Juicy Skincare and at-Home Ice Facials: Your Beauty Guide for July

Hit the Med

If you can’t do it for real, do it with products. Jonathan Anderson was channelling our collective wanderlust with the introduction of Paula’s Ibiza eau de toilette for Loewe. In the most delicious bottle – juicy gradations of red, yellow, green glass and a reassuringly clunky acetate sea-blue lid, engraved with the label’s neatly swirled logo – comes the most delicious scent. There are top notes (that first spritz) of coconut water, a green galbanum and Madagascan mandarin; then Honolulu-ripe sand lily and frangipane at the heart, followed by smooth vanilla absolute, Sulawesi patchouli oil and ambergris for a warmed by the sun dry-down. Somehow it’s green and juicy, aquatic and fresh, and warm and ambery all at once – with a slight smokiness. It’s like coming out of the sea and laying under the dappled shade of a beach palm. Glorious.

Diptyque has delved headfirst into Mediterranean-inspired accoutrements meanwhile, offering fig-print kimonos and pyjamas, Venetian murano glass candle-holders, artisanal woven wicker trays and Maiolica-like ceramics. It’s dreamy.

Chill

I think I might have manifested Nicole Caroline’s Facial Ice Spheres. On special occasions (very special), I have resorted to massaging ice cubes into my face – dripping freezing cold water all over myself, and semi-groaning in icicle-fingered agony. With good reason though – the ice shrinks pores, depuffs a hungover jawline and tired eye-bags, tightens, firms and, in fact, lifts everything. It makes you look and feel like your most sparkling, crystal-clear self – and it’s free, apart from the agony bit. So I’ve tried to concoct clever ways around the pain but never put much effort in – when these ice spheres popped up on my Instagram, I breathed an IRL sigh of relief. Not only is the ice easy to handle but it contains a concoction of NC’s peppy powders (there are numerous kinds, chooe from collagen, peptides, vitamin C and more). New to Net-a-Porter as of 5 July, they are going straight in my shopping bag – and forget special occasions, I’m going to be banging these out every time I need to look at someone. 

There are other launches bringing the chill this summer: Dr Jart+’s new Cryo Rubber Moisturising Masks, are cooling while the rubber locks in hydration from the accompanying hyaluronic ampoule to the extreme. RéVive’s zamac Révolve Contouring Massage Roller is also deliciously cooling – especially when kept in the fridge – and the tiny eye-area roller in the base is a genius addition.

Juice

Twilly d’Hermès – a peppery, powdery scent by in-house perfumer Christine Nagel – channels the bubbling femininity of the label’s ubiquitous silk scarves. This month it is renovated for a hot girl summer in Eau Ginger: vibrant peony with sparkling candied ginger and lively cedar wood notes. A spritz of Chantecaille’s Orange Flower Water is refreshing and transformative in equal measure – a truly mesmerising summer night scent, it’s also incredibly good for the skin: it’s soothing, hydrating and toning. Monday Muse wowed with its bestselling vitamin facial oil The Nectar and now new multi-tasking serum, The Juice, follows in its wake. Like most serums this one hydrates but it also calms and clarifies, with prebiotics, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties to help clear the complexion. It’s like a jam-packed green juice for your face.

Get Balmy

I tend to think that balmy weather calls for a balmy lip and have a hunch that the everyday beauty shopper agrees since so many classics have been bestowed with summery tweaks. French pharmacy brand Nuxe follows its iconic honeyed Rêve de Miel balm with this Very Rose edition (out later this month), vanilla-scented and a perfect pink, it’s divine. Fresh has added to its range of best-selling Sugar balms with tropical iterations like Lychee (a glossy peach), Passionfruit and Mango. Then, those clever girls at Summer Fridays have rewritten their cult hit vanilla Lip Butter Balm, in a post-beach beige (also out later this month).

Minimalise

Byredo’s Ben Gorham introduces a collector’s edition of an all-time favourite eau de parfum – Blanche. Designed to evoke the smell and texture of skin (using sandalwood and musk), laundry baskets (musk again?) and fresh sheets (a subtle punch of aldehydes that is almost sugary) – it is to die for, if you like a barely there, lived-in kind of fragrance. In the latest edition it comes ‘undressed’ in a clear bottle, with a white cap, like the cleanest of laundry waters. Instagram-famed brow brand, REFY, models itself on just such an aesthetic. Founded by influencer Jess Hunt, the label’s low-fi packaging comes in shades of starkly branded, greige tubes. The brow kit – coming to Net-a-Porter later this month – including a pencil, a pomade and a sculpt, does exactly the latter, turning one’s brows into a sheer work of bushy, brushed-up art.