June 8, 2017

I Don’t Really Know Which Seasons Beauty Brands Are Promoting Anymore

I don’t really know which seasonal products beauty brands are promoting anymore and I’m questioning if I care or not!? Wait a minute, yes I do! I care! I want to hear about the latest seasonal releases within an appropriate time frame but I don’t want to be confused about the season they are releasing for! It’s becoming more and more difficult to figure out if brands are promoting Summer or Fall or Holiday…it’s all running together into one confusing mess.

And my head is being done in by it all.

Are you confused?

As I typed up my review of the Tarte Rainforest of the Sea Eyeshadow Palette Volume III I recalled Sephora’s e-mail telling me how special I was to get the latest Fall beauty before anyone else. Needless to say there’s some sort of comedy in there because Saturday I got the palette and within a 24 hour period everyone else could also purchase it. So much for being a VIB Rouge Member!

After getting the palette, seeing it, and using it, I realized it was a great selection of sandy, beachy nudes! Considering Summer isn’t even officially here yet I thought to myself what a great Summer Palette it was.

But wait, it’s really a Fall one right? Or not? And what about Urban Decay Naked Heat? I mean it pulls either way right? A good selection of Fall shades but also, some sizzling shades for Summer too?

Needless to say it’s hard to differentiate between seasonal releases lately because brands are releasing products so very quickly. Tarte Make Believe in Yourself launched in March and is now on sale in June and I think it might be safe to say it was a Summer release but I’m questioning myself and wondering if maybe that was a Spring release and Volume III is a Summer release?

Wow…

When did it become this difficult to pair up releases with seasons?

Do you understand seasonal releases at all lately?

Do you find all the releases a tad confusing?

Do share!

About the Muse

Isabella MuseIsabella is just an average everyday geeky girl who doesn’t blend her eyeshadow correctly, wears too much blush, and hopes she never finds her holy grail products because she likes the thrill of the chase so much. Her mission is to bring you super honest reviews on makeup, skincare, fragrance and all things beauty. She’s in no way an expert on the topic and she sure as hell isn’t a super model. But she’s passionate about makeup and is seeking like-minded individuals that like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain, and ones that enjoy spending hundreds of dollars at Sephora without feeling buyer’s remorse. If you’re that person feel free to reach out and leave a comment or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Bloglovin‘.

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Comments

  • Krystle

    I think seasonal and especially holiday releases are dumb. Just put out nice, well-conceived products whenever!

  • Sjofna

    Ugh, there’s so many new releases every week that’s no, it’s impossible to keep up with what’s what and for when. Plus, everything is just starting to look the same. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen a new palette come out and I get excited for a few minutes. Then I look at what I already own, and I have plenty of dupes (or close enough) that I realized I really don’t need to buy much anymore. I’ve decided that I can only buy something from now on if I don’t already own something similar or I use something up.

    • Isabella Muse

      likewise. I get excited and all of a sudden I come back to earth realizing I have a lot of what’s in the new palette that had me so excited a few seconds before 😀

    • Agona

      LOL, I had to reorg my makeup storage last night to accommodate some quads I purchased recently.

    • Leslie

      Exactly! I don’t buy palettes anymore because they all basically have the same shades. Eh. I’ve gone back to buying eyeshadow singles that are unique by themselves.

  • Liz

    I think it’s so confusing because are so many more products. Every time you turn around there’s a new palette coming out or some kind of new something and I don’t don’t”� they’re always associated with a season. And then they try to create these frenzys by saying limited edition or seasonal and you feel like you have to buy it right it away. I figure that if they say Fall they really mean late spring and when they say winter or holiday they really mean early fall.

  • Miss D

    Hey, Muse! I hope your Friday has been good. I’m just commenting here to let you know that I sent you a very important email (LOL!).
    Two weeks ago I went to a Vamps concert and finally met Hyde, so I just had to share the experience with you!
    Please let me know if you get the email (I sent photos as well). It’s been a while since I’ve tried to send you an email but I sent the message to your old musing’s “gmail” account, so hopefully you’ll get it. I titled it, “OMG, I Met Hyde!” so it should be easy to spot in your inbox (haha!).

    Happy Friday and lots of hugs!

  • Dee

    Boy do I agree with this. Why are fall releases coming out next week? And Christmas palettes will hit in July, I’m sure.

  • Maria

    I have a lot of makeup and palettes. To me, many shades are similar especially Tarte. Regarding seasons, it does not make much difference. If the shade looks nice on me, I will wear it. After a while, you will not remember which season it is launched for.

  • kjh

    Weren’t last year’s holiday ‘Christmas ‘ things peeking in at the end of August, through Labor Day? All retail b&m chase the next holiday. The day after Labor Day, Halloween is out. And Christmas can start in summer. It’s so absurd. I saw a story about an Asian man who leapt into the atrium of a shopping center, after he lost it, bec his wife wanted to buy yet another pair of shoes….and he was so effin sick of xmas. Clearly, it drove that poor man literally mad. But you are right about the colors, too. Last summer’s DI blush palette had what most would consider ‘fall’ colors. It may have hit the stores in April or May. I like that palette better than the pinks/corals, so I went ahead and used the hell out of it, late spring, summer, forever after. No longer at S or Nars, but now at Ulta, for any who care. I think this is own tail chasing of the highest order. It’s ~3 weeks out from July fourth. Shouldn’t I be seeing and planning my fall and holiday things, hoping they’ll last until the S November sale? No, really, I should be playing with what I like today. Not being pushed into Christmas in July! It’s ridiculous. Turns me right off.

  • Colleen P.

    I completely agree! Plus, I hate them putting out a seasonal release before the previous season even technically begins (it’s still spring!). It’s all so confusing now.

  • Caroline

    It’s all about money, isn’t it? All these brands competing with one another to see who can get the latest collection out asap; it’s making my head spin! All the ‘seasons’ seem to have merged with each other, I can’t distinguish between them any more. Can you wear orange in winter, or grey in spring? I think I’ll stick with what suits me, regardless of the time of year.

    • kjh

      As the Wild Tchoupitoulas (sp?) said, do what you want. Jackimofimohondo in the morning, jackimofimahay! That’s Mardi Gras music. You go, girl. A good hit of orange/red brightens any winter day. And being cool, any day is great in gray. But the seasonal rush thing has messed with me a bit. I used to be able to count on not buying much in spring/summer…but now, not so much!

  • Gabby

    Makeup companies used to release makeup either biannually or quarterly which used to coincide with the change in season, however this all changed about a decade ago. Now every other week major companies are releasing products and massive advertising campaigns accompany the release. Ads appear in the traditional print media, on billboards and on tv and beauty influencers on YouTube ‘advertise’ the new releases as well.

    Also don’t forget the sheer NUMBER of brands that are widely available these days and it’s no wonder that there is a mish-mash of ideas, trends and counter trends that in the cold light of day, often don’t seem to make much sense. It seems that not one brand can cut through the confusion.

    Way back when all brands used their staple line of foundations, powders, concealers and colour cosmetics, the seasonal releases would only be for things like lipsticks, nail polishes and maybe eyeshadows which would be of a different colour or texture. Back then (showing my age now ) following makeup seasonality and trends was so much more accessible and nowhere near as overwhelming and as it is today.

    But for me personally, the older I get, the less attention I pay to trends and just keep doing what works for me regardless of what is doing the rounds on Instagram which means adjusting my makeup on a seasonal basis like everyone used to do.

    • Isabella Muse

      we obviously belong in a nursing home together Gabby lol! That’s exactly what I do. Change with the season!

  • Jonnie

    I gave up! All of this has made me even more determined to delete it all and just stick with my favorite brand Bobbi Brown. I used to love seasonal offerings… fun!… but I’m 47 and had enough. Probably the exact opposite of what the cosmetic industry was going for???? Lol!!!

  • Amanda Loughridge

    Other than holiday releases, I don’t think there really are “seasons” in the beauty industry anymore. Before the internet and social media, we had to wait for our favorite magazines to tell us what was in for the upcoming season and then hope we would be able to find in stores. With social media, new releases are no longer a surprise. New products are sent to influencers to hype the products for weeks while the rest of us wait to battle it out for the first minuscule release. Then while we wait for products to be back in stock, something else new has been announced. I’m really not as cranky as I sound, lol! It’s just not the same now with brands using social media so heavily.

    • Isabella Muse

      I completely agreed Amanda. Completely. Especially the part about battling it out to find the product or get our hands on once it launches lol! You literally have to stay up to 3AM waiting by the computer with your credit card and your mouse in your hand ready to click submit before it disappears.

  • Susan

    I so agree with everything posted here, and I blame/credit social media. As Amanda said, we used to have to wait for fashion magazines to come out in print, and then you either had to get your subscriptions in the mailbox or go to the store to buy them. Heck, when I was a child we had to go down to the river to harvest the reeds to make the papyrus to send scrolls to our friends with all the latest news. OK, I kid. But everything was sooooo much slower then.

    I don’t think there’s “seasonal” per se in makeup any more. We’re global now. When it’s fall in the U.S. it’s spring in Australia. When it’s fall in California it’s winter here in Montana. When it’s spring in California it’s STILL winter here in Montana. 😉

    What I do — and it’s neither the right way to do it or the only way — is rotate my makeup roughly every three months to correspond with meteorological seasons (i.e. summer is June 1st through August 31st, fall is September 1st through November 30th, etc.) solely because that’s what I enjoy.

    • Carol G

      Yes! Susan, I do the same thing. My makeup is organized by season: Spring/Summer and then Fall/Winter. I rotate things between seasons and then even within the season, say for example right now it is Spring, I even rotate things and adjust lip colors within that particular season because I have so much makeup. It’s the only way to ensure that I am using everything I own. I don’t want to buy something and then never use it. I do the same with my perfume. I rotate that and wear something different every day according to the season.

    • kjh

      Perfect. I was thinking about the season reverse on the other side of the equator, too. It’s a global marketplace, and it’s ripe for any given colorway somewhere! Better sharpen my flint to practice my cuneiform. Especially now that cursive is out in the schools, for those people who still send their kids to that antiquated institution, the PS. Ok, all you old s, remember Marshall McLuhan (sp?) ? The media is the message. He said it in the 60s, when Hector and I were both pups. How bloody prescient! There is always such a healthy dose of irreverence here. Love it. I kind of rotate, maybe gravitate. But not afraid to totally buck whatever’s going on. Instatrends be damned!

    • Rachel

      Hahaha! ” Heck, when I was a child we had to go down to the river to harvest the reeds to make the papyrus to send scrolls to our friends with all the latest news. ” Susan, I laughed out loud! Honestly, I’m only 34 but I was a teen in the late 90’s/early 2000 when we still got all of our beauty/fashion trends from magazines. I loooooved obsessing over stuff in delia’s and other magazines, and then window shopping at the mall to see what we could find. Now, I feel like I can’t turn around without seeing 4 billion NEW releases. I mean, I looooove makeup but it’s pretty overwhelming. The thrill is gone, because I know something else is right around the corner… and if I miss a new release, another brand will have something just like it out in a week or so. Not like I didn’t just order the new Anastasia Aurora palette….. Heh heh

  • Silvia

    Thinking about this living in S. California where you have so many different cultures, weather and wealth divisions does any of it really matter? I never been one to loose sleep anticipating for a certain makeup. I do rotate my stash according to Fall/Winter and love to rotate on a daily basis anyways and have fun rediscovering this way. But you get invited to let’s say a BBQ somewhere to a wealthy house and you’ll find all mixes of people from the hippies in N. California, the wealthy West LA crowd, the Hollywood (all think they are stars Lol!), you got some very wealthy area in S. Pasadena/San Marino where beautiful Huntington Gardens are, Pacific Palisades just to name a few them you got all mixes of cultures Asian, Latin, African…you name it. So I like to say to all of these makeup companies trying to suck the $$$ out of us for stupid reasons Screw It! It really doesn’t work here! We don’t follow a thing exactly. To each its own and that’s what make us rich. Lol! I’ll keep using what I think suits me best and will not fall for any of new hyped trends unless it is ‘me’ and I like it. Lol! Yes, it is insane! The more they push the more I resist I’m a stubborn Taurus too. 🙂

  • Heidi

    I agree with what Gabby says on the trends vs. doing your own thing. I’m in my 40s and I’ve already a lot of this stuff before. Mattes, metallics, shimmers, etc. Same with cut-crease eye looks or brown lipsticks or whatever. It’s kind of fun to see seasonal rollouts, but it seems more trend driven. (Oooh, metallics are huge so every makeup company has to release metallic somethings, etc. Highlights are hot so here are five hundred million highlighter options…) I’m at the point where I skip what I know I won’t like and haul the return of something I still love.

  • Brandy

    I’m a minimalist with my makeup so I don’t follow many of the new trends. I did get a few highlighters a year ago from different brands and price points, and I don’t notice much difference amongst them. I have noticed, like everyone else, that there’s new makeup releases every week and it tends to get confusing and overwhelming. Like what makes this nude palette from this brand different from this other brand? How many shades of brown do I need? Do I need a purple highlighter if I already have other shades? What are illuminating drops and what do I do with them? I just find it easier to stick with what I like and what looks good on me.

  • genevieve

    Well, living in Aus our seasons are the complete opposite of yours and we often get products that are years later than you eg bareMinerals Power Neutral Eyeshadows are just being sold here now. Often I really like your Fall lipsticks and then have to wait 6 months to see if they are being released here….
    I think it was much more fun when brands released seasonally or biannually than all the time. The anticipation and enjoyment has been diminished, I think, by the constant flow of new releases that have little bearing on the season. And as for releasing so early – that’s so unnecessary.

  • Leslie

    I don’t understand how, when we’re barely into summer, cosmetics companies are releasing information on fall and winter collections. It’s kind of like stores putting out Christmas decorations in June (Hello, Hobby Lobby). Let’s take one season at a time, shall we? I’m not interested in Holiday or Winter collections while sipping a margarita near the pool. Right now I’m looking for eyeshadow and lip crayons that won’t melt off of my face in the 95 degree humid Louisiana heat lol!!

  • VAdoglover4

    I thought the same thing when I actually saw the Tarte palette. It is perfect for summer and doesn’t speak fall to me at all. I love this though.

  • Isa

    There are basically no seasons where I am, so no, I don’t care whether it’s appropriate to the season. I just buy stuff based on whether it appeals to me or not. I mean, it would be very limiting to just select stuff based on whether it’s summery or not. If I feel like wearing cool greys, I will even though it’s 30�C/86�F outside because it almost always is!