In August, Lauren Conrad launched her beauty line, Lauren Conrad Beauty, with just five products. A month later, she’s introducing 26 more products in the makeup, skin-care, and body-care categories. Allure chatted with the entrepreneur to learn more.
You’d be forgiven if you think of Lauren Conrad, the businesswoman, mother, and former reality star, as a Fashion Person. She runs a clothing line, a shoe line, and a kids’ line, to name a few, and longtime fans may remember her televised internship in the Teen Vogue fashion closet. But along the way, Conrad has cultivated her own signature beauty look, which consists of easy breezy makeup and a consistent cat-eye. This summer, she surprised us by channeling that energy into the launch of Lauren Conrad Beauty. She began with five products, released direct-to-consumer from her own website — including a lip gloss formula that’s already won over Allure editors. As of October 9, she’ll expand into Kohl’s with a much longer list of products, including skin care, body care, and color cosmetics.
Conrad has wanted to start her own beauty line for some time, encountering plenty of false starts along the way. “I started the process a couple of times, but I wanted to wait until I could check all my boxes of formulas, packaging, and affordable price point,” she tells Allure. “I’ve worked on this line for two-and-a-half years, but I’ve tried for many years to make it happen.”
One of her priorities, and my personal favorite feature of the line, was the sustainability factor. The packaging is completely recycled and made from post-consumer goods, and the packaging can be recycled whole after use. That sounds like it should be the norm, but so much beauty packaging is made up of mixed materials (say, metal and plastic) that it can be impossible to recycle. But once you finish a tube of LC’s The Lipstick, it can go straight into the recycle bin.
If you stock up on the full line, that recycle bin will eventually be stacked up all the way to the top. The drop includes a whopping 26 products that can take you through an entire beauty and makeup routine. The long product list includes multiple types of facial cleanser, a vitamin C oil, two types of body moisturizers, and much, much more. But when I asked Conrad to narrow it down to her favorite, must-have product, the answer comes quickly: The Liquid Eyeliner (yes, that’s the actual product name — no needlessly florid naming conventions here.)
“Going into this process, I thought the one thing I especially had to get right was the liquid eyeliner,” she says. “It’s one of those products that I’m always seeking out, and I’ve had so much trouble finding the right one over the years, so I really wanted to nail it.”
Out of all the products, the eyeliner took the longest to create, and she only landed on it after much back-and-forth with the lab. “Fortunately, it was a product that we started really early on, so we had a lot of time to play with it.”
The makeup drop also includes powder brush and bronzer, liquid highlighter, a delicate lip and cheek tint that’s perfect for a quick pre-Zoom meeting pop, and the aforementioned Allure favorite lip gloss. There are eight shades of classic lipstick tubes; my favorite is the orange-red Poppy.
The best part of such a wide selection is that it leave the choice up to you. Prefer body cream to body lotion? Conrad’s got you covered. Need a powder blush instead of a creamy cheek tint? Don’t worry, she has both.
“My approach has always been ‘wear the makeup you really love that makes you feel like you’ and ‘use products that you feel good about,'” she says. With a line this comprehensive, we have a feeling there’s something for everyone that meets those criteria with flying colors.
A selection of Lauren Conrad Beauty products is available now on her own site, with the rest launching at Kohl’s on October 9.
