Allure, the first and only magazine devoted to beauty, is an insider's guide to a woman's total image. Allure investigates and celebrates beauty and fashion with objectivity and candor, and places appearance in a larger cultural context.
Thirteen years ago, when I was a brand-new mom, I woke up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, fainted in the kitchen, and hit my head on the hardwood floor. My husband came running when he heard the noise. I was out cold, and I passed out again after he tried to get me up. The next thing I remember is shivering in an ambulance as paramedics hooked me up to an IV and covered me with a heavy blanket. Later that morning, at the hospital, the nurse peppered me with questions: Was I taking any medications? Had I ever lost consciousness before? Was I eating properly? When I answered with an unconvincing “Yeah…” to my food situation, she explained that my blood pressure…
2 Number of handkerchiefs—tied together with pink ribbon—that comprised the first modern-day bra. 80 Percentage of women who are wearing the wrong bra size. 1907 The year “brassiere,” derived from the French word for bodice, was first used in an issue of Vogue. (It was shortened to “bra” in the 1930s.) 1968 Year reporter Lindsy Van Gelder coined the term “bra-burning,” in an article covering a protest of the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. (Van Gelder says no bras were actually burned—protesters couldn’t get a fire permit. 38C The best-selling bra size in the U.S., according to a 2018 market research report. $12.5 MILLION Value of the world’s most expensive bra, says Guinness World Records. It was designed by Victoria’s Secret and woven with 1,200 sapphires and one 90-carat…
live in 3-D Sometime between the dawn of civilization and the spring 2019 runway shows, regular eye makeup became decidedly less cool. A simple cat eye is a good look, but a great look harnesses a third dimension, one that jets away from your face and into the visual fields of passersby. (Models at Valentino and Tadashi Shoji, whose eyes were rimmed with Swarovski crystals and paillette-like glitter, respectively, are proof.) So in the spirit of ditching that classic-liner-plus-shadow-plus-mascara formula, why not go even further? Travel north from the lids and drench your brows in any raw material you can find. Change the equation—lash glue times a trip to the craft store equals full-forehead brilliance! You can even venture over to your ears while you’re at it. Nothing’s off-limits anymore.…
When the makers of dating app Bumble introduced Bumble BFF, a setting that invites you to make new friends without bothering to meet them, I said nothing. When they debuted Bumble Bizz, which allows you to network in your Birks and zit cream, I still kept mum. But now Bumble is creating skin care, and I must scream into the void. The products promise to solve emotionally triggered skin issues, a serious concern that, as the medical community has long said, could really use more insight from Silicon Valley dating apps. Bumble claims it made its new serums with input from dermatologists and psychotherapists, and we promise to test them (and report back) when they launch later this year. In the meantime, Sephora exists, and it also has an app.…
The race to create the butteriest body cream has yielded tub upon tub of thick skin salves…and not much variety. Sol de Janeiro’s new Coco Cabana Cream is the antidote to all the slather-y sameness. It feels like a gel-cream, humectant and skin-plumping, plus it’s translucent and fast-absorbing. Though its glycerin base gives it a lighter texture than the brand’s original Brazilian Bum Bum Cream, it’s no less decadent—it has the sugary, salty smell of pipoca doce, the sweet popcorn sold on Rio’s beaches.…
The Repronizer 3DPlus and the Hairbeauron 3DPlus Straight and 3DPlus Curl sound more like weapons from a Marvel comic than hair tools. And indeed, the new devices—a blow-dryer, flatiron, and curling iron, respectively—have a provocative origin story: They’re brought to us by a Japanese tech company that uses quantum physics to improve shininess, reduce frizz, and according to third-party tests, increase moisture levels in hair. That last part sounded bonkers to me, too, until I tried the blow-dryer and curling iron. My bleach-treated hair was noticeably softer and smoother, and a perpetually frayed section along my hairline looked less frazzled. And all of this happened without the help of any prepping or finishing hair stylers. Super, yes, but not without a dark side—each one will set you back $350 (for…
