Tonight marks the official end of New York Fashion Week, which means one thing: it’s time for a trend recap. The S/S '27 season marks a major pivot in beauty trends. You can retire blush and slick back buns—it’s all about eyeliner and partless low ponytails now. The simple, short manicures in 20 shades of nude that dominated most of last year? Well, it’s all about almond-shaped extensions in the boldest color you can imagine now. If 2025/2026 was focused on glass skin and bobs, then 2026/2027 is all about the eyes and mermaid waves.

NYFW beauty trends can often feel a bit unattainable—as much as I love a teased updo or black lipstick, I’m not wearing it to work. But this year’s looks are actually very wearable and incredibly easy to recreate. I’m rounding up my six favorite trends from the week—along with some expert tips on how to get the look and what to use below. Only time will tell whether these trends will carry over into London, Paris, and Milan, but for now, happy scrolling.

Lip Gloss Lids

As a staunch shimmer shadow girl, I’m thrilled to see this trend take off. Here’s the TLDR: take a slightly opalescent shadow—in the color of your choice—and then put a thin film of clear gloss on top. If you’re sensitive to the tacky texture, try using a glitter pot (my favorite is from Bodyography) to achieve a wet look.

Partless Perfection

If one thing was glaringly clear on the runways, it’s that hair parts of any kind are dead. Stylists went to whatever means necessary to hide any sign of a scalp. Some were slicked back; others were teased to a degree that I'm sure made brushing a terrifying experience. Message was received loud and clear: no side parts, no middles parts, no parts at all.

Lots of Liner

Liner is to 2026 what blush was to 2025. Looks ranged from inner corner moments and tightlining to traditional cat eyes. What’s worth noting is the color experimentation: black eyeliner is almost too basic to have real estate in your makeup bag this year. Reach for a gilded shade or a neon hue to switch up your glam for the new season.

Low Ponytails

Beauty Director Hannah Baxter is very much into the low ponytail trend; I personally need a little time to shed my middle-school trauma. It’s a very Olsen twin aesthetic, and with an expertly layered haircut and a chic ponytail cuff, the style has a cool girl vibe. Even Grace Gummer and Shailene Woodley got on board with the look at the 2026 Emmys.

No Mascara Makeup

It’s apparently time to give our lashes a break. Pop on a red lip, a glowy foundation, and give your lashes a good curl before heading out the door. If you can’t get on board with bare eyelashes, take a little Vaseline and brush it on after curling—it’ll help hold the look, even sans mascara.

Almond Nails

Short and square had a good run, but the trend cycle is officially flipping. The longer and pointier, the better. I'll be sticking to press-ons, but if you have strong nails, go forth and conquer with a nail file and and your favorite polish. As for colors? Earth tones are dominating in fall, but don’t be surprised if you start seeing cobalt blues and rich purples.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

A little over an hour ago, I sat in a back conference room, FaceTiming Mariska Hargitay on her way to the airport. Naturally, she had her two Emmys—for her documentary My Mom Jayne—buckled up, like the precious cargo they are, in the seat next to her. For someone who spent the prior day hosting the 78th Annual Primetime Emmys, she looked remarkably well-rested. I can’t help but comment. “I obviously prepped my skin with my Cetaphil. It is just the most moisturizing. No matter what, no matter how tired I am, I put it on, and it plumps everything up,” the Law & Order: SVU star tells me. “It's pretty magical. I’m in a routine with it.”

Hargitay is a woman of her word. In fact, she kicked off yesterday’s hosting prep with said drugstore skincare routine (the Skin Activator Firming Lotion and Body Cream are her favorites), a 7am jacuzzi session, and “a lot” of time in an infrared sauna. But make no mistake, Hargitay started getting ready for the Emmys quite a long time ago. She booked her glam squad for the night—makeup artist Kate Synnott and hairstylist Adir Abergel—after last year’s event. “It felt like my wedding in a way because I had the most extraordinary team and felt so calm because they were on it. We knew that we wanted sort of old Hollywood glam with a little bit of an homage to my mom, but I also wanted it to just be fun and different. From the minute I accepted this invitation, we started planning,” she says.

Such intense prep resulted in the most outfits (and full glam changes) the Emmys has ever seen. I should point out that Hargitay is also the show’s first female host in 15 years. “I loved so many of my looks,” she tells me. “I think one of my favorites was the Yara black dress with the gloves. I loved the opening one—the Sophie Couture mermaid dress. It was so magical twinning with my daughter. The sparkly Dolce was just heaven. I loved them all for different reasons. I felt so good and so comfortable in them.”

The night, per Hargitay, was “exhilarating,” “joyful,” and filled with so many of her favorite people. She had Zendaya and Tom Holland as her front-row cheerleaders. “One of my favorite moments is going out there and watching Zendaya and Tom Holland waving and going, ‘You’re doing amazing.’” Backstage, she caught up with her friends Allison Janney, Noah Wiley, and Jamie Lee Curtis. “I don’t get to see them a lot, so it was really meaningful to me,” she says.

And of course, I couldn’t let this debrief end without inquiring about the fan-favorite (it’s me, I’m the fan) pre-filmed moment with Taylor Swift. “It's hard to pull something like that off and not have it be leaked,” Hargitay tells me. “Taylor was a dream and heaven. I’ve met Olivia Benson [the cat] before, and I think that’s why she was so comfortable with me. She put her paws right on me. Taylor was the perfect detective.”

Good news, though: Hargitay will be back on my TV screen as my actual favorite fictional detective very soon. Law & Order: SVU season 28 premieres on October 8. I’ll be tuning in, and in the meantime, I’m shopping all of Hargitay’s beauty staples and manifesting her hosting the Emmys once again next year.

Shop Mariska Hargitay's Emmys Beauty Routine

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

For the past few years, the slick back bun has been the staple updo of basically every stylish woman on the planet. If you had enough length to slip your locks into a snatched bun, effectively delivering a temporary face lift (and likely a headache as well), then you—plus a pound of gel and an army of flyaway wands—did it. You could wear a slick back to anything from the office to a wedding, and no one would blink twice. Such is the power of an exceptionally sleek updo with zero frizz in sight.

But according to the New York Fashion Week runways, many a street style star, and numerous Hollywood A-listers on the 2026 Emmys red carpet, the ubiquitous bun is facing some competition, in the form of disheveled low ponys and messy, loose updos. Is this a sign that the era of the slicked-back bun is over? Perhaps. I know that I will still turn to a sleek and taut style when I need an elevated hair option for an evening event, but for my everyday life, I'm kinda sorta opening myself up to a less severe look for the fall.

Ahead, three low-maintenance, high-style hair looks I spotted all over fashion week to try out this season, especially if you're hoping to give your hair and scalp a break.

Low, Loose Pony

Once relegated to third, fourth, or even fifth day hair, ponytails have officially stepped out of the shadows and into the spotlight over the last few years. From Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders to the Hollywood elite, it appears that everyone has embraced a snatched, bouncy pony for a statement-making look. But for the fall 2026 season, and into S/S '27, designers, starlets, and the street style crowd have discovered a taste for a far less glamorous—almost humble—style: the low ponytail.

Yes, the idea of tying back your hair in a rush, with a handful of face-framing pieces and the rest nearly tumbling out of whatever closure you had on hand was once best left to the Olsen twins—at least if you wanted to capture any semblance of style. But after combing through pages and pages of street style photos and fashion show wrap-ups, it's clear that the low pony has gained some serious footing in the sartorial realm. I mean, even Grace Gummer, bonafide Hollywood royalty, eschewed the typical red carpet blowout in favor of a barely-there ponytail for the 2026 Emmys.

Disheveled Bun

If you still love a bun hairstyle, I don't blame you. Some days you just need your hair off your neck and not falling all over your shoulders. But if a super tight slick-back gives you a migraine just thinking about it, you're in luck because this season's most stylish bun trend is all about a slightly disheveled look. No need to turn to a wax stick to shellac down those baby hairs—let them fly free for a pretty, Renaissance-style effect.

I'm particularly into the side bun situation at Diotima S/S '27, which saw models with all different hair textures walking the runway with plentiful flyaways escaping their artful updos. I'm considering adding this style to my day three hair inspiration board when I simply can't be bothered to slick back my hair for hours. Bonus points if an accessory is thrown in there, like this chic silk scarf moment I spotted between New York Fashion Week shows. Nothing like a bit of an unexpected accent to accompany your messy bun.

Relaxed Half-Up, Half-Down

A favorite hairstyle of the Biebers and Jenners of the world, the half-up, half-down saw plenty of airtime during NYFW, with many a street style star wearing the look for the New York shows. Like the low, loose ponytail, the hair wasn't gathered with a ton of tension or frizz-eliminating products; rather, the effect felt effortless and devil-may-care in a super refreshing way.

Whether you're sporting braids, waves, curls, or otherwise, letting your natural texture shine is the move for the upcoming season, and honestly, it helps keep the half-up, half-down style from feeling too youthful or grade school-coded. If you need a bit of extra zhuzh to your hair, especially if it's thin or fine, reach for a sea salt spray or texturizer before sectioning it into the top and bottom.

So while I'd wager a guess that a slick back bun will always remain a mainstay in the hairstyling repertoire, I am encouraged to try out some different options for the foreseeable future, especially since I'm desperately trying to minimize hair loss at the moment (the tension of a slick back can lead to traction alopecia!). And honestly, anything that allows me to embrace frizz and flyaways but still feel like the hottest version of myself is just fine by me.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion, and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Though summer and winter are typically the biggest hair transformation seasons, there's much to be said for a fall chop. You don't have to worry about drastic weather situations like keeping your hair off your neck in the sweltering heat or how it will look under a beanie—you just have to think about how you want it to look. Honestly, fall has the best hair days, which is why I'm all about embracing the top haircut trends for autumn.

"For me, 2026 is less about chasing a single haircut and more about a return to individuality," explains Adam Federico, R+Co's Vice President of Technical Education. "We’re seeing recognizable shapes like the bob, the shag, and the pixie, but they’re becoming less prescribed. There’s more freedom and more consideration for natural texture and willingness to embrace imperfection. The strongest hair right now feels designed, but not over-designed."

Ultimately, the haircut conversation in fall 2026 is moving away from perfection and toward a place of intense understanding of you and your hair's individual needs. Hopefully, you'll find a fall 2026 haircut trend you absolutely love—and all the information you need to get the look—below.

Long, Shattered Layers

"We're in an 'I'm here to make a statement with my hair' era," says Shane Talley-Cudal, Salon Owner and Hair Designer at The West Seattle Salon. "People are taking looks that once were [popular] and reimagining them as modern, wearable art. Hair feels more individual and expressive right now—and I love that."

The artist says to think bobs, textured shags, and long, shattered layers when you visit the salon. "Three major trends that'll be trending this fall are the collarbone-grazing slip bob or Italian midi, soft rounded bobs, and longer cuts with voluminous layers," adds Christine Bellemare, co-founder of Maven A Collect on Newbury Street in Boston. "For longer layers, use a volumizing mousse and a large round brush to create movement."

Bobs That Move

"The bob is still having a major moment, but the bigger story is texture and shape at every length. It's about movement, texture, and creating a shape that feels intentional to the person wearing it," Talley-Cudal adds.

This is a look Federico calls The New Bob. "The bob continues to evolve because it’s no longer about one particular shape. I’m interested in maintaining a cut with a strong perimeter and then disrupting the interior and creating softness, separation and movement," he explains. "We’re seeing everything from shorter French and micro bobs to slightly grown-out versions that feel almost accidental. That blend between precision and imperfection is what makes the bob feel relevant again."

Evolved Shags

As we very well know, the shag hasn’t gone anywhere. It has transformed, though. "We’re borrowing its principles, short-to-long layering, movement, separation and freedom, then applying them to everything from longer shapes to bobs, crops and pixie-shag hybrids," says Frederico. "What interests me is referencing the attitude of the late ’70s and early ’80s without recreating a period haircut. It should have the energy of those references, but still belong to the person wearing it today."

People want movement and personality, but they don’t necessarily want to look like they’re wearing a trend. "The modern shag gives you individuality without becoming a costume," he says.

Italian Midi

The mid-length haircut is super wearable no matter where you find yourself in the world—you'll look as cute sipping your spritz in Italy as you do walking through the park back at home. "Apply Color Wow Dream Coat before blow-drying and use a round brush to create a subtle bend," explains Bellemare of the perfect way to up-level the simple cut.

Brand New Bangs

If you already adore your hair length, why not try a new set of bangs? "Wispy, disconnected and side-swept bangs will also be popular for clients wanting a noticeable change without losing length," notes Bellemare. "Fall is the ideal time for a new shape or bangs because the extreme heat and humidity have passed. These cuts offer a fresh reset after a summer of ponytails, sun exposure, and grown-out ends."

Modern Crop

On the opposite end, you might want to completely change up your look. If this is you, why not try a modern crop? "Short hair feels exciting again because we’ve stopped defining it so rigidly. A crop can be beautiful, aggressive, soft, masculine, or feminine, and sometimes all within the same haircut," says Federico. "There’s something transformational about removing hair. After years of long layers, extensions and highly polished finishes, a short haircut can feel incredibly individual and confident."

With today's shorter cuts, the artist is seeing longer fringes, exposed ears, irregular perimeters, and natural texture incorporated into the shape. "For me, it’s less about saying, 'the pixie is back,' and more about the freedom people are finding in cutting the hair and letting the length go," he adds.

Natural Texture

And finally, the biggest fall 2026 haircut trend Federico is seeing isn’t necessarily a haircut at all. "It’s the philosophy," he says. "We’re beginning to work with what the hair naturally wants to do rather than constantly forcing it into a certain style. Waves, curls, bends, cowlicks, and irregularities can all become part of the haircut."

This changes the way your stylist cuts. Instead of designing a haircut that only works after a perfect blow-dry, they can build a shape around the movement that already exists in your hair. "People want hair that feels authentic and, more importantly, hair they can actually live in. There’s a growing appreciation for texture, irregularity and imperfection," he adds.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion, and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Meet the Experts

Katya Suvorova's coming-of-age story speaks volumes about her resilience—and about how broken immigration is in the U.S. In her equally poignant and witty debut memoir, Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter, the writer and activist unpacks her childhood living undocumented in Houston, Texas. A unique story of survival and complicated parent-child relationships, Suvorova explores how she lived precariously alongside her mother, who fought for their safety and citizenship as a Russian mail-order bride.

Suvorova writes about how she distanced herself from her mother (and later wrestled with their estrangement) after she realized the truth about her mother's profession at 17. Before the highly anticipated book hits shelves on September 29, the author has shared an exclusive excerpt with Marie Claire in which she recalls the moment she realized her mother was a mail-order bride and confronted her about it.

Eleventh Grade, 17 Years Old

It’s Houston humid and my skin is boiling off my bones. I hate being outside right now—it feels like you’re stuck in someone’s mouth and they’ve gargled with gasoline. And the worst part is that it’s not even summer yet.

My stepdad says I need to spend the day cleaning the garage. I hate being out here, but I like this chore because my nosiness is sanctioned for the sake of organization.

Halfway through rifling through his stuff I’ve decided my stepdad has never been interesting in his life. This whole four car garage is filled with his shit and all of it sucks. There is a box of Megan McLachlan CDs and posters, another box containing “Most Improved” awards from what looks like a summer camp he went to 100 years ago, and a binder with several emails printed out and put in plastic sleeves of other people giving him kudos at his job. I don’t know what I was hoping to find, but it’s not this garbage.

When I go to put everything on the curb for trash collection, I find a box belonging to Mom. It’s not marked as hers, but I can tell it is because it looks like a family of rats was living inside of it. The lid is torn, there is a weird, peppery smell coming from the opening that I’m sure is probably her Russian witch medicine. Everything Mom owns is disheveled, but it surprises me that she has a box in here, because she usually keeps all her things in her closet behind lock and key. After her last husband had torn and burned her clothes and the family photos, she is vigilant about her things.

I flip open the box, hungrily. There are some tiny Russian horoscope pamphlets, Houston newspapers from the '90s, and a magazine I would recognize anywhere. Mom showed it to me when I was little. I remember it as her modeling catalogue. I was so enthralled with it.

Rose Russians.

“Rose Russians,” I mumble. “Rose Russians?”

I scan the pages.

This does not look like Russian Vogue.

This doesn’t look like a fashion magazine at all.

This catalogue is clogged with women, but they don’t look like they’re advertising clothes. They’re posing in front of beds, in front of houses, up close, on chairs, crossing their legs.

My hands are buzzing as I slide down to the concrete floor of the garage.

I flip to a dog-eared page and find Mom’s face quickly. Her photo takes up a quarter of a page. It’s tiny compared to some of these other women’s photos. There is a smattering of text next to it. I read the words slowly, carefully. I’m looking for a family and eternal love.

My stomach drops.

“Son of a bitch,” I whisper. “She’s a mail-order bride.”

I walk out of the garage, my mind racing, and head to my room. I think back on where I had first seen the catalogue with my mother’s face looking out from the glossy pages. I remember going home to my mom after career day in first grade and asking her what she did for a job. She told me she was a model. She showed me the same magazine I have in my hands now. I didn’t know how to read, so I assumed she was holding the Russian equivalent of Vogue. My mom had always told me she modeled and waitressed in Russia. She had a degree, but she could make more money with her appearance than her brains.

I feel angry, thinking about all the weird details of my life. Details I knew weren’t normal for other kids but were normal for me. My stepdad is so much older than her. We have a huge house. I remember how she had a salary requirement when she was searching for a husband.

I scoff.

I think about Jen’s mom, who is a lawyer. Maritzia’s mom cleans houses, Layla’s mom raised Layla and her siblings.

All my friends have issues with their parents, but they have mothers they can respect.

A chilling feeling emerges in my gut.

I have to be better than my mom. If I’m not better than her, I will end up like her.

Dependent on a man.

I can’t have that life.

I go downstairs, ready to put the magazine back where I found it.

My hand is on the doorknob of the garage when I hear Mom’s bedroom door open.

“Katyusha,” she says. I look around me and realize I don’t have anywhere to hide the magazine. “Are you done cleaning the garage?”

She comes closer to me and her eyes brighten when she notices what’s in my hands.

“Where did you find this?” Mom asks, a crease in her forehead, her tone sharp.

When she asks me this, I realize I am so angry I could explode.

“In the garage, when I was cleaning.”

“I don’t appreciate you going through my stuff,” she says, back.

“You told me you were a model for Coke,” I say, “I didn’t know you were actually a mail-order bride.”

“A what?” she asks, like she is confused.

I point to the magazine. “Mail-order bride. That’s what we call women who sell themselves.” Mom is usually the mean one. Now it’s my turn.

Mom sighs, closing her eyes. I can’t read what she is thinking. I can hardly ever read what she was thinking.

Finally, she says, “Everyone I know was doing it,” in her chopped Russian accent.

I don’t respond.

She adds, gently, “It’s how we got out.”

Mom is wearing a mini skirt and a tight, hot pink, spaghetti-strapped shirt. When I was little, I remember asking her to wear pants and regular-sleeved shirts like my friend Dream’s mom. I always wanted my mom to be the same, and this just proves how different she is. I hate it.

Mom comes closer to me, her face red. I don’t know if she’s angry or if she’s ashamed.

“You could have had a more respectable occupation,” I say. I stand up taller; I feel better than her. More powerful.

“A what?”

“A job. You could have had a regular job. Come here on a worker visa or something.”

I am more American than she is. I’m not as low as she is. I speak in words she doesn’t understand.

“I— You don’t understand how it was back then. Besides, I didn’t marry anyone until later.”

“Who was Joe?” I ask.

Our story is clicking into place for me, and I hate it.

“He helped us cross the border. It was different with him.”

“Did you promise him sex to do it?” I spit the words, aiming them at her.

She looks away. “It’s none of your business,” she responds.

I bite down on my teeth. I want to call her a prostitute. I want to keep pummeling her. I want my words to hurt.

“Why did you tell me you were a model?” I seethed. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“What else did I have?” She shouts, her eyes watery. For a moment I think she is going to slap me. “You came back from school and talked about how everyone had a job for this fucking job fair. What did you want me to say? I show you the magazine. I—I had nothing else.”

I feel deflated. I want a normal mom. A mom who respects herself. An American mom, who wouldn’t be caught dead in a catalog, waiting to be bought.

I want her to be more than a mail-order bride. I want her to stand up for herself, to stand up for me, to not have had to sacrifice everything, including her own daughter.

I want her to be strong. I want to be proud of her. I want her to use her fucking voice instead of this chopped accent that she has, this accent that people label as whorish because she is Eastern European.

I slam the magazine down, leaving it for her.

“You sold me too!” I yell, walking away.

Excerpted from UNGRATEFUL IMMIGRANT DAUGHTER © 2026 by Katya Suvorova. Reprinted with permission from Alcove Press. All rights reserved

I first became a Claire Danes fan after binge-watching Homeland at an alarming pace. So naturally, The Beast in Me, which comes from the same team behind the spy thriller, had me hooked immediately. And with the 2026 Emmys landing smack in the middle of New York Fashion Week, I’m already in full trend-spotting mode. While tonight is technically about television, as a beauty editor, I was mostly waiting to see what Danes would bring glam-wise to the 78th annual Primetime Emmys red carpet.

Danes is nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for her role as Agatha “Aggie” Wiggs, but her beauty look made a case for its own moment on the carpet. For the occasion, Danes wore her blonde bob sleek and straight with a deep side part, tucking one side behind her ear and letting the other sweep across her forehead. The blunt ends landed just above her shoulders.

Her makeup stayed soft, with super-illuminated skin and gorgeous rosy cheeks—pared-down makeup and statement-making hair are a trend I am seeing on this Emmy carpet often. And I have to say, the side part got me. After years of center parts dominating basically everything, I'm loving the little switch-up. Let's not forget to give her sculptural silver gown its flowers, too. Danes looks like she walked straight off a NYFW runway.

Shop the Best Products for Claire Danes’s Glam

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Emmy Rossum's 2026 Emmys hair is my fall inspiration, and in a second, it's going to be yours, too. The Furious actress hit the red carpet for the night's festivities, wearing a gorgeous black dress with scalloped edges and sporting a chic, short baby French manicure design on her nails. Still, her hair and makeup were the star of the show thanks to her glam team: makeup artist Jo Baker and hairstylist Vernon François.

Rossum opted for a monochromatic makeup look for the big evening, with Baker using products from Glossier, Victoria Beckham Beauty, and her eponymous makeup brand to create the simple brown, smoked-out eye as well as the matching blush and lipstick. Francois, known for his mastery of curly and coily hair, had his expertise on full display tonight. Not only were Rossum's tresses full and voluminous, but each curl was meticulously defined, with not even a hint of frizz anywhere. Do you know how hard that is to achieve? Especially in a place as hot and humid as Los Angeles?

While the hair details are still forthcoming, I was able to snoop around on Baker's Instagram to see a few of the products used to get Rossum's look. Keep reading to shop her glam if you want to recreate your own version at home. In the meantime, keep up with MC's coverage of the most glamorous night in television.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Nicole Kidman has been on a serious beauty streak lately. She’s been turning out look after look on the Practical Magic 2 premiere circuit, so I wasn’t exactly surprised to see her keep it going at the Emmys. The actress returned to the 78th annual Primetime Emmy Awards as an executive producer of Apple TV+’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles, wearing a custom white Chanel gown covered in handmade florals. Gorgeous, obviously—but my eyes went straight to the hair.

Kidman wore her blonde hair pulled into a low, intentionally messy bun, with long curtain bangs and a few wispy pieces left loose around her face. And she wasn’t the only one keeping things low on the carpet. Between the buns, ponytails, and other nape-grazing styles I’ve spotted tonight, I’m officially sensing a fall hair trend. After seasons of slicked-back everything, I’m very into seeing things loosen up a little.

Her makeup was equally soft. Kidman went for fresh, bright glam with softly defined eyes, flushed pink cheeks, and a glossy peachy-pink lip that really gave her a youthful-looking glow. Paired with the statement-making floral Chanel gown, the undone hair and fresh makeup complemented the look perfectly.

Shop the Best Products for Nicole Kidman's Low Updo

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

The 78th annual Primetime Emmys are currently underway (in the midst of New York Fashion Week, no less!) and the stars are already storming the red carpet with enough hair and makeup inspiration to last through the rest of the year. Of course, I'm playing beauty police from the comfort of my home, but there is always one star who everyone can unanimously agree never fails to turn a look: Zendaya Coleman, everyone.

Both a nominee and a presenter tonight, the actress had the internet in a frenzy over the weekend when she debuted a gorgeous curled pixie ahead of the award show. Tonight, she is sticking with the short hairstyle, but instead of the playful curls and colorful makeup she sported just 24 hours ago, she's taking a page from Halle Berry's hairstyle book from the 2002 Oscars.

While she did away with the flipped curls from the weekend, Zendaya's hair, courtesy of Coree Moreno, who used the ghd Speed hair dryer and Sculpt flat iron, still had that tousled volume we've all come to know and love from the star. That volume was emphasized even more by the perfectly gelled pieces closer to her hairline and the crown of her head, just like Berry's version when she won an Oscar for her role in Monster's Ball. A razor-sharp brow served as a gorgeous complement to a sultry, lash-forward eyeshadow look, which gave way to a bronzy-pink blush and a neutral lip. A milky, almond-shaped manicure completed the beauty details and allowed her dress (which is dripping in jewels, mind you) to really be the star of the show. In short? She looks tanned, is dripping in jewels, and still appears to have that newlywed glow from her marriage to longtime partner, Tom Holland, earlier this year.

The two-time winner is hoping for a third trophy this evening for her portrayal of Rue Bennet in the hit HBO series Euphoria. Until then, all we know for sure is that she will also be presenting tonight, so if we're lucky, we may get another head-turning beauty and fashion moment from that star before the festivities are over. All of Zendaya's exact beauty details are still forthcoming, but keep scrolling for the exact hair tools used, as well as a few other products that can help you to achieve her glam.

Shop Zendaya's Emmys Glam

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

I see a lot of bobs in my line of work, but Lukita Maxwell’s might be the one that convinces everyone—and even me, a long-hair-til-I-die girl—to finally go short this fall. Maxwell, who plays Alice on Apple TV+’s Shrinking, arrived at the 78th annual Primetime Emmy Awards with an ultra-short, cheekbone-grazing baby bob—and suddenly, all the longer versions we’ve been seeing during the bob-assiance feel a little less exciting.

The cut is obviously tiny, but I’m even more into the way she styled it. Maxwell’s glossy brunette hair is parted down the middle, with the ends kicked outward in soft, flippy bends around her face. There’s something a little retro about it without making it feel like it has to be worn only at a special event, and the shape keeps such a short cut from looking too severe. It’s also fairly easy to recreate: a small round brush or flat iron can give the ends that same flick, while the rest of the hair stays smooth and shiny.

Her makeup stayed much softer, with airbrushed skin, rosy cheeks, and wispy lashes. Then there was the dress: a huge, cupcake-y gold gown with layers of sculptural volume that looked incredibly elegant without leaning into costume territory. Against something that dramatic, the tiny flippy bob felt like exactly the right move—it kept the whole look from veering too princess-y.

For me, though, the hair is the whole story. If the bob has been getting progressively shorter for the past few seasons, Maxwell just took it to its logical next step for fall and winter 2026.

Shop the Best Products to Recreate Lukita Maxwell’s Baby Bob

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

It's definitely not Mariska Hargitay's first time at the Emmys. She's been nominated 12 times. She won for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Olivia Benson in Law & Order: SVU circa 2006, and again in 2017 for her directing work in I Am Evidence. But the 2026 Primetime Emmy Awards, taking place a decade later, are a Big One for the actress. Not only did she already win two Emmys tonight for My Mom Jane, but she's also the host. And, she is the first female host in 15 years, I might add.

While I'm confident that she will do an A+++ job (supposedly Stephen Colbert's writing team helped her prep), I'm going to spend the little bit of time leading up to the show by doing a deep dive into her glam for the evening.

Here's what I know: she teamed up with makeup artist Kate Synott for the big night. Her skin was prepped exclusively with Cetaphil products, proving once again that drugstore staples can help you achieve a very luxe-looking glow. Her makeup—from foundation to mascara—is courtesy of It Cosmetics. She's playing in the peachy -nude family (at least for her first look) and is reminding me exactly why I should never forget to tightline. I'll be restocking the Superhero No-Tug Eyeliner ASAP.

As for her hair? It's looking particularly thick and voluminous courtesy of the genius that is Adir Abergel and Virtue hair products. After proper prep, he whipped out a GHD flat iron to achieve the most gorgeous mermaid waves, which I suspect will be a huge fall hair trend.

Below, shop the exact products used to get this look.

Shop Mariska's Look

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

There's nothing quite like the charm and chaos that come with the 78th annual Primetime Emmys happening right in the middle of New York Fashion Week. It's been perhaps the busiest week for spotting new beauty trends—sunglass nails at Diane von Furstenberg and petal lips on the street style circuit. And now that the red carpet is in full effect, my eyes are scanning for every possible fall beauty trend poised to take over in the next four to 12 weeks.

So far, it's looking like color is having a moment, hair is getting longer (dare I say the bob era is on its way out?), and nails are getting richer—earth tones all the way. It's a chic group in attendance tonight, and frankly, I wouldn't expect anything less than what they've been serving.

To get the full breakdown on the best 2026 Emmys beauty looks—along with product breakdowns and tips and tricks straight from the pros—read ahead.

Ciara Miller

Deep side part? Incredible. Smoky eye? Also love. But it's the Love Island Aftersun host's manicure that caught my attention. I haven't seen a traditional French manicure like this in a hot minute—and I'm very here for it.

Supriya Ganesh

I know the night is young, but I'm calling it: this is my favorite look of the night. The center part paired with the crimped waves is a hairstyle straight out of Aquamarine. If you need me, I'll be digging in my back cabinets to fish out my crimper.

Abby Elliot

Beauty Director Hannah Baxter spotted petal lips as a big makeup trend during NYFW, and it looks like The Bear actress is co-signing the look. The key? Find a blurring, matte lipstick and dab off the excess with a tissue.

Lisa Rinna

While I'll certainly miss having Rinna on my Traitors screen, I'm thrilled to be getting my fix of RHOBH star tonight. The pixie cut queen is giving her classic style a little twist tonight. Rather than her normal spiky style, she's fully committed to a slicked-back, side-part.

Grace Gummer

Love it or hate it, low ponytails are very much back. Although, admittedly much cooler than the Founding Fathers-esque vibe I wore throughout middle school. Just look to Gummer, Meryl Streep's daughter and Love Story actress, for proof.

Shabana Azeez

Curious how The Pitt actress got this good of a glow? She worked with makeup artist Aimee Twist, who prepped her skin with Icon Skincare. My favorite product from the brand is the Heritage Cream—it gives an incredible glow.

Carrie Coon

 The nominee for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series wanted to keep her look “ youthful, fresh, and modern to balance the structural look of the dress and show her beautiful skin and large, expressive eyes,” per celebrity makeup artist Rebecca Restrepo. To execute the laidback glam, Restrepo used the ZIIP Halo and Beau Domaine for skin prep.

Mariska Hargitay

The host for the night went with beachy waves and glowing skin, courtesy of Cetaphil (love a drugstore find!) and It Cosmetics.

Zendaya

The '90s lip liner! The pixie cut! The thin eyebrows! I have no notes. This is a 10/10. And honestly, I'd expect nothing less.

Quinta Brunson

Makeup artist Rebekah Aladdin teamed up with Aveeno to tackle Brunson's skin prep—and clearly it paid off. The Abbott Elementary actress looked absolutely radiant with very glowy skin and gorgeous mermaid waves.

If you’re new here, let it be known: I have super fine hair. One of my beauty editor missions is finding the shampoos, conditioners, dry texturizers, and styling products that provide max volume because if you’re also part of the Fine Hair Club, well, you know that lift and body are hard to come by. My routine is down to a pretty solid science, but I’m always game to improve. When I heard that Drybar (which makes one of my favorite hot tools, FYI) was coming out with a new blow dryer—the Buttercup Pro—that could amp up volume, add shine, and cut frizz, my ears perked up a bit.

Here’s the deal: the blow dryer is the first of its kind to let users choose the ion level, from 1 to 3. For a little context, high ions are typically positive—they boost shine and cut frizz. But they also flatten the cuticle in the process, and when you have fine hair, that’s less than ideal. Having the flexibility to turn the ions to the lowest level when I’m blasting my roots with heat and then up again when I’m polishing off my blowout throughout the mid-shaft to ends is a gorgeous recipe for voluminous, shiny hair—and one I haven’t been able to replicate with other blow dryers.

“The best hair dryer is one that doesn't ask you to work harder for better hair. Buttercup PRO remembers how you like to style, adjusts to your hair, and protects it while it works,” says Amanda Knappman, the General Manager of Drybar. “You get effortless control of your blowout, and your hair health is never the trade-off.” She’s onto something.

For my full, honest review of the new hot tool, keep reading.

What Features Does the Drybar Buttercup Pro Have?

I’ve tried dozens of blow dryers. My tops: the T3 Travel BlowDryer (it lives in my carry-on), the Dyson AirWrap (for when I’m looking for easy styling), and now, this guy. It’s the one I’ll reach for when I actually plan on taking my time with a blowout. I’ll always grab my Dyson Airwrap when I’m in a rush or want something that requires zero technique, but this new launch is my new go-to for big events, special occasions, or just when I want to guarantee a good hair day.

There are three big features that set this apart. The first: it remembers your preferred settings for each attachment and will automatically set to your last-used heat, ion output, and airflow preference. The second: it alternates between hot and cold temperatures, which help your hair retain moisture. The third (and my favorite): the ion selection isn’t just on or off. You can select between three levels to customize volume and shine.

How Do I Use the Drybar Buttercup Pro?

Obviously, the best settings will depend on your goals and hair type. Personally, though, I like to turn the ion setting down to one and the airflow and heat on high while I do a rough dry, making sure to pay extra attention to my roots. Once my hair is about 85 percent dry, I pop on the concentrator, grab my round brush, and split my hair into three different layers. I keep the settings the same and really focus on getting each section of hair almost entirely dry. To finish it off, I turn the ion level up and the heat down. I go over my mid-shafts to ends with this combo to add shine back to my hair and help the blowout set with cool air.

Is the Drybar Buttercup Pro Worth It?

At $229, it’s definitely an investment. It’s slightly cheaper than luxe competitors like Dyson and ghd, but it certainly falls in the luxury sector. That being said, it’s well worth the price. It will also last 10 times as long as standard blow dryers. So, while you might have to replace your $30 blow dryer every year, this baby will stand the test of time. It’s also travel-friendly, works with a converter, and folds up nicely into a suitcase.

I’ve noticed such a big difference in how my blowout turns out since I started using this. I have so much more volume—and it actually lasts throughout the day. I normally feel like I have to sacrifice shine for volume (dry texturizers and dry shampoos can leave a bit of dullness behind), but this lets me achieve both at the same time. That’s the definition of a win-win hair tool in my book.

Shop More Drybar Products I Love

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

In this author-curated rendition, R.F. Kuang—the scholar and best-selling author behind Babel, Katabasis, and Yellowface—shares which novels about language-learning inspired her seventh novel, Taipei Story.

R.F. Kuang’s fascination with language has made her a literary superstar. Her bestselling works—from historical epics with complex magic systems to a biting contemporary satire of the publishing industry—explore the ways words can be warped and co-opted in search of power, fame, and influence. For her latest release, Kuang turned to a place that can strike fear in the heart of any linguaphile: the immersion classroom.

Taipei Story, Kuang’s first contemporary coming-of-age novel, follows Yale student Lily through her summer attending an intensive Chinese-language program in Taiwan. The first half of the book is a travelogue of fumbling miscommunications inside and outside of the classroom, as Lily navigates inscrutable teachers, roommate woes, and that diasporic dissonance of feeling like an outsider in her ancestral homeland. In a way, the fictional Lily is walking in her creator’s footsteps; to write the novel, Kuang pulled from her own study-abroad era in the summer of 2023.

“While I went to many of the same places and did many of the same activities as Lily did, her reactions and interpretations are wholly invented,” Kuang tells Marie Claire. “I wanted to explore loss and alienation from the perspective of someone much younger and worse equipped to deal with it all.”

Though Kuang is best known for revitalizing the “dark academia” novel, with its innately gifted protagonists, the Cambridge, Oxford, and soon-to-be Yale graduate embraced the natural conflict that misapprehension brings for her latest novel. “You don’t speak the language. You keep blundering and violating cultural norms,” she describes. “You don’t know the right way to interpret anything you’re witnessing. All of that friction is hilarious.”

Kuang counts these types of novels, ones that explore the gap between intention and comprehension that foreign-language speakers face, among her biggest literary influences. The big question of Taipei Story is whether Lily will ever cross that chasm. When her grandfather passes away in the middle of her program—as Kuang’s did in real life—she has to parse through her family’s unspoken history without the complete fluency she’d been chasing. The lesson that comes from this struggle is one that Kuang would give to her young self today.

“Miscommunication is inevitable, and so is falling flat on your face,” she says. “The only way to get better at a language is to make mistakes over and over again, so just put yourself out on a limb and learn to laugh at yourself.”

To coincide with the release of her highly anticipated new book on September 8, we asked the author to share the books about miscommunication among language-learners that inspired Taipei Story, from globetrotting fiction to campus novels.

Well, folks, Labor Day has come and gone, and apparently, so has my interest in bright summer nail colors. After spending the past week in Stockholm, I’m taking a few style cues from the Swedes. These women know how to dress, and somewhere between admiring their Toteme trenches and mentally budgeting for an Acne Studios scarf, I started reconsidering my next nail color as I caught flashes of their impeccibly manicured nails. My usual summer red will always have a place, but right now, I want something a little earthier.

Conveniently, this week’s best nail looks leave me with plenty of ideas. Chocolate brown gets a sliver of pink, while olive green has me ordering my next manicure dirty, with extra olives. And if you prefer your mani with a little more going on, wait until you see the marbled set. I’d happily have that exact pattern installed as my kitchen countertops.

There’s still some shine in the mix, too. A glossy jade manicure is keeping my chrome obsession alive well into the fall so don’t put away the powder just yet. Ahead, the nail looks I’m saving for my next appointment—and probably the one after that, too.

Mint Condition

You might have to zoom in to appreciate the tiny gold detail on these olive French tips, but that minimalistic touch is so chic. Against a sheer base, the color is subtle enough for anyone who usually refuses to venture beyond a nude manicure. Consider this your gentle nudge.

Chocolate-Dipped

Apparently, my favorite ice cream order also makes an excellent manicure. The glossy chocolate base leaves just a sliver of strawberry pink peeking out around the cuticle, and I love how the two shades look together on short nails. Neapolitan fans, you know what to do.

Extra Dirty

I’ve had my fill of matcha manicures for the moment. Next drink order? A dirty martini, courtesy of Selena Gomez, who wore this olive shade with help from her go-to nail artist, Tom Bachik.

Leather Weather

This is the nail equivalent of the brown leather bag you pull out every September and carry until spring. No nail art necessary; the rich color and glossy finish do plenty on their own. I love the short, softly squared shape, too.

Jade Glaze

Just when I think I’ve exhausted my interest in glazed nails, Zola Ganzorigt gives me another reason to ask for chrome. This pale jade set has an almost pearly finish, and it's stunning in all lights. If you’re still easing into fall colors, there’s no need to go straight to espresso.

Stone Cold

Someone get me the name of this countertop. The smoky brown veining over a milky base looks remarkably like polished stone, especially alongside those solid charcoal nails.

Foiled

A moment for silver, which I’m increasingly inclined to treat as a neutral this season. These short chrome nails look especially good piled up with jewelry, and I see no reason to choose between silver and gold. Wear both.

French Gone Feral

For anyone who read “earthy” and worried I was about to prescribe eight plain brown manicures: absolutely not. These animal print French tips have plenty of attitude, with a sheer pink base that leaves room to appreciate all the detail.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Growing up, I never gave much thought to my electrolyte intake. A Gatorade after soccer practice? Lemon Lime, please. But the category as a whole was pretty limited. In the past couple of months, though, the industry has exploded—and frankly, rebranded. Electrolytes are now less about supplementation when you're sick or a professional athlete. Instead, it’s a category that’s infiltrated the wellness sector. According to Fortune Business Insights, the market is expected to grow significantly, reaching upwards of $77 billion to $82 billion by the mid-2030s.

There are wellness-forward options from brands like Thorne, which specializes in supplements. Hangover-targeted ones from Waterboy and Liquid IV. There are even more functional electrolytes that are fortified with magnesium, calcium, and chloride. Some are advertised as beneficial for combating GLP-1-related nausea or for helping you acclimate to altitude changes. Basically, there’s an electrolyte for everyone and every concern. But do you need to take them? That’s where the marketing can be a bit confusing.

Electrolytes, at their core, are there to correct a fluid imbalance, not as a daily dietary supplement. “Anyone who is regularly participating in intense physical exercise or those who tend to sweat heavily will have higher rates of electrolyte loss and will benefit from maintaining appropriate electrolyte levels and adequate fluid balance,” says Frank DiLorenzo, the VP of Product Development at Nutrabolt.

So while you may not need them all the time, electrolytes are a nice option to have as a part of your overall wellness routine. I’ve tried my fair share over the past year, looking for an option that makes me feel good and doesn’t taste too salty. Shop my favorites, ahead.

• The Best Electrolytes With Caffeine: C4 Performance Hydration Drink Mix
• The Best Electrolyte Packets: Thorne Daily Electrolytes, Electrolyte Powder Drink Mix
• The Best Electrolytes for a Hangover: Waterboy Weekend Recovery
• The Best Sugar-Free Electrolytes: Liquid I.V. Sugar-Free Hydration Electrolytes
• The Best Electrolytes for Working Out: LMNT Variety Pack
• The Best Electrolytes for Hormone Health: Iris Women's Hormonal Health Daily Electrolyte Mix

Best Electrolytes With Caffeine

Best Electrolyte Packets

Best Electrolytes for a Hangover

Best Sugar-Free Electrolytes

Best Electrolytes for Working Out

Best Electrolytes for Hormone Health

What Should I Look For When Choosing an Electrolyte Drink?

It really depends on your specific routine and needs. “People should look for products that contain appropriate amounts of sodium and potassium for the types of activity they're engaging in or those that would be complementary to support gaps in their existing diet,” says DiLorenzo. “Depending on the individual and their fitness objectives, they may want to avoid products that contain high levels of sugar, especially if the quantity is excessive for their training or activity levels.” If you have any questions about which product is best for you, consult with your physician.

Can I Drink Too Many Electrolytes?

“Yes, you can always consume too much of anything and electrolytes are no different. Electrolytes are part of maintaining proper fluid balance but individuals should still be consuming sufficient levels of water to maintain proper hydration,” says DiLorenzo. Most of the time, electrolytes can accompany a workout, but be cautious of drinking them everyday—too much sodium can be harmful to the kidneys.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Meet the Expert

Henry Zankov made his debut as the creative director of Diane Von Furstenberg at New York Fashion Week S/S '27, and with it came the obvious wrap dresses, flowing fabrics, and gorgeous prints (lots of leopard!). But it also brought an unanticipated, but very fabulous manicure selection. Editorial nail artist Miss Pop is the genius behind what she’s dubbed the “sunglass nail trend,” and mark my words, it’s about to be one of the biggest fall looks for the fashion crowd.

It's a bit on the nose, but the whole idea is that nail polish is akin to sunglasses—slightly tinted, half-sheer, and the finishing touch to any fabulous outfit. “With the glass nail trend taking over, we wanted to give it a more sheer, modern twist,” says Miss Pop, who was in charge of ideating manicures for the show. “It’s effortlessly cool, like your favorite pair of sunglasses.”

Her inspiration came primarily from the collection's color palette. Think: rich browns, striking greens, and sheer fabrics. But the colors have less to do with the trend than the application. You really need two key components: a slightly sheer polish and a high-shine top coat. For this particular show, though, Miss Pop used the Essie Special Effects line, which is a range of holographic, duochrome, and light-reflecting pigments.

If you’re trying to recreate the look at home, it’s honestly pretty easy and can be accomplished in just two to three simple coats. To start, use just one layer of polish—this will ensure that your polish is slightly sheer and jelly-like. If you’re attempting to create a multi-dimensional shade, consider layering a complementary shade on top.

Then, the most important step is a high-shine top coat that delivers an uber-glassy finish. “If a cat eye nail is a shooting star, a glass nail is the Northern Lights,” Miss Pop previously told MC. “It has a ton more depth, thanks to the added glass-like gloss on the nail.”

Want to recreate the look at home? Shop the exact nail polish shades from the DVF show, ahead.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Meet the Expert

I’ll be honest: I’m not big on crazy nail trends. I love the funky patterns like polka dot nails and mermaid finishes from afar, but they feel a little too experimental on my own fingers. I’m a year-round Bubble Bath wearer, and the extent of my experimentation is a navy or wine in the dead of winter. But this September, the biggest nail trends are shockingly wearable. So wearable, that I actually think I’ll switch things up at my next manicure appointment.

The colors are rooted in the neutral family. Shades like brown, nude, baby pinks, and whites are the buzziest. But don’t conflate their basic nature with being boring—every single shade is getting a textural twist. Rather than playing with prints and patterns, we’ll be seeing high shine, sheerness, and sparkle. Think glass skin—but for your nails. This fall, we’re seeing a crop of looks that feel elegant, rich, and classic. To see what four September nail trends are going to reign supreme, keep reading. Editorial nail artist Miss Pop is breaking it down ahead.

Chocolate Shimmers

Merlots will never not be in, but the most popular shade for the fall season is bound to be chocolate brown. “I love every shade of brown—I’ve always been a fan. I love ‘em in summer because they’re a whole damn mood, but especially in fall. When you add the shimmer, it gives the vampy vibe of the ‘90s that I love,” says Miss Pop. I personally have been gravitating towards really deep browns that verge on black, but more cashmere camel hues are also very cozy.

Glassy Glaze

Introducing the new It-girl finish: glass. “It’s the next level of cat eye; think of it like the sparklier sister. The whole idea is that you’re pulling the sparkle out into an even deeper, richer space with even more dimension,” says Miss Pop. “If a cat eye nail is a shooting star, a glass nail is the Northern Lights. It has a ton more depth, thanks to the added glass-like gloss on the nail.” To achieve the look, find a super high-shine top coat.

Metallic Moments

Expect NYFW to feature a ton of silver, gold, and mixed-metal energy. “I love a chromey metallic. If it’s not milky, it needs to be shimmery or pearly,” says Miss Pop. You’ll also see a ton of metallic accents this month—from metallic French manicures to accent nails.

See-Through Sets

“If you can’t see through the nail color you’re using, are you even paying attention to trends? Nothing is opaque; everything has a milky finish, a sheer finish, or a semi-sheer finish,” says Miss Pop. “Is it sheer and shimmering? You’re hitting all the notes. Obviously, nudes and milky tones, but it’s going into fall shades like deep, rich purples.” I’m personally loving a sheer navy.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Meet the Expert

I am, admittedly, a makeup brush snob. I’ve never really bought into applying product with my fingers, and while I’ll occasionally reach for a sponge, brushes have always been my go-to. I still dabble with the staples in my collection that seem like everyone has owned since high school, but becoming a beauty editor has made me much more particular about what I invest in. Once you start paying attention to how a really good brush is made—and how much easier it can make it to create an incredible makeup look—you can’t exactly unlearn it.

Which brings me to Kraum, a line of makeup brushes that launched just under a year ago. It doesn’t hurt that the brand is gorgeous. The chic black-and-white packaging caught my eye first, but there’s real beauty-world pedigree behind it, too. Kraum was created by Annie Kreighbaum, the former executive editor and VP of brand development at Glossier before going on to co-found Soft Services. This time around, she’s turned her attention to makeup brushes, down to the tiniest details—and I mean tiny.

Five of Kraum’s brushes are part of the “Micro” family, and they live up to the name. The brushes are designed with makeup artists in mind, which is obvious when you look at some of the incredibly specific shapes. That said, they’re not so technical that the average makeup lover would have no idea what to do with them.

What also surprised me was how small the collection is. There aren’t endless variations of essentially the same thing; Kraum makes just seven brushes total, and each one has a very specific purpose. Aesthetically, it might be the chicest beauty brand I’m seeing right now. So yes, I wanted to find out whether the brushes were actually that good, or whether I had simply fallen for excellent taste.

Kraum Makeup Brushes

What Kind of Brushes Does Kraum Have?

All seven Kraum brushes are handmade in Kumano, Japan, a city famous for its centuries-old brushmaking tradition, and where many luxury beauty brands have their brushes produced. Five belong to the Micro Brush Set: the Angle, Saber, Swab, Square, and Taper. Most use synthetic bristles, while the Swab combines goat hair with synthetic fibers. They’re designed for very precise work, from liner to spot concealing or getting product right along the lash line. You can buy them individually or as the $149 set, which also includes Kraum’s Brush Soap.

The two brushes outside the set are larger. The Midi Flat Brush ($42) uses synthetic bristles and is designed for cream and liquid formulas, while the Eye Shaper Brush ($50) uses natural goat hair and is made for powders. Kraum also sells the Brush Soap separately.

How Do You Care for Kraum Brushes?

A good makeup brush can last for decades—and Kraum says that, with proper care, its brushes can potentially last a lifetime. The biggest thing is keeping water away from the ferrule—i.e., the technical term for where the bristles meet the handle. Instead of submerging the brush, wet and wash only the bristles, then rinse with them pointed downward.

Kraum recommends cleaning the brushes regularly with its conditioning Brush Soap; for brushes you reach for frequently, a weekly wash is a good rule of thumb. Afterward, gently reshape the bristles and lay the brush horizontally to dry with the head hanging over the edge of a counter. It’s a little more particular than tossing them in a cup to dry, but for brushes you could theoretically own forever, I’d say it’s worth the extra minute.

How Well Do the Kraum Brushes Apply Makeup?

I’m a smokey eye girl through and through. I do some version of one pretty much every single day, so I know exactly where I want my shadow to sit and the shape I’m trying to create. I started with the larger Eye Shaper Brush to lay down the base layers of my smokey eye, then moved on to the Micro eye brushes for the detail work.

The Micro Taper Brush made blending my liner into a soft wing ridiculously easy. If I wanted the end a little pointier, I went in with the Micro Angle Brush to sharpen it up. Then I took the Micro Swab Brush along my lower lash line, where its tiny size let me really push the shadow into my lash line rather than accidentally dragging the color too far down. I wasn’t suddenly doing a different eye look with these brushes; I was just getting to the exact shape I wanted faster, without having to clean up or correct as much along the way. My smokey eye still looked like my smokey eye—I just got it right on the first try instead of correcting my wing ten times.

Are Kraum Brushes Worth It?

Kraum brushes are certainly pricier than what you’ll find at the drugstore, but considering how they’re made, I actually don’t think the prices are crazy. They’re made to last for decades—and potentially a lifetime with proper care—and I noticed a real difference in how easily I could do the makeup I wear every day. The Micro brushes, especially, made the annoying little parts of my makeup routine, like getting my wing exactly right, noticeably easier. And I have to give the brand design its flowers: everything from the cream-and-black handles to the packaging is just so freaking chic. I’m more than happy to leave these sitting out on my vanity for everyone to see.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Readers often look to Tessa Bailey's romance novels because of their heart and relatability. Her books bring on the charm (plus ample spice!), but her love stories always feel grounded and resonant with working-class protagonists undergoing periods of transition.

Since 2013, Bailey has published 65 books—ranging from hit sports-romance titles like the Big Shots franchise to rom-coms like the Hot and Hammered series—and sold over 4 million copies. But this fall, the best-selling author will release a novel that's unlike anything else she's written thus far.

Cue Broken Rival, a high-concept time-travel romance. The sci-fi melodrama centers on 18-year-old Magnolia, who just so happens to be the daughter of the inventors of time travel. When her parents leave her in the past after the technology becomes corrupted and leads to their persecution, she finds herself trying to adjust and searching for answers in her new reality. That's all but complicated when she's caught in a love triangle between two brothers—including one who works for a militia group that hunts time travelers.

Before Broken Rival releases on October 6, Bailey has shared an exclusive excerpt with Marie Claire. Read on for the advanced chapter, which features a sweet moment between Magnolia and her boyfriend Fallon just before danger begins to loom in the distance.

Drumbeats pepper the crisp fall air.

The scent of hot chocolate and corn dogs drift through the gaps in the metal bleachers. Sparkles painted onto the cheeks of students catch the spotlights, never staying still. Shimmering, moving, going silver to pink. A horn signals the start of the second half and I smile, watching Fallon and his teammates take the field, the white knees of his football pants soiled with grass stains, his helmet dangling from his fingertips. He always leaves it off until the exact second official play resumes. One of his numerous good luck rituals.

Like kissing me in the parking lot before a game.

Taping his pinkie and ring finger together with white strips of athletic tape.

Parting his golden coif of hair to the left for away games.

Feeling eyes on my back, I turn and seek out Fallon’s mother, Camille, in the top row of the bleachers, her honey-colored hair pulled into a high ponytail, his jersey number—9—painted on her cheek in red, outlined in black. Looking nervous, she tilts her head toward the scoreboard, which shows a tied score. I hold up my crossed fingers and she does the same.

See you at home later, she mouths. Whatever happens.

Comfort steals through me and I smile, nodding. Home.

Home is a big house in the southeast corner of Aubrey with an entryway full of crosses. The opposite wall is painted pitch-black, but if you look at it from an angle, you can see where someone used a finger to draw the outline of a six-foot-two human figure in the wet paint. A nod to the boy who used to live there.

Home is dirty cereal bowls stacked in the sink, the smell of acrylic paint and daisies gathered from the fields surrounding the house. It’s the sound of the pastor muttering his sermons to himself in the study, his feet creaking the floorboards while he paces. It’s crop dusters flying over the Overmeyers’ farm to the north.

Home is Fallon.

I sigh gustily enough to emit a white cloud in front of my face, my gloved hands wedging between my thighs in my lap. When I came home with the Willoughbys two years ago, I slept in the guest room for three months until the pastor caught Fallon kissing me in the downstairs bathroom. He bought a small trailer after that and parked it in the backyard. Since then, the trailer has been my home. “I’m not harboring any notions this is going to keep you two away from each other,” he’d said wryly, opening the door to the trailer and gesturing us inside. Fallon laughed at my furious blush and tickled me up the stairs. “But if y’all are going to insist on holding hands in church, I think we’ll need to consider appearances.” The pastor dragged a long-suffering hand down his face.

“You two couldn’t keep this platonic, could you? Had to make it hard on me, huh?” Fallon laughs. “Sorry, Dad. She’s way too cute.”

Two years. Gone by in a blur. I’m eighteen now, but at sixteen, I still wasn’t used to being told I was pretty. My parents never once told me so, nor did I have access to a lot of kids my own age. As a child, I’d been close friends with another scientist’s son, but they left our station when I was six, leaving me isolated at our perfunctory employee housing near the lab. My thick brown hair always seemed kind of ordinary. Brown eyes, unremarkable.

Fallon called them bronze, though. He declared that, somehow by looking at me, a person could tell by these bronze eyes that I’m smart. He told me I smelled like fresh, wild raspberries. That my lips were soft, my voice was like music. He’d lean over and hug me out of the blue.

Still does.

Eager to set my sights on my boyfriend, I return my attention to the football field and frown. Where are the players? I swear I saw them return from the locker room just a minute ago.

I stand up and lean over, trying to determine if the team are out of sight or if maybe there is a problem and—

“Magnolia Brown.”

Hearing my name over the announcer’s speaker, my skin immediately shrinks around my bones. The fear of being trapped and removed, like a spider on someone’s bedroom ceiling, has never quite gone away. But it’s Fallon’s voice, which doesn’t make me nervous—God, no, just the opposite—it’s just that everyone seated in the bleachers has turned to stare at me now.

And they knew right where I was sitting, because they always do.

I’m a moving landmark, no matter where I go.

Sounds grow tinny and distant in my ears, but I smile through the temporary discomfort and find my boyfriend where he stands in the announcer’s booth, the ends of his hair brushing his filthy shoulder pads. Those familiar white teeth are stretched in a smile, hovering just above the silver microphone. His teammates flank him on all sides, giving him good-natured slaps and shoves of encouragement.

“Magnolia Brown, I love you. Will you go to prom with me?”

Briefly, I catch Camille’s eye, and she gives me a beaming eye roll that says exactly what I’m thinking: There he goes again. Fallon being Fallon. There are no small gestures with my boyfriend. No minor commitments. He only leaves behind big, boisterous, memorable marks. Everyone loves him for it, too.

That fondness for Fallon is why the people of Aubrey have slowly accepted me as one of their own over the last two years. There might be an asterisk beside my name in the town records forever, but to Fallon, I’m just Magnolia. I’m not simply the girl whose parents negatively impacted the course of history.

You’re just Magnolia. Good through and through. Nothing like her parents.

Not a threat.

Sweet and helpful and most importantly, grateful to still have her head.

I push an effusive smile onto my face, pressure leaking out from behind my eyes. “Yes,” I whisper. Then louder, “Yeah, I will.”

The game buzzer gives several noisy toots, the audience erupting into cheers. Many of those clapping are the same people who called for my death when I was sixteen. I shake their hands now and accept their kisses on the cheek, agreeing when they tell me how incredible Fallon is. How lucky I am. Don’t I know it?

I blow a kiss to Fallon as he takes the field a second time, waving to me while he runs backward. I want to watch the second half from the bleachers, but it’s my turn to volunteer at the Helping Hands booth, drumming up support for the canned food drive I’m organizing with my cochair, Vetta.

I’m scooting past a row of underclassmen when gunfire rat-a-tats in the distance.

All the motion in the stadium fades to stillness.

Every head in the audience turns in the same direction. Three miles north. Toward the Burn Line.

The black ring of burned earth that separates Aubrey from the Breach.

Residents of Aubrey were ordered long ago by Cyrus to stay inside the Burn Line, for their own protection. We do not venture to the other side. No one, not even the wiliest troublemakers in our school, is self-destructive enough to attempt it. This close to the Breach, they could be mistaken for a Taker and executed by the Deterrence on sight.

As the Breaches have been declared disaster sites by the federal government, populations who live the closest to those holes in the atmosphere have shifted away, migrating to towns and cities they deem safer, leaving many southeast Kansas towns deserted. Not Aubrey, though. Everyone is either too stubborn to leave or their faith in Cyrus Royse is so great, they seem to believe we’re surrounded by an iron dome, rather than a man-made Burn Line that circles the town.

No one comes in. No one goes out. But we all proceed as normal.

The crowd is silent as a prolonged firefight ensues, parents folding children into their sides in the glow of the Friday night football game. Meanwhile, a sickly yellow hue reaches its fingers into the air above the Burn Line. A fire, perhaps. Bodies burning.

Not everyone is staring into the distance anymore.

Prickles on my skin tell me I’m being observed. Covertly, sure, but the silent judgment is not subtle. It’s always there. They think I can’t feel it.

A very intense part of me doesn’t want to seek Fallon’s comfort. He’ll mope if I don’t let him give it to me, though, so I look over and meet blue eyes that are hunting for mine from the football field, nodding back at him when he mouths, Are you okay?

Yes.

As soon as a full minute has passed without gunfire, the buzzer sounds, a blast of cheers go up and the game resumes, as if nothing happened. Pom-poms wave in the stands, cheerleaders call to the audience through a bullhorn, the Tiger mascot dancing out of rhythm to the delight of the children in the front row.

I duck my head and move through the tunnel leading to the concessions area, waving at Vetta, hustling forward with an apology on my lips. “Sorry I’m late to relieve you. How’d we do on pledges?”

“Good. Really good. People love to get rid of their verging on moldy green beans.”

“Don’t they, though?” I scoot behind the waist-high table and hip bump her out from behind it. “Go watch the rest of the game. I’ve got this.”

She tilts her head at me. “So you’re just going to pretend like your live-in boyfriend didn’t ask you to prom in front of the whole town?”

“Like I always say, Fallon is going to Fallon. And he’s not . . .” I sigh. “Okay, fine. I guess he’s technically my live-in boyfriend. Weird circ—”

“Weird circumstances. I know. We all know. And we hate you for it.” She smiles to let me know she’s at least partially joking. “You’re already shacked up with your man, and mine will only take me on a date if his boys are there, too.”

“Maybe he wants to show you off.” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “Hell, I would. A kickboxer and an uncompensated volunteer? You’re a catch.”

“Bah. Enough of that.” She laughs, her smile slowly ebbing from her face. “Did you hear those gunshots? They sounded . . . close.”

“Yeah, I did,” I reply, averting my eyes by scanning the pledge sheet, turning to a fresh page and uncapping the pen. “Sounded like it was near the Burn Line, as usual.”

“Yeah, but it’s been a while since the Deterrence had to intercept anyone trying to cross from the Breach into Aubrey, right? Like . . . at least three, four months?”

“That’s a good thing,” I point out, making it clear where I stand on the issue of Takers. Forever making it clear. “I’m sure the gunfire is nothing to worry about or they’d be issuing a curfew for tonight.”

“On a game night? The horror!”

I raise an eyebrow. “A game night you’re missing, standing here talking to me.”

A collective “ohhh” emanates from the stands. “Fine, twist my arm. I’ll go watch.” She skips backward toward the packed bleachers, nearly running into a couple returning to their seat with two loaded chili dogs. “As if Fallon Willoughby ever loses.”

That statement lingers in the air long after Vetta is absorbed by the stands.

Everyone has gotten their mid-game snack now and used the bathroom. It’s just me, waiting in case the odd spectator happens by but mainly to field the postgame rush. For now, though, I’m alone in the muffled roar behind the stands. In the filtered spotlight.

That’s when I let myself acknowledge the Presence. At least to myself.

The ringing in my ears grows more tense, more suspenseful, my mouth turning dry as a bone. Electricity dances slowly up the length of my arms and wraps around my throat, forcing me to cough to release the pressure. There’s no name for what watches me from the darkness. Or I won’t name it.

I’m not willing to admit which.

But it’s always there in moments like this. In the silent, finally alone moments, it reminds me that I’m never actually alone. It’s watching. Keeping tabs. Entertained by my actions. My very normal actions designed to help me blend in.

The Presence is not buying my serene act for a second. There’s something different about it tonight, though.

A sizzle of warning that drips down my spine and leaves a burn behind.

There’s change in the air.

From BROKEN RIVAL by Tessa Bailey. Copyright © 2026 by Tessa Bailey. Reprinted by permission of Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

When Victoria Beckham told me that her newest fragrance, Hotel Portofino Extrait, was inspired by the early chapter of her love story with David—namely their Mediterranean escapes—every ounce of my being told me it would be a sexy scent. She went on: “It takes me back to the details of the hotel in Portofino—the warm evening light, the sea breeze coming through the balcony, and the smell of the room after a long day outside. I wanted to capture that feeling of being completely enamored with one another, when you’re absorbed in the moment.”

With a little help from perfumer Jerome Eppinette, who is the genius behind fragrances like Byredo’s Gypsy Water and Sol de Janeiro’s Cheriosa ‘91, the just-launched perfume is a delicious balance of spices, citrus, and woodsy notes. It’s “fresh and effortless,” per Beckham, yet it has a moody, sensual aura that makes it a distinctive date-night fragrance. It’s so good, in fact, that Beckham considers it her go-to date night scent. “There is something very romantic about wearing the fragrance that brings me back to the beginning of our relationship,” she says.

I was lucky enough to be one of the first to smell the brand’s fifth fragrance creation at a preview back in May—and was even luckier to source a lab sample come July. Since then, I’ve chosen to pull it from my collection on chilly summer nights, for weddings, and I’m confident it will get its fair share of use at upcoming NYFW events. It’s truly delicious.

How Is Hotel Portofino Different From Portofino '97 Eau de Parfum?

When I initially heard that the brand was putting an extrait twist on Portofino '97, I thought it would simply be a more concentrated version of the eau de parfum. That’s not exactly the case—the extrait is spicier and warmer by design. “I reach for Portofino ‘97 when I want something fresh and effortless,” says Beckham. “Hotel Portofino is richer and more sensual, so I love it in the evening or when I want something a bit more intimate. They have such different but complementary scent profiles, with bergamot as the common ingredient, that when layered, you get both that beautiful brightness from the parfum as well as the depth and warmth from the extrait.”

What Does Hotel Portofino Extrait Smell Like?

While Portofino ‘97 channels beachy energy, Hotel Portofino has a spicy, velvety cocktail bar feel. Top notes are the most reminiscent of the eau de parfum with bergamot, basil, and saffron, which then give way to a woody middle of fig, agarwood, and pinot noir. It then settles into something of a mysterious profile, with incense, papyrus, and black amber. Just note: the fragrance will adapt to your skin—it smells different on everyone. On my skin, it smells particularly spicy and warm; I’ll be wearing it all fall.

Is Hotel Portofino Extrait Worth It?

For years, my go-to scent from the Victoria Beckham Beauty fragrance selection has been Reverie 21:50. It’s intensely woody with a hint of vanilla and is one of the three fragrances I choose to wear in the fall and winter. While I still plan on having it in my rotation, Hotel Portofino has officially replaced it as my frontrunner. The sillage is powerful but not sickening; it lasts for hours on my skin, and despite not being a skin scent, it has a familiar, comforting profile. And frankly, if it’s good enough for Victoria and David Beckham? Well, that’s all the convincing I need.

Shop Victoria Beckham Fragrances

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Content warning: the below contains references to and descriptions of postpartum psychosis and the death of children.

As bestselling author Jodi Picoult considered potential themes for her thirtieth novel, an email arrived. It praised Picoult's famously extensive research process and suggested a topic for her next novel. "You see, I also want to be a voice for those who suffer in silence, mainly those women battling the darker side of postpartum," the letter-writer wrote. "Unfortunately, my reach is limited, as I write to you from a jail cell."

The author of the letter was Solange White, who on August 18 pleaded guilty, but mentally ill, to the third-degree murder of her three-year-old daughter in 2022. White, who told Picoult in her letter that her life had been "hijacked by an evil mix of postpartum hormones, insomnia, and the wrong medical treatment," was sentenced to 16 to 40 years in prison. Weeks later, the highly publicized trial of Lindsay Clancy—who in 2023 fatally strangled her three young children—ended in a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

As Picoult considered White's request for a novel that contained themes of postpartum psychosis, she began to research. Picoult learned that the condition affects one in five hundred women. "PPP can literally affect anyone, regardless of socioeconomic status, educational status, or race," she writes in the author's note for Hollow Bones, out September 15. "As difficult as it is to believe, the motive for a woman who commits altruistic homicide is not malicious. She truly thinks she is protecting her child from evil and that the only way to do this is to end their life. A woman with PPP is not a perpetrator but a victim of her own mind ... The most shocking thing I learned about PPP during my research is that since PPP often presents like anxiety and depression at first, doctors use SSRIs to treat it as they would postpartum depression—however, antidepressants exacerbate PPP, leaving the woman in an even more disturbed state."

In the following excerpt from Hollow Bones, a character named Eloise begins to suffer symptoms of postpartum psychosis following the birth of her daughter, Molly. Picoult notes: "Much of Eloise’s frame of mind as she suffered from PPP came from the hundred-plus pages of interviews I did with [White]."

I am inventing colors. These are hues that have never been recorded, ombrés that waver in front of my eyes and metallics so sharp I can taste them. I start writing down their names. The three-­dimensional ivory twined with white—­I call that “westminster.” The green slide to brown: “crepuscule.” The bubbling orange of the sun as it melts into night: “fervent.” One day, when Molly is older, I will mix these in paints, so that there can be a visual record of them.

Although I am still not sleeping, it is no longer an issue. It was almost as if I had to hit rock bottom before I could hit my stride. As it turns out, I don’t need sleep; my body only had to level up, unlocking new reserves. I now sense when Molly is going to wake to feed seconds before she cries.

I’m buzzing, all the time, my skin conducting electricity. I am suddenly so aware.

I do wonder if it’s just me, or if all women who have babies become so superhumanly attuned. But the one time I get up the nerve to ask someone—­a stranger at the pediatrician’s office with a baby roughly the same age as Molly—­a thought curls like smoke in my mind: We do not speak of this.

I remember once hearing that autism is the brain’s inability to filter out stimuli—­that people on the spectrum experience everything all at once, unable to tune out the extraneous bits. I, too, am being bombarded. Stimuli come at me in tidal waves; it’s all I can do to stay afloat. As a result, something has to give. So while my mind is spinning like a pinwheel, I sometimes forget which buttons to push on my washing machine to do laundry. I can’t remember how to roast a chicken, although I’ve done it a hundred times.

The flip side of this hyperfocus is that, now, I also am aware of everything that can go wrong. What if there is a fire and I can’t get Molly out of our building? I pull the couch away from the window because twice a year or so a bird smacks into the glass, and who knows if the next time it will smash through. I am so scared of tripping when I’m walking down the front steps of the apartment with Molly in my arms that yesterday, I sat on my butt and scooted down. I put away all the glass tesserae of the unfinished mosaic—­choking hazards. There are a million and one ways that I could inadvertently hurt my child. You could, says the smoke in my head. You might.

Five days after Molly is born, Evie asks to visit. Adam is still in California, and I haven’t seen anyone but the pediatrician. I am about to say no—I want to make sure Molly has a little more immunity from disease before I expose her to the world—­but I cannot force the word out. “Eloise?” Evie says, worried. “Don’t move. I’m coming.”

Don’t move. As if I could! Where would I go? I find myself laughing uncontrollably, while Molly’s tiny face peers up at me. And then, the laughter coagulates, and suddenly it’s dripping down my cheeks. Molly starts crying, too. I should walk with her—­motion soothes her—­but what if I drop her? So instead, I rock back and forth as her cries get louder, sharper, spiked.

Evie lets herself in with her key—­she takes care of our apartment when Adam and I go away—­and finds me sitting on the floor with Molly shrieking. She plucks the baby out of my arms. Molly immediately stops wailing.

You see? You are bad at this.

“Why are you sitting on the floor?” she asks, her eyes cutting to the couch, which is still pulled far away from its spot beneath the window.

I am about to say So I would not hurt her when I realize how that will sound. Evie may be my best friend, but she is practical, and if I tell her the truth—­that I’m being watched, that I have so much energy I can see it moving around me like an aura, that I’m afraid of injuring my child—­she will think I’m insane. She will tell Adam, and I’ll get taken away from Molly.

I don’t know how long I sit there in silence, but Evie touches my shoulder. The baby is not in her arms anymore, and I startle. “She’s just over there,” Evie says, and I see Molly on the couch.

(She could roll off.) She can’t roll yet. (It could still happen.)

Evie strokes my hair off my forehead, the way she did the first time I drank at RISD and spent the night projectile vomiting into the toilet. “When was the last time you ate?” she asks.

“She nursed twenty minutes ago . . .”

“I asked when you ate. Never mind. Molly and I are going to whip you up something while you take a nap.” She hugs me. “I’ve got you.”

I do not remember getting into the bedroom, but I lie down dutifully on the bed. I stare at the ceiling. I take deep breaths. But even though I’d trust Evie with my life, or my daughter’s, all I can think about is the distance between me and the baby. Fifteen feet, maybe, with a door between us.

I get up, wrench open the door. Evie is in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove. It smells cheesy and rich and my mouth waters. She holds Molly in her free arm, careful to keep her far from the flames.

(Which is more than I can say for you.)

Evie grins. “Look, angel. Your mama’s awake.” She turns to me. “How do you feel?”

“So much better,” I lie.

Evie looks at me gently. “Listen. This is hard.”

I nod. “I know.”

My neck prickles. I do not have to turn to realize that Evie has moved the couch to its original spot beneath the living room window. Dragging it back to the middle of the floor is the first thing I do when she leaves.

Sometimes I look at my baby and calculate the mathematics of her existence: the sweet parabola of her cheek, the constant of her heartbeat, the daily derivative—­her rate of change. The limit I can feel for her, which skates along the axis of infinity.

And sometimes I look at her and think she will be the death of me.

Excerpted from Hollow Bones by Jodi Picoult. Copyright © 2026 by Jodi Picoult. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Perfume, like most beauty categories, is subject to the whims of the trend cycle. Marshmallow gourmands this month, mineral skin scents the next, with dozens of affordable options (body mists, anyone?) to supplement your revolving fragrance library. Such is the state of the perfume category in 2026. The days of a few precious bottles lining your vanity are something of a relic, representative of a bygone approach to perfumery that was once rooted in craftsmanship rather than commercialization alone. That is, unless, you consult with Nick Axelrod-Welk, co-founder with his husband Casey, of Contrapposto.

"I have been thinking a lot about what defines value and where you can find value," he explains over Zoom from his home base in Los Angeles. "I felt strongly about creating a brand and a world that stood for something and a specific aesthetic, a point of view and a commitment to quality and craftsmanship."

The brand has existed as an aesthetics clinic in California for roughly three years, a venture he started after entrepreneurial beauty pursuits such as Nécessaire, Homecourt, and Glossier. After excelling in the prestige beauty market for nearly two decades, Axelrod-Welk felt drawn to the luxury space. "Over the last few years [I've] been totally fascinated with what defines luxury. And what I've come to realize, and I'm not alone in this realization, is [that luxury means] craftsmanship, story, and quality."

The co-founder notes that his commitment to excellence, and a desire to create something that was not just contributing to the waste in the world, led him to the fragrance arm of Contrapposto. "Fragrance is something that immediately enhances your life, [and] I feel like the only point in making something and putting it out there now is...that it represents a commitment to quality."

Despite his beauty pedigree, Axelrod-Welk explains that entering fine fragrance was an entirely new world. Navigating the niche vocabulary of the industry felt akin to "taking Duolingo classes." Eventually that led to him working with master perfumers Frank Voelkl and Shyamala Maisondieu of Firmenich and Givaudan respectively, giving them free reign to create Contrapposto's first scents—with zero budget constraints. "[After] starting with aesthetic dermatology and skin enhancements [for Contrapposto], I was really obsessed with the idea of creating a fragrance that could enhance your skin that felt like you were truly wearing it versus it wearing you," he says of the debut collection of extraits de parfum: Melting Flowers, Musc Pétille, and Lubanite.

Still, his aim wasn't to create perfumes that felt so esoteric and elevated that they wouldn't appeal to the average fragrance consumer. "Commercial to me isn't a bad word," he says. "Commercial means appealing and addictive, exciting and inviting as many people to the party as possible. So for me, combining something that is high art with something that is just indisputably exciting to more people than fewer was the goal."

With a $350 price point per bottle, Contrapposto certainly isn't the most expensive perfume on the market (like, say, the Bond No. 9 Couture Amphora with Swarovski Crystals, which retails for a cool $6,500), but the attention to detail makes the buying experience edge towards bespoke. For instance, designer Brian Rottinger created the outer packaging using artwork from the archives of the Met and the Library of Congress, transforming it into a 416-page book. Inside, the perfume bottle is nestled within a laser-cut compartment. Throwing the box away after you remove the fragrance? It merits space on your bookshelf far more than at the bottom of the recycling bin.

By elevating this type of ephemera, Axelrod-Welk is hopeful that Contrapposto can offer a unique take on the luxury fragrance experience, rather than a headline-making price tag. As he says, "It's something that you can't get anywhere, and that you know the hands that made the bottle, the hand that designed the packaging, the education of the person who composed the fragrance, and then the expertise of the people evaluating the fragrance." In an industry increasingly defined by what’s new, what’s viral, and what’s next, Contrapposto is making the case for something decidedly less fleeting: perfume worth keeping for years to come.

Shop Contrapposto

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion, and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Author Jeneva Rose has been dubbed the "Queen of Twists" by her mystery-thriller contemporary Colleen Hoover and readers alike. After building a devout following on #BookTok, her debut novel The Perfect Marriage propelled her to success, selling over 1 million copies in just three years after its 2020 publication. It's since sold 1 million more, and she's published a sequel, The Perfect Divorce, in addition to several other genre-defying page-turners.

While the most astute armchair detectives may not be able to predict where Rose's gripping plots go, her latest move certainly feels inevitable. On September 22, the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author will release her first proper horror collection—which all but makes sense after she's written about crime, survival, and zombie-like outbreaks.

The book, Sometimes I Scare Myself, features three short stories about how ordinary situations can lead to terrifying circumstances. Before the highly anticipated title hits shelves, Rose has shared an exclusive first look with Marie Claire. Below, read Rose's introduction and a preview of her story, "The Nightmare House," about a family moving to a desolate town.

Introduction

Sometimes I scare myself. It starts with a thought. The kind that makes me pause and wonder where it came from, or how it slipped past whatever part of my brain is supposed to keep things normal. It’s the kind of thought that, if someone knew what I was thinking, they’d lock me up and throw away the key. Not because I want to hurt anyone—let’s be clear—but because some ideas feel dangerous simply for existing.

They arrive as what-ifs.

What if you opened the door?

What if you answered the call?

What if you didn’t?

And once the question is there, it doesn’t leave. It makes itself comfortable.

The three horror stories in this collection were born from those thoughts—the ones that refuse to behave. The curiosities that turn corrosive. The split-second choices that rot everything from the inside out. These stories live in that narrow space between impulse and consequence, where something terrible happens simply because someone wondered if it could.

If you find yourself unsettled, good.

If you laugh nervously, even better.

And if, at any point, you think, I wish I hadn’t read that—

Welcome.

You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Sweet dreams,

Jeneva Rose

"The Nightmare House"

Kristin

I didn’t fully register the sign until it was already behind us—a split, weather-scarred plank nailed crookedly to a post that looked one strong wind gust away from surrendering.

Welcome to Tillington

Population: 256

The number two was so faded it was practically a ghost of itself.

“Make that two-sixty,” Patrick said, drumming the steering wheel, pleased with his joke.

I attempted a smile, but it didn’t quite reach my lips. It wasn’t him or anything he’d done. I just felt . . . fragile, like if I bent even a little too far or forced anything, I’d snap. I blamed exhaustion, hormones, the way my body still didn’t feel like it belonged to me.

Outside, frozen fields unspooled in every direction—rolling waves of dead corn and wheat, bowed and brittle under the January sky. Patches of thin forest punctured the land, skeletal branches clawing at the horizon. There was something exposed about it. Nowhere to disappear into or crowds to blur the edges.

Hailey sighed dramatically in the back seat. At fifteen she’d perfected teenage contempt, and her whole body radiated it. Her hood was up and pulled down past her eyes, and her earbuds were in but not actually playing anything since her phone lost service miles back. Every little thing she did now was a quiet punishment directed at her father and me.

“You don’t have to keep reminding me that we’re moving to the middle of nowhere,” she groaned.

I turned slightly in my seat. “We moved because we needed a change.”

It came out sharper than I intended. Everything did these days. I didn’t add the rest—that the city had started to feel too loud, too close, like there were always eyes on us. That every siren made my pulse spike. That even familiar streets had begun to feel unfamiliar to me. My emotions lived just under my skin, waiting for the smallest excuse to break through.

Patrick shot me a look—not reproachful, just tired. We were all tired.

“How ’bout you try and look on the bright side, Hails?” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Think of just one thing that might be better here. One positive thought.”

She snorted. “Fine. I’m positive I’ll hate it here.”

Patrick’s hand found my knee and squeezed, our unspoken way of saying everything we didn’t have the energy to voice. We’re doing our best. We’re trying. This is supposed to help.

The road narrowed as we turned off the highway, the pavement rougher now, less maintained. It was the kind of road people only used if they had a reason to. Henry stirred in his car seat, a small whimper slipping out.

My chest tightened automatically, my body responding before my mind could catch up. Twelve weeks postpartum meant no boundaries or warnings. It was just instinct firing whether you wanted it to or not.

“It’s okay,” I murmured more to myself than to him. He quieted down and fell back into a slumber.

The road dipped and rose again, and that’s when I saw them.

Two people stood across from one another at their mailboxes. An older man and a woman, mid-conversation. They were laughing—real laughter, shoulders lifted, mouths wide—until our SUV crested the hill. Their mouths snapped closed, and they turned in unison.

The man was tall and narrow, his coat hanging off him as if it belonged to someone else. He held his mail loosely at his side, fingers slack, like he’d forgotten it was there. The woman stood unnervingly still, her hands folded in front of her, chin tipped down as she watched us approach. There was no curiosity, no smiles. Just . . . observation.

Patrick slowed without meaning to.

“Uh,” Hailey said, leaning forward. “Who are these fucking weirdos?”

“Language,” Patrick said. “They’re . . . the neighbors. Just wave.”

He lifted his hand first. I followed and so did Hailey, reluctantly. All three of us waving as we rolled past.

“They’re not waving back,” Hailey muttered.

“That’s fine,” Patrick said. “Just keep waving.”

I forced my smile to hold, even as something cold settled in my stomach. It was the same feeling I’d been living with for months now—the sense that safety was temporary, conditional. That doors didn’t always stay shut just because you remembered closing them.

That afternoon in the city flashed through my mind uninvited: coming home from a walk, Henry bundled against my chest, our front door standing open like an accusation. The certainty that followed had been immediate and unshakable. Someone had been in our home.

That was why we were here now. Why I’d needed somewhere quieter, somewhere with fewer people. Somewhere I could breathe without checking locks twice, without replaying every sound, every doubt. I’d wanted this. Or at least I thought I did.

The road curved again, the neighbors disappearing from view, and I let my hand fall back into my lap.

“They’re just curious,” Patrick said, glancing at Hailey in the rearview mirror and then at me. “New faces in a town this small. It’s normal. We’ll settle in, wave a few more times, and before you know it, we’ll be borrowing each other’s snowblowers.”

I forced a smile, and I told myself—for the hundredth time—that this was what safety looked like.

Excerpted from Sometimes I Scare Myself by Jeneva Rose. Copyright ©️ 2026. Reprinted with permission of Blackstone Publishing. All rights reserved.

On television, Jessica Tarlov is built to withstand impact. The hair, naturally limp, is blown out, set in rollers and teased into what she calls “TV size.” The false lashes she once resisted are glued into place. There is a serious smoky eye, even in the morning, matched to whatever pantsuit she’s wearing that day. The lone liberal on America’s most-watched cable news show has a fight waiting for her at five o’clock Eastern, and Fox News does not send its talent into battle barefaced.

The arena is The Five, Fox News’s flagship panel show, where Tarlov is outnumbered four to one every evening. For an hour, five co-hosts sit around a table and argue their way through the news, a format somewhere between a political roundtable and every Thanksgiving dinner you’ve ever dreaded. The show is watched by around 3.5 million people every weekday, about half of them Republican, 20 percent Democrat, and the rest somewhere in the middle, looking, as Tarlov puts it, for someone “to be a normal human being.” In four and a half years as a co-host of The Five and a decade as a presence at Fox, the 42-year-old professional dissenter has endured co-host pile-ons, death threats from strangers, and public attacks from the president. But she is still, conspicuously, here.

To understand why, on a muggy Wednesday afternoon in late August, I meet Tarlov at the network’s office building in midtown Manhattan, where she steers us to a pair of corner seats in the first-floor café without breaking stride. She is, naturally, camera-ready: black rectangular glasses, a saturated teal dress and a matching double-breasted blazer.

It almost feels like a coffee date, except for the entourage. The personal representative who helped shepherd me through the weeks of negotiations required to conduct this interview inside the Fox building sits on my side; a Fox representative sits on Tarlov’s. It gives the glossy lobby café the air of a diplomatic meeting. Tarlov, to her credit, talks to me like neither of them is there: perfectly at ease but “on” in that television-person way. She warns me cheerfully that she is a crier and “will probably cry at some point” during this interview.

There is plenty of good news to get through first, though. She just signed a new three-year contract with Fox News. “It’s always a great affirmation of your seat at the table,” she says. “No matter how contentious it looks or difficult or terrible to some people, that you’re a valued element in this discourse.” And on September 15, her book I Disagree: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends is set to publish.

Fitting, because Tarlov has rules—an entire system, really, for how to argue with the same co-hosts every day without losing either the fight or the friendships (and yes, they are friends). You can have meaningful relationships with people whose beliefs fundamentally oppose your own, she believes, and those relationships can make everyone in them better. The system helps her walk into a room structurally rigged against her every afternoon and walk out with her convictions and her connections intact. But it is also a kind of armor, designed to hold together what might otherwise come apart.

One recent afternoon on The Five, Tarlov is sitting across from her colleague, Jesse Watters, who is inventorying warships. He knows the names of all of them, and he is making the case that the war in Iran is going perfectly, or at least better than anyone is giving the administration credit for, and Tarlov is losing her mind.

Not visibly. Visibly, she is taking notes and listening to how long he has been talking and calculating how long she will have before the commercial break. Ninety seconds if she’s lucky, less if Greg Gutfeld jumps in, which Gutfeld often does because she’s “pretty sure that Greg knows” when she has a good run planned and enjoys the sabotage. She’s sorting through the wire dispatch she read and a set of figures she memorized about the current state of the conflict that she may or may not deploy, depending on how hyperbolic she decides to be in her opening line.

She is also considering whether to make a joke, maybe something about how the administration should hire Watters as their spokesman because he’d be better at painting a “rosy view” of the war than their actual press secretary. She actually calls this her “olive branch,” she tells me, a compliment disguised as a dig that might soften the table enough for her to pivot into data that contradicts everything he just said. And underneath it all, she “hopes and prays” that when it’s her time to speak, “they won’t interrupt me too much...if I’m going to get 90 seconds, I want to make the most of it.” All of this is happening behind her face while a man is talking about ships.

The job is, at its core, an act of high-speed triage, and on paper, Tarlov is probably over-qualified for it. She has a PhD in political science from the London School of Economics, spent years as a strategist for Democratic pollster Doug Schoen, ran consumer research at Bustle Digital Group, and worked as a communications strategist on Boris Johnson’s reelection campaign for Mayor of London. “I’m a researcher first and foremost,” she says. But she took this gig, she explains, because of “the person who votes the same as me, that’s sitting at home thinking, I don’t have a platform.” After all, the liberal seat on The Five is a party of one. Tarlov rotates it with the pundit Harold Ford Jr., which means that on any given evening, the person doing the representing is her and only her.

So she does her homework. Before each show, she pores through legislation, polling data, and wire reports, looking for two things: the points she absolutely needs to land and one thing she can concede. Take Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill: She’ll comb through it, looking for a provision that isn’t “completely horrible,” because she knows her audience, and “knee-jerk, complete opposition to something completely turns off the other side.” That’s also why she is so meticulous about sourcing. She picks outlets her co-hosts can’t wave away and quotes Republican legislators back to themselves because “they’ll regularly say to me, ‘Oh, these are just liberal attacks.’” When Vice President JD Vance appeared on the show and discussed the conflict in Iran, she opened her rebuttal by naming The Wall Street Journal’s reporting. When Vance countered that she was repeating Iranian propaganda, she snapped back: “Oh, like The Wall Street Journal?” She tells this story with visible satisfaction.

But preparing to fight is only half the problem. The other half is the people she is fighting with. Watters sits to the right of Tarlov, which is a lot of proximity to a man who once told a story on air—which he later said was a joke—about deflating a female colleague’s tires to get her to accept a ride home. He is four years into a resolution to stop interrupting Tarlov, and it is not going well. During one segment he cut her off with “You don’t know anything about real estate, Jessica. You rent.” During another, he told her not to “talk like you know anything about the oil markets.” When she pushed back, he said, “It’s the difference between a man and a woman.” Gutfeld has the comic instinct of finding out where the boundaries are only by crossing them. He has snapped, “Don’t play that bullshit with me!” at Tarlov during an argument about political violence, informed her mid-sentence that trans issues amount to “just mutilating kids, but go on,” and once called her “too emotional” on air. “HR watches this, by the way,” she later replied.

Surely this is untenable. Surely the best she can do, after years of this, is to tolerate the people across the table and leave the building as fast as possible. But ask Tarlov and she will tell you, without a trace of irony, that they are her friends. Not just Dana Perino, the former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush who became something of a mentor. Or Emily Compagno, a legal analyst who was just named as the replacement for the ever-incendiary Jeanine Pirro. But the men too. “Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld actually care about me as a person,” she says. “And that doesn’t make them soften their political opinions, even though I think that they should in some cases, especially when they’re enormously wrong.”

By friends, she means she and Gutfeld text outside work three or four days a week. She has been to his apartment, has spent time with his family, and was invited to his daughter’s first birthday party. She texts regularly with Watters’s wife and once said yes to a charity gala she was hosting before learning the venue was Bedminster, Trump’s golf club. “Are you fucking kidding me?” was her response upon finding out, but she eventually went anyway. With Perino and Compagno, a recent night out involved dinner at Carnegie and Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) on Broadway.

To an outsider, it may be hard to square Tarlov’s beliefs with the company she keeps. Politics are, in the truest sense, a reflection of one’s morals and ethics, and staying close to people who adhere to a different set of principles is itself a moral choice.

For Tarlov, however, it’s easy. It’s about “fundamentally understanding them as people and how they think about politics” rather than seeing them as “a set of political opinions,” she says. What she has come to understand, she explains, is that some of her co-hosts, “in particular Jesse and Greg, don’t think that politics is the most important thing in the world.” Which is to say that it can be compartmentalized.

The trouble is that Tarlov herself does not describe politics as something that stays politely contained inside politics—and there is tape to prove it. Gutfeld once asked her why she cared whether he liked Trump. “It’s not just like a friend you brought to the bar who I find annoying,” she said. “This is somebody setting an agenda for an entire country that has real implications. People don’t have healthcare because of Donald Trump. People are sitting in cells because of Donald Trump. People are dead.” On the day Roe v. Wade fell, she cried thinking about what the ruling could mean for women seeking emergency care. Her colleagues and the production team, she says, “really cleared the field for me that day...No interruptions. Just that I should get to say whatever I have to say.”

There are limits, Tarlov says. Stephen Miller cannot be her friend, and she does not want to meet Trump. But Gutfeld and Watters sit on the safe side of those limits, and she has decided they belong there, even though the policies they defend are the ones she describes as dangerous.

Some would call this a contradiction. Tarlov would describe it as the reason she’s the right person for the job. “I have said, multiple times on-air, these policies are killing people. This isn’t just an abstract thing,” she says. But she believes in what she calls “the long game,” and to her, that means keeping the people she is arguing with close enough to actually hear her.

According to Tarlov’s mother’s medium, her dead father still helps with her Fox News talking points. Tarlov is not entirely sure she believes this. “I don’t know if that’s actually true,” she says, “or if she has a crazy medium.” She does know that when he was alive, he did. Mark Tarlov was a lawyer, and when she started doing television, she used to send him what she planned to say, and “he was awesome at helping guide me towards honing in on what I really wanted to hammer home.” He helped her figure out what to cut, what to keep, and what she could reasonably drive home before someone started talking over her. It’s the system she still runs on The Five every day, and one she learned at home.

Home was a dinner table in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan, where two lawyer parents and two daughters talked over each other every night. Her mother, Judith Roberts, “would tell you that I came out argumentative, that this was built into me,” Tarlov says. Her parents discussed their cases openly and “hashed out their problems” in front of their children, and their daughters’ “votes mattered” in their household. She tells me that in art class, at 5, she demanded a ruler to draw with because using it was faster, and that when faced with a maze on a test she went around it, because that was faster too. She went to a progressive school in the West Village where she called her teachers by their first names and found high school formality bizarre. (“He’s just Steve!”)

It was, in every sense, a childhood that trained her to hold her own in any room. She credits her parents with that—specifically their decision to raise their children as people whose opinions were heard. “They had daughters, I have daughters. I think that was a really essential component to making me feel like my voice mattered from when I was a little kid to today.”

Still, “there’s not one person that I know that would’ve predicted that this is what I would be doing for work,” she says. A researcher by training and instinct, Tarlov had spent years building arguments from data before anyone asked her to make one on camera. Then in 2015, Doug Schoen, the Democratic pollster she had been working under for half a decade and already a Fox contributor himself, encouraged the network to put her on the air. She kept coming back, even as she held down other jobs: first, as a guest; next, as a contributor; then, in 2022, as a co-host on The Five.

She was not, by her own admission, immediately great at it. She watches early tape and concedes that the hair was still finding itself and the outfits were not from her finest era. Worse yet, she hadn’t learned what to do with her 90 seconds, and she can hear herself swinging at absolutely everything. “It was almost like machine-gun fire,” she says. “And I wasn’t sure of what I absolutely needed to say, what would have the most impact, what would mean the most to me.” The deeper issue, she adds, was that “I didn’t know myself. And I think that came through in the way that I communicated too.”

The shift came partly from experience and partly from Perino, who sought her out early on for a conversation about how she was approaching the job. Perino told her she doesn’t have to carry the opinions of “80 or 81 million people on your back. It’s too much and you’re going to crumble.” Tarlov took the advice. She learned that there would be another show tomorrow and another chance to make the point she had missed. “That’s frankly when you make some of your worst arguments,” she says, “when you’re trying to cram everything in there and go in 50 directions versus really landing something effectively.”

Perhaps the most unlikely source of encouragement was Roger Ailes, the Fox News founder whose career ended in disgrace amid sexual harassment allegations. She recounts in I Disagree being called to his office early on, certain he was going to tell her to smooth out the vocal fry in her voice. He told her the opposite. “It’s not your voice, Jessica. It’s your content. What you’re saying runs against how they see the world.” Don’t change a thing, he told her. “They may hate what you stand for and what you’re saying, but you want them to know that it’s you on the TV.” She is clear that there is “no excusing the awful things Roger Ailes did.” But that advice, she writes, helped her stop apologizing for her voice.

Brian McKenna, her husband, tells me on a phone call a few days after our interview that he got his first clue her television career was a little more substantial than she had let on when they met at the beginning of the pandemic. She described it to him more or less as: “I appear on Fox sometimes.” He accepted this until a cable-news-obsessed friend pieced together who she is: “Did you make out with Tarlov? Are you dating Tarlov?” McKenna was confused. It occurred to him that perhaps he should Google the woman he was dating.

He has since caught up. McKenna, who is 48 and works at a hedge fund, tells me he gets “a good laugh out of it more often than people would think, just because I’m so often reminded of how she gets the best of me in arguments.” Their longest-running dispute is about airports. “She has a dogmatic loyalty to flying out of JFK,” he says, and he has learned to recognize the transformation from “my sweet wife” doing school drop-offs and nail-salon runs with the girls (the couple has two daughters, Cleo, 4, and Teddy, 2) to “shoulders up, big hair, locked in with TV makeup on and just ready to tear me to pieces in terms of flight time.” He adds: “She’s the wrestling heel. The heroes are Greg and Jesse and Dana. And she’s cast as a villain, so to speak.”

But at home, the villain has tells, and McKenna has learned to read them. “A little bit of the persona fades away,” he says. He watches her go back through every source she cited, the way someone checks the locks before bed. “There is a paranoia,” he says, that “maybe you said something incorrectly.” She processes her days out loud with him, replaying the arguments she wishes she’d made differently. The debriefs, he admits, “can get emotional at times. Anytime you see someone you care about and love be at the point of tears,” he says, “it’s a difficult moment.”

Outside the café windows, a small protest is underway on the sidewalk. Tarlov is doing what she has spent a decade learning to do: staying in the conversation no matter what’s happening around it. A joke lands right before or after something gets too heavy, almost like clockwork. But even Tarlov can still be caught off guard.

Like when the president of the United States attacked her on social media for the first time. “This just can’t be real,” she said to her husband on a Friday evening in June 2025 when she first saw the post. Not as a figure of speech; she genuinely thought someone might have fabricated it. AI, maybe, or a troll angling for engagement. “People will even do that stuff for attention,” she says, “create something that Trump said about them to get people to pay attention to them or fundraise.”

McKenna admits there’s a part of him that wanted to laugh because the post was so bombastic, so full of non-sequiturs, that it read like parody. “And then you’re looking at your wife and you see the weight of it hit, and you try to put yourself in the shoes of [having] the most powerful person in the world taking aim at you,” he says.

The post, apparently triggered by Tarlov citing his poll numbers on air, ran several hundred words. It called her a “failed TV personality” and said her voice, her manner, and everything she said were “a disgrace to television broadcasting.” It praised Watters and Gutfeld as “terrific” while questioning why Fox kept her on the show, and has since drawn nearly 35,000 likes and roughly 8,000 shares.

The first thing she did was cry. And then, because this is Jessica Tarlov, she tried to “intellectually process” it, to separate the attack on her style from the absence of any attack on her substance, because “this is the way that so many people lob criticism. And, I think, especially how men come after women, frankly, when they can’t deal with the content of what you’re saying. So they just pick on your jittery presentation or your unendurable voice.”

The president was an antagonist attacking from a distance. Other threats appear closer. In September 2025, the same week conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at a college event in Utah, a death threat against Tarlov was being investigated. In the aftermath, she and her husband discussed putting AirTags on their daughters’ strollers. Their nanny, who had previous experience working for people in media, immediately offered to keep a diary of everywhere she took the girls and to share her location so the family would always know where the children were. This wasn’t the last, or only, time that Tarlov has been threatened. “I’ve had people online say, ‘I know where your kids are,’” she says.

Moments like this show the frightening reality of doing this. They also raise a question she has heard in various forms for years, from friends on the left who wonder why she’s on the network at all to critics who argue that her presence functions as little more than a liberal prop in a conservative production. What good is she really doing?

It’s a line of questioning that Tarlov does not entertain. “I honestly think that in this era and the way that media works today, that’s a very lazy framing of people who want to sit on the sidelines or live in a silo,” she says. She understands the criticism, she adds, but thinks it misses “the tremendous opportunity for you to be able to get your message out and represent the viewpoint of a majority of Americans on the biggest platform that there is.”

And anyway, she can handle all of it, she says, as long as she can “keep my side of the street clean” and not leave “any cards on the table.”

She’s also seen the difference her presence has made. In her book, she describes a trans woman from Alabama whose conservative family watches Fox News all day and does not speak to her. “If more people talked like you do,” the woman told Tarlov, “I might get my family back one day.” At a separate event, a Trump supporter who had been attacking Tarlov online for years approached her to apologize. She had gone through cancer, she said, and come out the other side less angry. She wanted Tarlov to know she respected what she was doing.

Whether the table itself has moved is harder to say. Gutfeld “would tell you no, that I haven’t changed his mind but opened his mind up to possibilities, realities that he wasn’t considering,” Tarlov says. When Tarlov explained on air that the Save America Act would require voters to produce a birth certificate or passport, Watters cut in. "Is that true?" he asked. She told him it was. “Well, that's kind of crazy,” he said. But the influence runs both ways. Her colleagues’ arguments on immigration shifted her own position; she now believes sanctuary city mayors should cooperate with federal authorities when undocumented immigrants commit crimes. She also talks about abortion “radically differently” than she did before Dobbs. After having her own children, “I know what 20 weeks means,” she says. “I know what 24 weeks means.”

If there is a professional red line, it has nothing to do with ideology. “If it became a hostile work environment where I wasn’t happy and I didn’t feel like I could carve out my own space to be able to say what I needed to say, then I wouldn’t want to do the job anymore,” she says. “But if there are bad ideas being expressed, I would rather have the opportunity to inject what I think are my good ideas.”

For the record, Jessica Tarlov does not go to therapy. She went once, briefly, when she had a toxic boyfriend, and her mother paid for it. She does not intend to go back, though she cries a lot and is in fact about to. “This is my session,” she tells me at one point, gesturing at the space between us on the couch.

The black rectangular glasses she wears on camera every afternoon were her father’s. He died in them from a 9/11-related cancer when she was twenty weeks pregnant with Cleo, so he never got the chance to meet her daughters. “He just would’ve loved them,” she said, adding, “He missed out on the grown-up version of me.” For the first time in our conversation, no joke arrives to soften the landing, and she sobs. When she first started doing television, he was too scared to watch her live; he would make her mother prescreen each segment and then watch the recording while peering from behind his hand, afraid of what might happen to his daughter.

She has cried about him on air before. “There was great relief and also discomfort,” she says, “because I had gotten to the point where it had to be addressed almost, when you’re walking around with something that’s so bottled up...No one wants anyone to be looking at them while they’re crying. I’m also a very ugly crier, so I didn’t want that to be going on for too long.” Her colleagues, she says, knew “to pump the brakes” and take it easy on her that day.

Compagno, Tarlov’s longtime friend and newest co-host on The Five, has learned to calibrate around her. If Tarlov has already taken enough heat, Compagno says, “I don’t need to be the fourth person to pile on.” Not because she thinks Tarlov is fragile; quite the opposite. “Jessica has incredibly thick skin, Teflon armor,” she says. “I know that I could never do her job because I would just crumple immediately.” Tarlov describes the same construction from the inside. “I also feel like I’m a soft and caring and emotional person, but there is certainly a tough exterior to me in a lot of ways,” she tells me. Learning to separate that emotionality from the arguments she makes in public “has taken concerted effort.”

Eventually, the tears stop. Tarlov has a portrait shoot scheduled just outside the building. She excuses herself, heads upstairs to reapply her makeup and repair whatever the last hour did to her face. A few minutes later, she emerges through the revolving door: eyes dry, hair untouched, eyelashes intact. You would never know.

I possess a handful of beauty fears. Purple blush? Terrifying. Red eyeshadow? Not going to happen. Brown lipstick? Historically, a major no-go. But leave it to Violette_FR's latest launch to change my tune. The brand’s Bisou Balm is a classic, and while it shouldn’t need much of an introduction, I’ll provide the gist: It’s a sheer matte lipstick-meets-balm that possesses the most otherworldly blurring powers I’ve ever experienced. Lip lines vanish with a swipe—it’s a little nutty. I obviously have the Rose Latte shade, but a little nudging from founder and makeup artist Violette herself convinced me to try the newest drop, Chocolat.

My aversion to brown lipstick isn’t unwarranted. Despite loving it on everyone else, I’ve found that most shades typically run too warm and muddy for my complexion. In short, they make me look slightly vampiric, which, despite loving Vampire Diaries and The Serpent and Wings of the Night, is not the vibe I’m going for. When I did a quick swatch of this balm, I realized it was sheer enough to let my natural lip color (which runs pretty pink) poke through—and reads more warm and rosy in its undertones. Plus, brown lipstick is a major fall 2026 makeup trend.

“It's finally a brown that feels truly effortless, but because of the feeling behind it. Chocolat is about comfort with yourself, confidence, and finding luxury in the ordinary,” Violette explains. “It’s inspired by those unhurried moments that exist purely for our own pleasure—savoring a piece of exceptional chocolate, trying on something beautiful with nowhere to go, lingering in bed a little longer just because we can. Those are the moments we feel most like ourselves.”

I never thought I would feel like myself in brown lipstick, but alas, here we are. For my full, honest review on the brown shade that’s infiltrated my makeup routine, read ahead.

Is Bisou Balm Chocolat Flattering on Fair Skin Tones?

Most brown lipsticks read a little orange or warm, which, if you have fair, cool-toned skin like me, is not the way to go. It can make my dark circles look darker, and my skin picks up a sallow, slightly sickly tone. Chocolat is the opposite. It’s a true cacao shade with hints of chestnut and mahogany that reads a bit more dusty rose in application.

I also find that because the formula is so sheer and relies more on blurring power and a subtle tint, my natural lip shade can influence the tone. It reads a bit more like a pinky brown on my lips than a true brown, and plays really nicely with my pink blush, actually making it pop more than my typical lip shades.

What Does Bisou Balm Look and Feel Like?

I can pretty much guarantee you haven’t tried a formula like this. It’s not really a balm or a lipstick, but a blend of both. It manages to be incredibly hydrating, without slip (the formula is pretty matte) courtesy of smoothing waxes and emollients. The real differentiator, though, is the blurring tech. The formula features Lapacho Tree extract, which basically blurs over lip lines and creates this airbrushed finish across the lips. It’s genuinely such a visible difference—the product almost floats on top of the creases. I prefer a subtle dab, but you can definitely layer it up to a fuller coverage formula.

Is Bisou Balm In Chocolat Worth It?

If you had told me a month ago that I’d be reaching for a brown lipstick as my go-to color, I would have laughed at the mere thought of it. To me, brown never felt like a wearable shade for my skin tone. It lived in that unrealistic, editorial category of beauty products that never infiltrated my everyday makeup bag. But turning me into a convert was shockingly easy.

It’s the first brown that doesn’t feel like it’s a constant war with my skin tone. It’s shockingly natural on the lips and made me reassess brown as a shade that can be a neutral—not a statement color. Dare I say I’ve conquered my fear? Maybe I should try black eyeshadow next.

Shop Violette_FR

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

When I was in college, I spent a summer studying abroad in a small beach town in southern Spain called Cádiz. Every day after class, my friends and I would hit the beaches; on weekends, we’d travel inland to visit more well-known cities, like Seville, Córdoba, and Granada.

In terms of beaches, we thought we had it made in Cádiz (and indeed, we were spoiled with three gorgeous beaches on the Atlantic Ocean to choose from). But what we didn’t realize is that just an hour and half east of Cádiz is another coastal region just waiting to be discovered: Costa del Sol.

Located on the Mediterranean Sea, Costa del Sol is part of the Andulsia region. And it might just be Spain’s best-kept vacation secret—for Americans, that is. While Europeans have flocked to the area for decades, Costa del Sol has largely flown under the radar in the U.S.

But with airlines like United now flying direct from New York City to Málaga, it’s easier than ever to get there. Here’s your guide for where to stay and where to visit during a week in Costa del Sol.

How to Get There

Traveling to Costa del Sol used to mean long layovers in European cities like Paris or Madrid. But now you can fly direct to Málaga from Newark airport on United Airlines in about seven hours during the high season (May through September). If you’re going during another time of year, you can fly to Madrid and then take a high-speed train or short domestic flight to Málaga.

For the itinerary below, you’ll definitely want to rent a car at the airport. That way, you’ll have the freedom to explore at your own pace.

Where to Stay

Fairmont La Hacienda Costa del Sol is the perfect home base for exploring Spain’s southern coast. Situated on the sparkling Mediterranean sea, the luxury resort is just a quick drive to towns like Marbella, Estepona, and Ronda.

The hotel has 311 rooms, suites, and private villas, each with stunning views of the ocean. Villas have their own private swimming pool, perfect for cooling off after a day of exploring. My favorite part of the room was the oversized bathroom, which features Le Labo bath products from its heavenly Rose 31 line.

When it comes to food, you have three restaurants to choose from: El Faro for Italian-inspired cuisine, Dalmar for upscale dinners led by one of Spain’s best chefs, Benito Gómez, and Umbra, a poolside cafe.

You’ll also find a spa featuring a sauna, two hammams, swimming pools, and a hydrotherapy circuit. And if you’re a fan of golf, you won’t want to miss the links located on the coast with views of the Rock of Gibraltar behind you. In other words, if you feel like taking a break from exploring, there’s no shortage of things to do on the property.

Your Costa del Sol Itinerary

A week-long vacation will give you plenty of time to traverse Spain’s southern coast. Here’s exactly where to go, what to see, and what to do.

1. Málaga

The capital of the Costa del Sol region, Málaga is known for its rich culinary scene and ancient Moorish and Roman history. It’s also the birthplace of Picasso (and yes, there’s a can’t-miss museum featuring hundreds of his works). Spend your morning wandering through Alcazaba, an 11th-century Moorish fortress with breathtaking city views. In the afternoon, walk through Old Town, which features La Manquita, the city’s iconic 16th-century cathedral.

2. Marbella

Follow the coastline for about an hour south of Málaga and you’ll land in Marbella, the region’s most glamorous city. Its “Golden Mile” is dotted with luxury hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants, and celebrity-owned clubs. But the town offers more than glitz and glamour—you’ll also find a charming old town featuring cobblestone streets, flower-filled plazas, and local boutiques selling breezy linen and handmade jewelry.

3. Estepona

Known as the “Garden of Costa del Sol,” Estepona is Marbella’s more laid-back, less touristy cousin. After strolling through the Old Town, which is famous for its whitewashed houses, flowerpot-lined streets, and colorful murals, check out the Orchid House, which boasts thousands of blooming orchid species.

4. Ronda

Take a break from the coast and head inland and upward into the mountains to check out this magical town. Ronda sits above a jaw-dropping gorge that splits the town into El Mercadillo ("New Town") and La Ciudad ("Old Town"). Take in the view from Puente Nuevo (the “New Bridge") and then wander the streets that inspired writers like Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles.

5. Tarifa

End your trip in Tarifa, located at the southernmost tip of Europe, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic. Known as a bohemian beach town, Tarifa is beloved by surfers and kiteboarders. But the coolest part is that you can hop on a ferry and be in Morocco in under an hour. Have breakfast in Spain and lunch on a whole other continent.

In the mid-2010s, you couldn't escape the white leather Adidas sneaker if you tried. Commuters slipped them on for the trip to and from the office, editors wore them, and Phoebe Philo took her Céline runway bows in them. Celebrities and arbiters of good taste—from the Olsen twins on down—were stalked by paparazzi in theirs, venti Starbucks in hand. Eventually, your non-fashion friends got a pair. Then your mom did. And then, as these things tend to go, fashion's fickle fans got sick of looking at them.

The Stan Smith was hardly new to the trend cycle, even then. Originally created in the 1960s for French tennis player Robert Haillet, it was the first leather tennis shoe on the market before being rechristened for American tennis star Stan Smith. By 1989, 22 million pairs had sold. Then Adidas did something that now reads remarkably ahead of its time: It made the shoe disappear. Production stopped in 2011, creating demand for something you suddenly couldn't have.

It worked almost absurdly well. Adidas brought the Stan Smith back in 2014, betting that a few years away had made the sneaker desirable again. U.S. sales, which reportedly hovered around $800,000 in 2012, climbed to more than $7 million in 2014 and $12.5 million through the first nine months of 2015. Globally, Adidas sold eight million pairs that year alone. The Stan Smith had gone from classic tennis shoe to full-blown fashion phenomenon—and, eventually, become so mainstream that the only thing left to do was stop wearing it again.

For the years that followed, the Stan Smith quietly saw itself out of the It-shoe arena while Adidas found a new cast of sneaker heroes.

Lately, though, the Stan Smith has started showing up again. Nearly a decade after fashion reached peak saturation with the sneaker, a new crop of wearers is looking at it with fresh eyes. Someone turning 20 this year, after all, was nine in 2015, when Adidas sold eight million pairs.

The clues started this spring, when Timothée Chalamet sat courtside at a Knicks playoff game in a pair of classic Stan Smiths. This summer, Emily Oberg, the Sporty & Rich founder who has made a career out of finding new relevance in old-school sportswear, put them into rotation. At the U.S. Open, Tate McRae wore the well-known white-and-green pair—a choice that could have been lifted straight from a 2015 street-style photo. And this month, just as Fashion Week gets underway, The Frankie Shop is putting its own very current stamp on the style.

Three makes a trend—or at least a compelling case for one. That was the assessment of Marie Claire editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike, who has a knack for spotting an It item before everyone else decides it's one. Four starts to feel like something more.

Which raises the question: How did we end up back here?

Finding the next sneaker became something of a sport itself. Sneaker fanatics and bandwagon fans alike have spent the past few years working their way through the Adidas archive—the Samba, the Gazelle, the Spezial, the SL 72, the Tokyo—reciting obscure provenances and style numbers like tasting notes on a bottle of Burgundy. Adidas's Tokyo in particular has become one of the fashion crowd's sneakers to know.

The appetite for nostalgic sneakers was already there. Earlier this year, The RealReal reported that demand for retro-inspired sneakers from Dries Van Noten and Wales Bonner x Adidas was up 123 percent year over year.

Part of the Stan Smith's appeal is how almost aggressively straightforward it is. No silver uppers or exaggerated soles, whiplash laces or obscure flourishes—just white leather, three perforated stripes, and a flash of subtle color at the heel. It's almost the counterpoint to some of 2026's biggest sneaker trends.

Adidas seems ready for us to look at it again, too. This summer, the brand released a new $130 Stan Smith 80s, a return to the shoe's familiar white-and-green form.

And the timing is no accident. On an earnings call this summer, Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden told investors the company was seeing “big indications” from fashion shows, consumer groups, and its own research that the Stan Smith was ready for another run. Early sales of the limited product, he added, were already “working very well.”

Adidas knows better than most what happens when a good thing becomes too available. The last Stan Smith comeback was so successful that ubiquity eventually became its undoing. This time, the brand appears to be moving more carefully, putting limited product into the market and watching what happens before scaling up.

And fashion, for now, is still in the fun part of the cycle: when enough time has passed that you can’t quite remember why you got sick of something in the first place. The next great fashion-girl sneaker may already be sitting in the back of one generation's closet—and soon enough, at the top of another's wish list.

Stassi Schroeder would like you to know she's thrilled that Hulu is signing her checks. In the first confessional of her new reality series, House of Stassi, she admires the green screen behind her the way a Regency romance heroine might react to the concept of indoor plumbing. "Are you joking?" she marvels. "Shit's premium over at Disney."

The fourth wall, if it was ever even erected, has been bulldozed.

It's the same on Hulu's The Girls, where Khloé Kardashian's friends spend an entire episode drawing on-camera boundaries via sly texts shared across Malibu dinner tables. On The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, another Hulu product, the husbands hustle their DadTok accounts for villa bookings while their more successful other halves negotiate season salaries, all while practically waving at the camera.

Across these three shows, how the sausage gets made isn't hidden any more. It's the content.

It makes sense. Reality TV is 25 years old now. Anyone still watching has wised up to the fact that those blowouts Kim Kardashian had with her sisters over swimming pool-sized bowls of Health Nut salads were almost always scheduled. A few of us were even alive to witness the moment, in 2010, when Kristin Cavallari said goodbye to Brody Jenner on a fake Los Angeles street, the camera pulling back to reveal the whole soundstage. But that was a gag, a wink at the end of six seasons. What's happening now is more structural, like the formula knew it needed a refresh, something to help the Botox metabolize so the natural wrinkles could show.

There's a difference, though, between acknowledging the business and putting the woman who decides what airs in the frame with the people it's happening to.

House of Stassi is the clearest proof. Schroeder, six years after being fired from Vanderpump Rules, has decided she deserves the Kris Jenner treatment. She's recruited family members, friends, and, most importantly, her former Vanderpump alum Katie Maloney, to effectively manage on-screen. She promises them a tax bracket glow-up while chasing relevancy for herself, and she's shameless about it — staging dinner parties she describes on air as team meetings, taking gigs in the name of "Disney synergy," even showing the sizzle reel that sold House of Stassi in the actual premiere of House of Stassi.

When Katie tells Schroeder at brunch that her inner circle is made up of employees with no concept of work-life balance ("If they didn't come out of you, aren't married to you, or aren't on your fucking payroll, they don't get to be in your life"), Schroeder grows positively giddy. "That's the kind of truth-telling we need on reality TV," she gushes to camera. It's one of the few real "reads" uttered all season, and her instinct is to compliment its ratings potential.

That's because Schroeder is producing her life, not living it. The editing knows this, cutting episodes in ways that treat her celebrity complex as a sort of punchline. And to her credit, she's never been precious about looking bad on television; a decade in, she'll hand over the unflattering angle herself. It's funny and cringe, something all good reality shows are, but it starts to wear thin a few episodes in, especially when Schroeder's fame-grab begins to damage the people closest to her. Self-awareness, it turns out, has a sell-by date. It, like everything else, gets old.

Hulu's The Girls, another show whose foundation rests atop the fourth wall rubble, has the same problem. Khloé Kardashian's cast (her word) is made up of women who are her friends, but not necessarily each other's. They're the vehicle through which she can live out her own Sex and the City daydreams. (Khloé is, naturally, a Carrie, narrating every dildo donation party and al fresco brunch.)

What makes The Girls interesting is also what makes it so uncomfortable. Kardashian strips conversations for parts, exposes private texts, and pushes women to compromise their comfort in the name of "honesty" because the almighty camera can apparently tell when you're lying. By cutting confessionals entirely, the audience only views these women through her tailored lens. They never get to narrate their own experience. Take Malika and Khadijah Haqq, her best friends for nearly 20 years, and in the background on her family's shows for just as long. This season, one navigates a painful divorce and the other tries to restart her life on her own terms, yet both stories are filtered through Khloé: their director, their producer, the employer signing their checks. Their bond pre-dates Keeping Up with the Kardashians, but it might not survive The Girls. And if it doesn't, the cameras will capture that too, because everything is content, isn't it?

Then there's The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which uses the fourth wall the way the other two shows wish they could: sparingly. These women are savvy content creators, but they're also friends with years of history and the shared experience of being raised in a community that doesn't support their current lifestyles. Even when they're throwing insults at dinner parties and removing themselves from group chats, the stakes feel more concrete. The transparency works because these women are still figuring out how to navigate this world instead of engineering it.

That's the real test. You can show an audience the green screen once, but every season spent showing the set-up before the scene or the puppeteering that goes into a lunch sit-down fueled by accusations and Aperol Spritz filters out the viewers who came to watch a life from the ones who came to watch a job. For SLOMW, showing the wires makes the show better. On House of Stassi, the wires are the show, but that won't hold anyone's attention for long. And on The Girls, the wires point to something producers might not want us to be thinking about too carefully: who holds the power, and who gets a say in the depiction of their own life. One is insightful. The other? Boring. And one might put people off the genre altogether.

This trend of taking a sledgehammer to the old ways of translating "real life" on screen can feel like a needed shot of authenticity when done well. But when it's constant, like with House of Stassi and The Girls, it draws attention to a bigger problem. Reality TV is simply a different ballgame now. We used to get our kicks from watching normal people do something they'd regret in pursuit of money and fame. Now, we're watching influencers, professional celebrities, and their glorified assistants with money and fame do regretful things in pursuit of more. At some point, acknowledging the camera's role in all this will stop reading as novel and start to feel, at worst, off-putting, and at best, just plain obvious.

After decades of cooking, developing recipes, and writing about food, chef Carla Lalli has learned her appetite is best met when she eats her feelings. That's exactly the crux of the former Bon Appétit Food Editor at Large's new book Food is a Feeling, a cookbook/memoir about her lifetime spent in kitchens, and particularly the role food played after her divorce.

But long before Lalli hosted hit YouTube cooking shows and published bestsellers like Where Cooking Begins and That Sounds So Good, she got her start studying at the French Culinary Institute and working as a line chef and kitchen manager in New York restaurants. There, she honed her craft and fell even more in love with it—but also learned how to hold her own in traditionally hyper-masculine environments.

As Food is a Feeling hits shelves on September 8, Lalli has shared an exclusive excerpt with Marie Claire about her days in the late '90s spent working in a Tribeca kitchen. You can read the chapter, titled "Restaurant Haze," below.

Restaurant work began for me in 1998, at Montrachet, a three-star restaurant in Tribeca run by a tall French chef who seemed proportionally oversized for the short and narrow kitchen. I arrived as a twenty-six-year-old culinary student, a baby whale, ready to inhale every scrap of instruction that came my way. I wasn’t passive: I wanted to contribute, earn approval, and, most of all, I wanted to fit in. I was there for about a year. When I left, it was with a fledgling cook’s swagger and skills that are foundational to the way I prepare food, almost thirty years later.

I was “hired” as an unpaid intern while still in culinary school and went to Montrachet straight from class. After I changed, I’d set up my workstation right on the other side of the swinging kitchen door, between a janky toaster oven and the stainless countertop where the salad cook whisked vinaigrettes in massive metal bowls. It was good that I was small. My body slid into a spot that was barely wide enough for a slim kitchen trashcan, and I could stand comfortably beneath an open shelving unit without having to crouch. I can remember feeling my hip bones press into the lip of the counter as I worked, but I can barely conjure the posh dining room. When I passed through it, I kept my eyes lowered on the red carpet and moved quickly. The kitchen staff were meant to be invisible to the guests.

In addition to helping the cooks with menial prep work—trimming vegetables, mostly—I was tasked with the amuse-bouche. This was a little bite from the chef that went out to each guest after they were seated, which meant I’d have to keep up with service, too. On my first day, Chef gave me a container of gently roasted mini sweet bell peppers and a large metal pan of cold braised rabbit. My job was to debone the rabbit and tear the meat into pieces that would fit into the cavity of each pepper.

The most efficient way to do this was by hand, digging the pieces of rabbit out of the gelatinized braising liquid, then sliding the meat off the tiny bunny bones. Once I had separated the usable bits from the discard, I would coax a pinch of shredded rabbit into the pepper, being careful not to tear the silky, floppy skin. I hadn’t been at it long when the chef swooped in behind me and said, in a searingly derisive tone: Do you know there are oils and bacteria on your hands that you are putting into that entire batch of rabbit, causing it to become contaminated and spoil, and we will have to throw it into the garbage? This was his way of telling me to wear gloves. Enveloped in shame and embarrassment, I knew enough to say, Yes, Chef. Heart pounding, I washed my hands, put on gloves, and continued with my task.

An hour later, dinner service began and orders rolled in. I stood silent and rapt, watching the cooks call back orders and fire their dishes. As though automated, they grabbed skillets and dropped them onto already-lit burners, spooned into their mise en place, squirted oil, lemon juice, and vinegar from squeeze bottles, slid aluminum trays in and out of the eye-level broiler, and monitored multiple types of proteins at once. Heeding internal timers, they bent to extract fish fillets and chicken legs from the blasting oven, then used their heels to swing the door closed behind them. My adrenaline soared.

The dance would slow when it was time to plate. From the opposite side of the counter, the chef would bend forward to scrutinize each dish being presented to him. If all went well, he’d dip a tightly rolled white napkin in a bowl of diluted white vinegar and use that to wipe the plate rim. The food runners lined up behind him, listening for him to call table numbers and positions before gliding out to the dining room with the hot plates.

The loop was closed when the runners returned with empty china, pausing in front of the chef so he could see how much (or how little) had been consumed. From there, dishes and silverware landed noisily at the dishwashing station. The porters transformed them into stacks of clean plates that made their way back to the cooks’ warming shelf. I was electrified. The dining room was pomp, performance, a show. The kitchen was unedited, raw sport, a coordinated mosh pit. It seemed like the most beautiful transaction imaginable. The diners order the food, we cook the food, they eat the food, we wash the dishes, they give us money, they leave, we leave.

I made sure to be on time, take up a minimum of space, heed the chef, help the cooks, and keep up with the amuse. Soon, I was offered an actual staff position: $350 for a six-day week; we worked a double on Fridays and the restaurant was closed on Sundays. No sick days, no vacation. It was a low wage for the overtime hours and the nonexistent benefits. But it was a line position. I’d be an entremetier, preparing the vegetables that went with the fish entrées. I accepted on the spot. The shitty pay and punishing conditions were, unfortunately, a big part of the draw, my chance to rebel against my privileged upbringing and fancy education. I wanted to be tough; I wanted to be a player in the behind-the-scenes ruckus of it, anonymous to the diners but indispensable to the team. There was something so sexy to me about being a woman in this masculine space, where I’d get dirty and sweaty flinging skillets all night. I had no idea what I was doing, but I desperately needed to prove I could do it. To them, and to myself.

At Montrachet, cooking went from a hobby to grueling work that destroyed any desire I had to cook on my days off. Or, day: Sunday. I arrived for my shift in a state of panic, which ebbed and peaked depending on factors out of my control—how many reservations were on the books, when food deliveries arrived, the amount of prep on the to-do list, Chef’s mood.

I reported to the fish cook, Max, a six-foot-tall, effortlessly cool woman with spiky, platinum hair; long, graceful fingers; and several years of kitchen experience. She intimidated me, I needed to please her, I was a little bit in love with her, and I wanted to be her. She was mysterious, humorless, and unflappable. Hot. Most of the time, I assumed she wanted to throttle me, which felt warranted given my naiveté. Fucking something up and wasting product was my main fear; as was falling behind during service. Like being sucked into a tornado, you have time to recognize your demise coming, but not enough to avoid it. No matter what was happening, I actively tried not to anger or annoy Max.

The hierarchy of a French kitchen is based on a battle brigade, and that kitchen was assigned macho at birth. My performance anxiety was coupled with the culture shock of existing in an overwhelmingly masculine environment. I expected to be ogled and I was waiting to be belittled. There was no escaping my femaleness, yet femininity had no role in the group dynamic. The process of shedding my girlhood started in the co-ed changing area when I disrobed alongside four men, then slid into a boxy white chef’s jacket and the polyester checkered pants that were cut for a man’s body. I did this as quickly as possible, staring straight into the wall. Earning respect and being less femme were entwined.

In the kitchen, I wanted to transcend “not bad for a girl.” I refused to be seen as weak, and wouldn’t let my male colleagues hoist heavy pots for me. Eventually they stopped offering. If something was out of reach, I didn’t ask long-limbed Max to get it for me, either. She’d signaled early on that she couldn’t interrupt her flow every time I needed something. Like a stubborn toddler set on doing whatever the big kids could do, I’d climb up on the stainless counters in my socked feet to fetch the tall stockpot, the steamer basket, the giant colander stored on the highest shelves. My war paint was the olive oil I’d rub on my lips when they got chapped from ducking in and out of a 500°F oven all day. I lost weight from the long days of physical labor, and Max showed me how to twist strips of plastic wrap into makeshift belts that we used to keep our pants up.

I kept up my tough-guy masquerade and assimilated to the job. I diligently followed Max’s directions, leaning into the corrections she gave me, and parroted her motions when we were in service. Within a couple of months, I went from my amuse-bouche station to finding my own physical flair on the line. I could juggle multiple skillets at once. I knew when to add water to a pan of sautéed vegetables to create a blast of steam that would finish cooking them through. I liked to hook my first two fingers into the butter at my station, then whip my wrist to launch that knob of dairy into a sauté pan and swirl it to emulsify a sauce. I was good at memorizing the combination of dishes the chef fired, murmuring, You ready? to Max at the exact moment her branzino was cooked through, the two of us turning in unison to plate the next dish.

I wasn’t excellent, but I tried really hard, and I started to feel Max soften toward me. She was always quiet and stoic during rare lulls in service, not engaging in frivolous side talk, while I wiped down our station, refilled our squeeze bottles, checked and triple-checked our backup containers. After especially long nights, she’d sometimes decide to prepare a second family meal for the cooks, and I’d help her throw together ingredients for a quick puttanesca pasta that we’d eat standing up. She told me about her fantasy of opening a super-casual fish restaurant in Northern California, with intentionally uncomfortable wooden benches for seats and a view of the coast. The concept was about as different from Montrachet as I could fathom, and it made me realize her dreams diverged radically from the predictable course we were on. She was the most punk rock, the coolest of the cool girls.

One night after work, Max invited me to get drinks at the bar on the corner, a legendary local spot that was popular with the staff. I was surprised, excited, and nervous about socializing with her, even though we were bonded at the hip for twelve hours a day, six days a week. To cope, I got absolutely shit-faced on anise-flavored Pernod and water. (Don’t ask why that old-guy aperitif was my drink at the time.) I remember realizing with embarrassment that I had never changed out of my kitchen clogs, and when I accidentally knocked over a drink and sent sticky Pernod flying all over the bar, I decided to call it a night.

The next day, I woke up to the most horrific, crushing hangover of my life. Blind with nausea, head like cement blocks grinding together, and on shaky legs, I could barely stand up without gagging. The usual antidote—a bacon-egg-and-cheese with a Coke—was out of the question. I was ill and incapacitated, but I could not call out of work. There was no one to cover my shift. Certainly not on this day, because it was Saturday, and Valentine’s Day, a notorious night to be a line cook. The dining room would be packed with two-tops to squeeze in as many doe-eyed couples as would fit. There was lobster on the prix fixe menu, which meant Max and I were going to get clobbered. If I didn’t show, she’d have to do the two-person job alone, and all of my gains would be blown to bits.

Duty called. I walked into the kitchen late, wearing sunglasses. Max took one look at me, rolled her eyes, and went back to her cutting board. Sympathy was not on the menu. First up: We had to cook and shell about sixty lobsters. I set up opposite Max; she would cook and I would process, in an assembly line. When the first batch of lobsters had met their steamy demise, she plopped them into a long metal pan, slid it across the counter to me, and turned around to do more murder. I was expected to shell as quickly as possible.

I wanted to die, but I could not quit. I twisted the tail of the lobster’s body, releasing a fragrant gust of steaming lobster guts into my face. I immediately dropped to the floor in a crouch, with one hand pressed into the rubber kitchen mat on the floor. This seemed like a logical place to wait for the nausea to pass. When I could stand again, it was back to business.

Are you going to make it? Max asked, irritated.

Me? Oh yeah, I said, I’m good.

That initial lobster established the pattern I was locked into until my crustacean circle of shell was over: liberate the tail, unleash tomalley facial, succumb, stand, proceed. This, dozens of times. When the chef walked in, he found me down on one knee, prayerful and remorseful. I heard him ask, Is she okay? Max replied: Hangover. From the floor, I chimed in: It was Pernod. He let out a groan. Pernod! You were drinking Pernod?? This is the worst hangover you can ever have. He went on and on about it, how bad Pernod hit the next day, as if I didn’t know. When I stood back up he looked me in the eye and said: Once you get on the line and start sweating, you’ll be fine. You’ll sweat it all out. Trust me. I did not believe him, but when I took my place on the hot line, either the sweat cured me, or we were too buried in tickets for me to have body awareness. I made it through the night, earning some sort of battle badge, surviving a rite of passage. I didn’t ditch. I faced the consequences. And I’m pretty sure I never drank Pernod again.

Working while sick was an unspoken part of the job, not only because we weren’t entitled to paid sick days. There were heaps of other injustices that I filed under Stuff That Toughens You Up. The suffering wasn’t saved for me, and in fact, people who had been there longer were vulnerable to far worse.

It was a package deal. I was learning to cook for real, and I was learning what it took to be a cook. I was getting paid, which meant I would stay quiet when our chef threw a molten-hot sizzle tray straight out of the salamander at the cook standing next to me, hitting him in the chest. He would do this when, say, a duck breast was undercooked. Sometimes Chef would just berate him, viciously, for overreducing the demi-glace that went with the sweetbreads. When the chef let loose, the rest of us would stand respectfully silent. I squirmed through mixed feelings of empathy for my coworker and gratitude that I wasn’t in his shoes. On more than one occasion, the captain came into the kitchen to tell the chef that his yelling was audible to the guests in the dining room. When the tantrum was over, we’d swing right back into it like nothing had happened, the kitchen noticeably more quiet afterward.

I had officially romanticized being a professional cook, the beauty and ugliness of the job balancing each other like butter and salt. Sure, the pay was shit, and no, it’s not okay to normalize workplace violence. But (here comes the irrational upside), I got to touch the most beautiful ingredients I’d ever seen—wild black trumpet mushrooms delivered in shallow cardboard boxes littered with pine needles and scraps of wet leaves from where they were foraged. Dayboat sea scallops so fresh the flesh undulated when the chef cut into them, the muscle still alive. I tasted delicacies for the first time: crosnes, Tristar strawberries, sea beans, black truffles, sweetbreads.

Every night I stood elbow-to-elbow with the fish cook on one side and the meat cook on the other, watching and learning how hot a pan had to be to sear tiny Taylor Bay scallops and encase them in lemony brown butter without overcooking them. (I still make a version of this at home with sea scallops and a spicy cumin butter.) I ate chewy nubs of duck breast anchored to crisp fat off the meat cook’s cutting board; we never sent out the end pieces, only the prized slices from the widest part of the breast. My obsessive brain was subdued by being consistent, nailing the cookery, getting my dishes up on time, not running out midservice.

It has taken me this long to detangle the hardness of that work from the nostalgia I feel about everything I learned. I believed that starting out in kitchens should be brutal; we were warned about it in cooking school the way actors are prepped for audition rejections. Surely if I wasn’t worthy of this occupation, I’d be asked to leave. In late-90s logic, being “cut out for it” meant I could (must?) handle the hardness, too. The physically taxing and emotionally draining environment validated my world view that work should be tough. (Throw every eldest daughter trope at me—I will overachieve ’til I drop.) Being a line cook was outrageous and incredible. It was exploitative and thrilling. It was a job that made me both expect and tolerate bad behavior, and unfortunately I internalized that perspective and brought it to every other workplace I entered afterward, in ways that I deeply regret. But, still. I never wanted to be anyplace more.

Montrachet taught me that fear and growth are intertwined. It helped me realize I enjoy being at the bottom of a learning curve. That’s made it easier for me to take risks ever since. I don’t miss the people I worked with; I can’t remember most of their names, except for Max, whom I’ve tried (and failed) to track down many times. I no longer accept that restaurant kitchens should be run like that. How to shell a lobster, though—I still do as I was shown, and have taught my sons to do it that way, too, minus the hangover. I preheat my carbon-steel skillet until it’s matte and near-molten to get the most glorious sear on my scallops. I can flip food in a skillet with my left hand while salt cascades from the fingers of my right, and I know how to get fish fillets to lie flat in the pan from watching Max do it over and over, all night long. It was many years before cooking at home was fun for me again, and I never want that feeling to go away. If I overcook a steak, I don’t throw hot plates. We eat it anyway, of course, with some spicy mayo to camouflage the error.

Montrachet is gone now, as is the bar on the corner (it closed and then reopened as a J.Crew, which was sad). The stinky phone booth where I used to call my husband-to-be after work doesn’t exist, either. Uber drivers don’t argue with me about going over the bridge to Brooklyn, like cabbies sometimes did when I’d splurge on a taxi home. I don’t have a single photograph from that time. In a way, I’m glad, because everything that happened there can stay exactly how I remember it. When I’m on that block in Tribeca now, I have to search to find any familiar landmarks from when I walked out of the restaurant. But if I close my eyes, it rolls like a movie. It’s hard to fathom that young woman was me, diving into a world of cooking that would become her entire life. It wasn’t a dream. The adrenaline that hit me that first night of service was a thunderbolt of pure love that I still feel for the job I chose. I’m grateful the hardness is mostly gone, and not a bit sorry for finding out who I am.

Excerpted from FOOD IS A FEELING: Recipes & Stories, With Love by Carla Lalli. Copyright © 2026 by Carla Lalli. Photographs copyright © 2026 by Lucia Bell-Epstein. Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

I’m a creature of habit when it comes to blush. I rely on the same two or three formulas—in the general shade family—and just restock them when I hit bottom. (For inquiring minds: Westman Atelier Baby Cheeks, Haus Labs Color Fuse Hydrating Longwear Blush, and Victoria Beckham Blush Stylus are my go-tos.) I’ll try all the new launches—obviously. It’s my job after all. But very few make it through the initial testing week and into my permanent rotation. A new exception to the status quo? The Milk Makeup Lip + Cheek Cream Blush Stick.

I got a sneak preview of the product, along with the brand’s Line + Fill, earlier in the summer, and have had to keep the gorgeousness of the formula hush-hush. But now that they’re officially available for purchase, I’m able to share my newest obsession with the world. I’ll get into all the nitty-gritty details below, but here’s the gist: These sticks don’t just have the necessary markers of an exceptional blush formula like a gorgeous pigment and long-lasting wear; they actually have a blurring, diffusing finish that I’ve yet to experience with a blush product. I’ve been wearing the shade Werk, a dusty rose, over my Westman Atelier Bio Supreme foundation, and I swear my pores look invisible. As an added bonus? I can swipe it on my lips and my makeup meshes beautifully together.

For my full honest review, to see the product in action, and to shop Milk Makeup’s latest drops, keep reading. I’m getting into it all ahead.

How Many Shades Are There of the Milk Makeup Lip + Cheek Cream Blush Stick?

For starters, there are 16 shades: eight are matte, and eight are satin. I’ve had the luxury of trying just about every single one—the selection really excels at targeting cooler undertones and the berry range that’s poised to be one of fall’s biggest makeup trends. I’m loyal to my pinky-peaches (always have been, always will be), so I’ve been using Werk, a dusty rose, and Perk, a coral with shimmer, most frequently. Although I have to give an honorable mention to Ether, a rich berry. Even though it’s a bit outside of my comfort zone, it’s pretty tame, easily diffused, and shockingly natural on my fair skin.

What Does the Milk Makeup Lip + Cheek Cream Blush Stick Look Like On the Skin?

Regardless of whether you reach for a matte or a satin, the formula itself is nearly the same. It’s packed with hyaluronic acid and ceramides, which give it a very hydrating, nourishing slip, as well as pomegranate flower and jojoba seed oil, which are ideal for creating smooth, blendable finish. The real distinction between this formula and other blushes, though, is the finish—it has a blurred, almost airbrushed dry down that makes it look like I somehow have a poreless complexion. (For what it’s worth, there’s no way to actually get rid of pores; we all have ‘em.)

How Do I Apply the Milk Makeup Lip + Cheek Cream Blush?

I might be a beauty editor, but I am no makeup artist. I know a good amount of technique (working with professionals every day has its perks), but I feel the most comfortable with some good old-fashioned finger application. After applying my foundation with a sponge, I go in with about three dots of the Milk Makeup blush stick on the high points of my face, and an additional one on my nose. I blend ‘em out with my fingertips and typically go in for a second layer for added pigment. It blends out beyond easily—there are never any streaks or harsh lines. The depth of the color is ideal; it’s not so intense that I look like I have blush blindness, but it’s 100 percent visible.

To finish it off, I use the stick on my lips, too. It’s a no-brainer afterthought. It leaves me with a blurred pinch of color that perfectly matches my blush. Then, because the stick is so compact and easy to use, I toss it in my bag and call it a day.

Is the Milk Makeup Lip + Cheek Cream Blush Worth It?

I’m the queen of justifying beauty purchases, but this really is a no-brainer. The majority of my go-to formulas err on the luxury end of the spectrum, but this Milk Makeup product is pretty reasonable at $28, and comes with a formula that feels just as luxe. I've been gravitating towards the satin finishes, which I think I’ll appreciate even more as my skin starts to dry out in the fall and winter, but picking between the two finishes is a matter of personal preference. And, it’s a two-for-one deal. You’re getting a blush and a lipstick—both of which have pigment that lasts for hours. I’m clearly a big fan, so I highly recommend adding the formula—and some of Milk Makeup’s other new launches—to your cart. Happy shopping.

Shop More Milk Makeup Products I Love

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer. Before you get too upset and hibernate for the season, though, take a look at what’s waiting on the fall beauty docket. The best nail looks of the week have already brought the deeper, moodier colors back out to play, and they’re making it very difficult to mourn the end of bright summer manicures.

A nearly black, cherry-chocolate polish feels right on schedule, and rich jewel tones are popping up alongside animal print. Silver, meanwhile, is already everywhere, and it's in the running for the color of the season. One manicure is covered in tiny metallic stars; another goes all in on liquid chrome. Colorful crystal charms on Kylie Jenner's nails even make barely-there nails look like jewelry.

Not ready to dive headfirst into fall? There’s still a French manicure in the mix, but warm brown tips keep it from feeling too summery. I may not be ready to brace the New York City tundra, but I am certainly ready to play up my nails.

Starry Eyed

A scattering of silver stars gives this barely-there manicure a little sparkle. Look closely, and there’s a whole constellation happening. And for an extra glam moment? Coordinate your shimmer shadow to match.

French Roast

The first fall coffee order has officially reached our fingertips, courtesy of glossy brown French tips. To make it a little interesting, though, go for an ombré effect.

Red Eye

Burgundy is back. The cat eye finish gives this deep red polish a velvety shift that’s impossible to ignore.

Full Carat

Kylie Jenner broke the internet with this crystal-studded set by her OG nail artist, Zola, and I can see why. Each bare nail holds a different oversized gem, turning the manicure into a jewelry box—and outdoing any other accessory.

Chocolate-Covered Cherry

J.Lo has entered her chocolate-covered-cherry era. Tom Bachik paired the deep red with her signature extra-long shape. If you can’t decide between brown and burgundy, you’ve found your answer.

Sterling

These nails are a subtle silver chrome from the cuticle to the tip, with tiny accent constellations. The finish is so reflective that the nails practically double as tiny mirrors.

Moo-dy

The varying-sized black spots give this extra-long white set a very chic cow print moment. No two nails follow quite the same pattern. Moo-dy, indeed.

Prints Charming

Apparently, tigers and zebras do play nicely together. The cobalt blue and chrome only add to the very fun chaos.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Summer deserves one last manicure before moving on to fall, and oyster nails feel like a fitting, and very chic, final hurrah. They’re ocean-inspired without being overly literal, and depending on your manicure tolerance, they can be as understated or over-the-top as you desire.

The simpler version is all about color and finish: a sheer oyster gray-meets-silver shade with a pearly sheen. It’s a milky, slightly iridescent polish that could easily pass for a neutral with a bit of zhuzh. If you want the full oyster experience, though, nail artists are using sculptural gel to recreate the shell’s ridges, often adding chrome or a tiny pearl in the center. Some are surprisingly realistic; others play up the pearly details and texture.

Not ready to commit to ten tiny oysters on your fingers? A single sculpted accent nail or a few pearls work just as well. Then again, it is the last week of summer, so you might as well go all in.

Molten Pearl

A nude base keeps all eyes on the chrome curling around each nail. Look closely, and there’s a flash of opal sitting right in the middle.

Shuck and Shine

A moodier gray takes this pearly chrome straight into fall. The pink shift still gives it that oyster shell glow.