Makeup and skincare brands are completely different lanes on the beauty highway. Not everyone can formulate reliable makeup products in addition to effective skincare worth the price tag. With both of these markets stuffed to the brim with celebrity lines, cheap lookalikes from Aliexpress, Temu and Amazon — and yet another person’s experimental pet project — it’s tough to see how doing both works out in the end.
The hop from makeup to skincare is, usually, easy enough and it’s also often done. Most celebrity lines that have been successful in the beauty space will have an easy time offloading even the most basic cleansers, toners and face mists wrapped in their branding. Think Kylie Skin, Fenty Beauty and r.e.m. beauty. Taking the leap from skincare to makeup? That’s a bit more unusual. At least producing a face mist or lip oil is close enough to makeup that, if the brand already makes a good makeup product, doesn’t seem too far-fetched for them. Going from clinically tested serums to… pigments? Somehow it seems like a bigger leap. It’s not just going on before bed. It’s going on during the day or out to a party. And it better stay.
From skincare-worthy foundations to lip treatments with serious moisture, we’ve compiled a list of the recent makeup launches from beauty brands that we love.
Rhode’s Pocket Blush and Cinnamon Lip Tint
Always on the cutting edge of cool girls who take mirror selfies, Haley Beiber’s brand is already popular for its peptide lip treatment — and the viral phone case it can be carried in. Not to mention the brand also scored an Allure Beauty award for its Glazing Milk. This past June, she launched Pocket Blush, an on-the-go blush stick with a creamy finish. It comes in a range of natural flushes from baby pink to coral to mauve.
The color is buildable and gives the wearer an organic glow — like if that cute barista just gave you a compliment along with your matcha latte.
The lip tints are older news — they came out in 2023 — but the newest hue is in celebration of Haley’s birthday on November 22nd. It’s a reference to her famed (and highly gatekept) recipe for cinnamon rolls. The lip tint will be a brown shimmer gloss with that oh-so-yummy cinnamon scent.
Summer Fridays Hot Chocolate Lip Butter Balm
Summer Fridays has already seen some success with their Sheer Skin Tints. It won at the Cosmopolitan Clean Beauty Awards and picked up a R29 Beauty Innovator Award for the hyaluronic acid and squalane-infused tint. Like Rhode, Summer Fridays has a beloved hero product in its lip moisturizer: the Lip Butter Balm.
Most lip care products will come in either a sheer, shadeless tone or some range of pinky neutrals. Summer Fridays mixes it up by offering neutral shades in a more skin-toned range. Of course, you can still get your paws on this formula in coral, poppy red, or a baby pink. Even better, you can grab their newest launch that’s extra early for the holiday season: Hot Chocolate Lip Butter Balm. Just saying it already makes us feel warmer.
A true brown shade, this Lip Butter has the delicious and creamy scent of melted chocolate — the kind you’d smell coming in from the cold and handed a hot mug of comfort. It’s just the thing to layer on the lips at the ski lodge, before braving the winter chill, or going to a cozy new spot with the girls.
Tata Harper Lip Crème
Green, clean and long on the scene, Tata Harper has been a staple in the skincare game for over a decade now. Her cleansers, moisturizers and masks have been recommended time and time again in interviews with stars, influencer shelves and on skincare forums. She ventured into the makeup realm with, you guessed it, a cream blush and a moisturizing lip product.
Her Lip Crème launched this June 8th 2023 with four shades and one bare formula for those who don’t want any color. It’s buttery smooth and comes in the luxury packaging that tata is well-known for. Like all of Tata Harper’s products, it leans on natural ingredients to rejuvenate and leaves a shiny, clean-girl finish.
La Mer The Soft Fluid Long Wear Foundation
Best known for its ridiculously high price tags and $100 face cream (not to mention the nearly $300 night cream), La Mer officially joined the makeup game in 2016 with foundation and face powder. The Soft Fluid Long Wear Foundation also contains 20 SPF and has 15 shades, from light to deep. It also claims to be sweat and humidity-resistant, which will come in handy if you think too hard about the $150 price tag. What is that, $5 per milliliter? Their outrageous prices even beat out some luxury fashion houses’ beauty lines.
Ole Henriksen’s Banana Bright+ Vitamin CC Stick
The Danish skincare king’s brand has long been known for its Truth Serum and Banana Bright Eye Cream. Many people claim to see pretty immediate results and are repeat buyers.
After the popularity of their Banana Bright Eye Cream, Ole Henriksen brought the people what they wanted: an on-the-go stick version. Not only does it contain two forms of Vitamin C that are known to have better stability (read: it lasts longer and blocks pollution more effectively), but it color-corrects as well as moisturizes, so you can use it as your prep for concealer or foundation.
Like Ole Henriksen’s other products, it has a fast-acting glow. That’s due to the mineral additives that have a subtle shine. So, when you sweep it on… poof! There’s the glow.
Can Skincare Brands Have It All?
Makeup brands have made the transition to skincare much easier than the other way around, but these products go to show that if you offer what you know and do well already, your makeup has a fighting chance. Successful skincare brands inch their way into makeup with products that can double as skincare or that have that extra something – moisturization, suncare, or anti-aging properties – to push it along. At the very least, launching a lip product will probably do the trick.
