August has that specific energy where everyone’s pretending they’re not thinking about autumn yet, and some of our favourite beauty brands seem to be leaning into it – a mix of last-hurrah summer products and some highly protective skincare you actually settle into once the weather turns. There’s a proper spread this month too, from a collector’s-instinct celebrity collaboration to two very different takes on solving the same old vitamin C problem.
Here are some of the ultimate fav products that landed on our desk recently and we would totally recommend.
REHAB Sunshine Spritz
We’re suckers for anything that smells like late afternoons at the beach, sandy toes and an Aperol spritz in hand. This new REHAB’s Sunshine Spritz range transports us to that exact dreamy place with a unique scent of coconut, magnolia, sea salt and sandalwood that’s present in all the new products. Even the hair oil smells like the mist smells like the tan drops.
But this range isn’t just riding on the smell: there’s a water-resistant SPF, tan drops that use naturally derived DHA and skincare ingredients, and an hair oil that comes pre-measured in capsules, which solves the one problem we have with basically every other hair oil on the market – using far too much of it. We might be nearing the end of summer but there’s no reason not to prolong happy memories and beautiful sun-kissed skin. Some of the products include:
- Sunshine Spritz + Protect Hair And Body Glow Mist SPF 30, £25 – with a hyaluronic matrix and meadowfoam oil for hydration and a soft shimmer finish. It’s also sweat and water resistant.
- Sunshine Spritz Beach Wave Spray, £22 – using sunflower seed extract and an amino acid blend for extra softness.
- Sunshine Spritz Golden Tan Drops, £22 – a serum-first self-tan with naturally derived DHA sits alongside hyaluronic acid and Mediterranean fig extract
- Sunshine Spritz UV Protection Hair Oil, £26 – we’re fans of the pre-measured capsule format here specifically because hair oil is so easy to overdo (and impossible to reverse!)
Marilyn Monroe x Lisa Eldridge Collection
It’s not just diamonds that are a girl’s best friend… make-up is, too – and Lisa Eldridge’s stunning new Marilyn Monroe collection is definitely BFF material. Lisa Eldridge herself has spent decades collecting vintage makeup, and drew on that archive – including a lipstick shade that once belonged to Marilyn Monroe – for this collection, made in collaboration with the Marilyn Monroe Estate to mark the centenary of Marilyn’s birth.
She cross-referenced the shades in her collection against old interviews and magazine articles, working with pigment historians to match what Marilyn actually wore. The collection focuses on 1957, off-duty Marilyn instead of the red-carpet version – hair blowing about in the wind at a rented house in the Hamptons. The enchanting collection includes:
Elevated Glow Balm Concentrate, £27 – a hot-poured highlighter balm in two shades – Butterfly Light, a pearly champagne, and High-Key Light, a warm bronze- that recreate the natural glowMarilyn was famous for.
Norma Jeane Rouge Experience Refillable Lipstick, £49 – a vibrant red-orange creme lipstick lifted from a shade that belonged to Marilyn and sat in Eldridge’s own vintage collection for years. Comes with a fully recyclable refill.
Strawberry Blonde Velveteen Liquid Lip Colour, £21 – a true scarlet liquid lip colour that builds from a soft strawberry stain to a full-coverage red, depending on how much you layer. It’s absolutely stunning.
Lisa Eldridge x Marilyn Monroe Deluxe Makeup Collection, £240 – that’s true, you can also get the full edit in one limited-edition box, wrapped around Eldridge’s favourite Sam Shaw photographs of Marilyn – a beautiful keepsake as much as a makeup set.
MERIT Clean Volume Mascara
MERIT has an unmatched level of all-time class – and the products are not only tasteful and wearable, but impressively high-quality. So when there’s a new launch from the brand – we’re tuned in. Clean Lash, the OG and deeply loved single tubing mascara, is getting a younger sister.
Clean Volume is the buildable, volumising sibling – a petite brush designed to catch even the shortest lashes, paired with the same Lash Wrap Formula – developed in Japan with shea butter, plant waxes and tubing film formers – that made the original Clean Lash such a standout. It delivers on the promise of a tubing mascara, building impressive volume without becoming flaky or brittle by the afternoon, while still rinsing away with nothing more than warm water at the end of the day. No vigorous scrubbing needed. It’s available in Black and Brown for £24.
Trilogy Pop Boosters
Trilogy is best known for the Certified Organic Rosehip Oil that’s been a cult favourite since the brand launched – so we weren’t expecting a Vitamin C serum trio but hey, all the best things come in threes! Vitamin C is famously unstable once it’s exposed to air, which is why so many serums promising “fresh” formulas are really just silently losing potency in the bottle by the time you get round to using them.
Trilogy’s fix is sealing the Vitamin C inside the cap itself, so it stays untouched until the moment you pop it, shake it into the base serum and apply. We appreciate that it’s honest about being a short-term treatment too – a 2-4 week course – and that there are three versions depending on what’s actually bothering you: dullness, slack skin, or dehydration. Here’s a little more about the products:
Vitamin C+ Booster (The One For Glow), £38.50 – Trilogy’s strongest vitamin C treatment at 15%, with ferulic acid, vitamin E, rosehip oil and hyaluronic acid
Pro-Collagen+ Booster (The One For Firming), £38.50 – 6% Vitamin C alongside collagen amino acids, a rose bioactive and a retinol-like peptide
Polyglutamic+ Booster (The One For Hydration), £38.50 – The gentlest of the three at 2% Vitamin C, with polyglutamic acid and multi-weight hyaluronic acid, aloe vera and a prebiotic microalgae
ALASTIN C-Radical Defense Antioxidant Serum
We’ve been done wrong by vitamin C serums before – the kind that brighten skin beautifully for six months and then start working against the firmness you were also trying to protect. That’s the trade-off with traditional L-ascorbic acid: great for glow, not so great for elastin over time.
ALASTIN’s C-Radical Defense uses an encapsulated Sodium Ascorbate instead, delivered via a liposome system, alongside 14 other antioxidants including lactoferrin, ergothioneine and pomegranate extract. In ex vivo testing it’s shown to cut the effects of free radicals by up to 74%, with clinical studies showing visible improvements in texture, tone and fine lines from eight weeks in. It’s non-tacky and scent-free, so it layers easily under other products, and it carries the kind of clinical backing you’d expect from anything with Galderma behind it.
We can’t sidestep it – £165 is a serious splurge, but you’re paying for results, and you’ll have it covered if you can forgo your monthly Ivy booking.
Caudalie Hair Density Serum & Density & Volume Shampoo
We didn’t see this one coming from Caudalie, of all brands – thirty-plus years deep into vine-derived skincare, and haircare has never once been on the menu. Until now. The scalp’s basically getting the skincare treatment here: instead of easing in with a shampoo and conditioner combo, Caudalie’s gone straight for hair thinning and density – powered by VineOxyl, a patented active six years in the making, derived from grapeseed oil. A 90-day trial recorded a 53% reduction in hair loss and an 87% increase in hair thickness. Very timely, of course, as scalp health is now an incredibly popular topic. The range includes:
Hair Density Serum – a lightweight, leave-in scalp treatment combining VineOxyl with soothing peptides from organic chia and pea seeds
Density & Volume Shampoo – a sulphate- and silicone-free shampoo that brings VineOxyl into the wash step, developed to add volume