Sunscreen, lip gloss, bronzer: the key beauty products you'll want this summer

These hair and beauty launches have star power you can use. Rachel Marie Walsh reports.

Aim for A-list polish with these star-powered hair and beauty launches. Image: Chanel

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings once said the company’s biggest rival isn’t another streaming platform but the human need for sleep, which suggests an account can hardly be good for your skin. 

Still, there’s no denying the beauty influence of content like Stranger Things. Star Millie Bobby Brown has a makeup line, the cast’s makeup artist Amy L. Forsythe had some applause moments, notable Mrs Wheeler’s electric-blue eye makeup, and MAC launched its Stranger Things colour collection this month. The products bring cast, crew members, and the Upside Down together with creative input from Ms Forsyth and Stranger Things colours and product names.

You must hand it to MAC, whenever you see a boldly coloured lip or extravagant eye on screen — from Promising Young Woman, to Euphoria, and every series of Stranger Things — it's usually one of their products involved.

I think it’s their high-quality colour pigment and long-wearing formulas that do it, and of course, they’ve always listened to jobbing artists. Many of us associate a gooey MAC Lipglass with our first steps in makeup, and the MAC X Stranger Things glosses, €23 at beautybay.com — available in shades like Wild Wheeler fuchsia and Excellent Erica coral — are the most accessible elements of this collection.

MAC X Stranger Things Lipglass in Wild Wheeler

Lending my own ears to makeup professionals, I’ve found Chanel’s bronzers are some of the most consistently mentioned among those with celebrity clients. Most seem to favour the gel-cream formula, but the brand’s ultra-natural looking Les Beiges Oversized Healthy Glow Sunkissed Luminous Powder, €75 at brownthomas.com and new for summer 2022, is sure to be welcomed by tan lovers and the time-poor alike. If you’ve tried the facial palette, you’ll know the brush does a lot of blending work for you and this is also true of the body product’s Kabuki Brush, €49, great at defining contours you have (and sculpting some you don’t, if that’s your thing), though you can certainly use the powder with an applicator you already love.

Les Beiges Oversized Healthy Glow Sunkissed Luminous Powder

Fake tan is the only safe tan and sun protection is my favourite skincare product. It can be tricky to find a formula you like and most of us still don’t apply enough often enough, but when used correctly it does more to protect the skin’s health and longevity than any exotic, celebrity-endorsed serum.

I hold my hands up and say I don’t recognise any of the beauty influencers or TikTok stars that recommend cult K-beauty brand Glow Recipe, but their new niacinamide-rich SPF50 is very nice.

Glow Recipe Watermelon Glow Niacinamide Sunscreen, €35.03 at cultbeauty.com, uses a combination of chemical and mineral sunscreens to protect the skin, as well as a blend of watermelon, aloe, hyaluronic acid, and the ever-popular antioxidant niacinamide, to keep it plump and glowing over time.

Glow Recipe Watermelon Glow Niacinamide Sunscreen

Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty may have had you rolling your eyes at first sight — do we really need another celebrity beauty venture? — but makeup doesn’t take long to assess and the new Positive Light Tinted Moisturiser, €33 at SpaceNK, is a solid effort. It uses classic ingredients like vitamin E and sunflower seed oil, as well as the lesser-used antioxidant pygmy waterlily and the anti-inflammatory lotus flower.

Positive Light Tinted Moisturiser from Rare Beauty

I think she could have skipped the geranium extract (fragrance isn’t skincare and can sensitise the skin over time), and SPF20 isn’t strong enough. However, I suspect the real reason so much of this product has sold out online is the shade range (natural and very inclusive), and the radiant, non-greasy coverage.

You know that professional-looking shine that appears when you’ve subjected your hair to a blow-dry and straightening irons? Chris Appleton, the Kardashians hair guru, teamed up with Color Wow to create a mask that gives you the gleam without scorching a strand or even jeopardising its colour.

Money Masque from Chris Appleton and Color Wow

Money Masque, €44.95 at Millies.ie, sounds a little vulgar and is more than you need to spend on any single haircare product in my view — especially one you’ll rinse out — but if you don’t mind the price and sitting with wet hair for a while it is worth a try. The ingredients list includes strengthening vegetable proteins and blue sea, while Mediterranean kelp and algae work to offer deep conditioning for dry ends.

The formula is a gel-cream conceived for all hair types, and does deliver greater manageability quickly (I used it for the recommended five minutes, though the jar says you can have a half-hour treatment of it if you prefer), as well as some shine.