Beauty
The latest from Beauty on Lifestyle Desires.
What Wegovy is doing to beauty standards
GLP-1 beauty standards are remaking the face women are meant to want, turning rapid weight loss into a polished new aesthetic ideal.
The strange vanity of looking untouched
Men’s makeup in 2026 is being sold as maintenance, not performance, revealing how beauty still makes masculinity easiest to market when it looks invisible.
What peptide lip liners are fixing that old lip pencils never could
Peptide lip liners promise care, but the real upgrade is comfort: softer glide, less drag and a blurrier, easier mouth than old pencils.
The hair-growth aisle loves a false choice
Collagen vs biotin for hair growth sounds like a clean choice, but evidence for healthy readers is thin and the smarter path starts with diagnosis.
Australian beauty is done buying the dream
Australian beauty shoppers are buying for proof, price and trust, not old-school glamour, as routines get tighter and claims face harder scrutiny.
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Winter hair routine mistakes that make dryness feel inevitable
Winter hair routine mistakes show up as rough ends, static and limp roots. These six practical shifts help you wash, dry and style with less damage.
The lipstick drawer remembers Marc Jacobs Beauty
Marc Jacobs Beauty relaunch 2026 arrives first as memory, then as a seven-product prestige test, with Australia still waiting until September.
The beauty mega-merger that just fell apart
Puig and Estée Lauder merger talks ended before a $40 billion tie-up, exposing how brand control still beats size in luxury beauty.
Retinal vs retinol: the difference that actually matters
Retinal needs one fewer conversion step than retinol — and that single step makes a measurable difference. Here's what Australian consumers need to know about choosing the right retinoid.
The reef-safe sunscreen promise is not that simple
Reef-safe sunscreen sounds clear, but in Australia the label is mostly marketing shorthand. Here is what a careful buyer can actually trust.
What red blush says about the face now
Red blush is back because carefully beige skin has begun to feel deadening, and beauty wants warmth, colour and visible life again.
Why men's grooming has started to exhale
The sharp fade is not dead, but 2026's most interesting men's grooming mood looks softer, greyer and much less determined to prove anything.
The beauty swaps that make plastic feel less inevitable
A realistic bathroom-cabinet reset: finish what you own, swap the easy repeat buys first, and get clearer about which empties can actually leave your house responsibly.
The winter skincare swaps worth making early
In about fifteen minutes, you can strip back the parts of your skincare routine that winter punishes and rebuild around gentler cleansing, barrier repair, warm not hot water and daily SPF.
What that mint powder is really for
Green setting powder promises to knock back redness and blur shine, but the mint trend only makes sense if you use it lightly and in the right places.
A month in a $600 LED mask taught me almost nothing
I spent a month inside an LED face mask to find out whether the science holds up to the marketing. Between the $109 Kahlia Skin and the $690 4D Pro, here is what you are actually paying for.
What I keep getting wrong about my niece's skincare drawer
An eleven-year-old's bathroom shelf had a retinol eye cream on it. The Connecticut Attorney General's recent settlement with Sephora is putting warnings on adult-grade actives sold to under-13s. A Melbourne beauty editor on what brand-side complicity looks like and what to give to a tween instead.
Bloom skin, the bottles that worked, and the trends I'm not yet sold on
Glass skin had an eight-year run. Bloom is what came next — hydration that sits in the skin, smaller routine, fewer bottles. The toners that did the work for me, the trends I'm not yet sold on, and what the Refinery29 list won't tell you about K-beauty in 2026.
Inside Australia's Clean Beauty Boom — and the $5.7 Billion Question
Australia's clean beauty market is on track to nearly quadruple by 2034, driven by ingredient-literate Gen Z shoppers and a sharp pivot toward Aussie-owned brands. Where the money is moving — and what it means for what's on your bathroom shelf.
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