isn’t the most beauty-product-friendly season: The temperature hits somewhere around the mid-90s, and you find most of the stuff you carefully applied just that morning sliding down your face by the afternoon.
Save the heavy foundations and powders for the cooler months, and replace them with mattifying lotions with SPF or, if you must, a tinted moisturizer. Forget the thick, sticky lip colors that your hair gloms onto in the breeze and replace them with something that feels like it’s not even there. Less is more for summer, and though I’m pretty sure I’m alone on this one, the season is miserable enough as it is. . . . Might as well survive it as best as you can.
COVERGIRL OUTLAST LIPSTAIN
Virtually weightless, this affordable, easy-to-find lip color is the ideal summer makeup. If you’re tired of having to reapply your lipstick or lip gloss every half-hour, or, you know, if you’re tired of eating your lipstick or lip gloss every half-hour, lip stains are a great option for some color without looking too done-up. The Outlast Lipstain contains water-based colorants in a variety of shades: from the blush pink of Everbloom Kiss to something I’d stay away from called Cinnamon Smile. The coolest part is the marker-like felt-tip applicator. Available at most major drugstores, $7.29.
DERMALOGICA DAYLIGHT DEFENSE KIT
Dermalogica has always been a favorite skincare line, thanks to their no-artificial-coloring-or-fragrance mantra. Their discussed-in-this-column-previously Oil Free Matte Block with SPF 20 ($45) will make those summer festivals somewhat more bearable—you might have just spent $5 on a bottle of water, but at least you’ll look better than most of the kids around you. And if you still feel the need for a sheer coverup, I know many who swear by their Sheer Tint Moisture with SPF 15, which comes in three shades ($42). Especially useful for summer is Dermalogica’s new Daylight Defense Kit; it lets you take their skin-saving, age-defying products anywhere.The kit contains four travel-size bottles of what your skin needs the most on those summer getaways: Solar Defense Booster with SPF 30, which can be added to any moisturizer or makeup you already have; MultiVitamin BodyBlock with SPF 20, which leaves no greasy feel behind; Solar Shield with SPF 15 for the lips, ears and nose; and, for afterwards, After Sun Repair soothing balm. Available at Dermalogica.com, $35.
SALLY HANSEN COMPLETE SALON MANICURE LACQUER IN HIDDEN TREASURE
During 2010’s New York Fashion Week, designer Tracy Reese unveiled her latest collaboration with drugstore brand Sally Hansen: Hidden Treasure. What’s in the bottle looks like something sold at Claire’s. Hidden Treasure is a glitter top coat, yes, but it’s a new kind of glitter—promise. Instead of specks, hearts or confetti, which look more like an acid-wash pattern on your nails than elementary-school art project, there are flakes in the clear lacquer, reflecting an oil slick of colors—red in this lighting, green in another light, sometimes gold, sometimes purple. Layering the flakes on top of different shades is a fun experiment in itself. Reese chose to send her models down the runway with Hidden Treasure layered over an iridescent black, resulting in a sort of lava-like effect. Also worth noting: Sally Hansen’s entire Complete Salon Manicure line is some of the longest-lasting nail polish I’ve come across yet without a double-digit price. Hidden Treasure is available at most major drugstores . . . if you can find it (The craze hit the Internet hard, resulting in a $50-per-bottle eBay auction. I came across a lone bottle in an otherwise-full display at a Costa Mesa Rite Aid), $7.95.
This column appeared in print as “Fun, Hold the Sun: This summer’s keys to looking good without melllllting.”
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