Marc Jacobs Beauty Is Back
4 min readSome good things don’t change with time: Marc Jacobs still has an unerring sense of style and fun, “shiny” is still his favorite color, and he still makes exciting beauty products. When Marc Jacobs Beauty first launched in 2013, he grounded his line in bold color and experimentation, with products like amethyst eyeliner and a mascara inspired by his mother’s DIY trick of fraying a velvet ribbon and applying the pile to her lashes with a wand. The brand even had Snoop Dogg narrate a beauty tutorial with YouTuber NikkieTutorials. Fans were disappointed when the line abruptly shuttered in 2021, as was Jacobs himself, who tells me, “Well, I did never want it to end. I was disappointed and sad to see it go.”
Luckily for everyone, it’s back, available at Sephora in June. “This was an opportunity to continue to do it, but in a new way, with new packaging and a new attitude,” says Jacobs, his hair gelled into soft curls and held in place with silver hairstyling clips. The theme of the seven-piece collection seems to be joy mixed with gritty New York glam. There’s charm, and charms—the eyeshadows (Born Star) are shaped like starry Mylar balloons; the lipsticks (Heart On) are red with puffy hearts; and the bronzer compact (Legally Bronze) and blush sticks (Joystick) are decorated with daisies. Some of the products are infused with a hydrating daisy seed oil, a nod to the ever-present flower in the Jacobs beauty universe. For inspiration, the product team researched what fans loved from previous collections. The former bestselling eyeliner formula is now reimagined as Drawn This Way, a waterproof, waterline-safe pencil that’s as creamy as a kajal, with glittery, dual-chrome, metallic, and matte finishes. None of the shades will be an exact match for the previous ones, but they will come close enough to spark nostalgia.
Jacobs once told WWD that he found natural makeup to be “a bit lazy,” and he mostly stands by that statement. “No, I haven’t really changed my mind,” he says, flashing ombré nails with a brown topaz base that fades to a pewter-blue. “If you want to look natural but have a lot of makeup on, then that’s your choice, and I don’t have a problem with that. But my attitude about makeup is that it’s an opportunity to express yourself.” Shades for the brand range from minimal to colorful to the more runway-forward—and his team may have coined a new word for “shiny,” with a highlighter finish that’s described as “stroboscopic.” The shade names are very online and punny, too, such as Freaks and Cheeks, Delulu, Pink Kink, and Cherry Tease, and have a “naughty and nice attitude,” Jacobs says. Thomas de Kluyver, the makeup artist who created separate looks for each of 68 sets of identical twins in Gucci’s 2023 show and who is known for his painterly, unfiltered approach to beauty, has been a close creative collaborator.
Jacobs wasn’t afraid to push for more color suggestions with his new partner, Coty, telling the company, “Listen, if this is what Marc Jacobs represents, then you need to put your money where your mouth is.” He promises, “I’m looking forward to delivering an odd color. A lot of people say they want to do that and they don’t really do it. I like a certain amount of perversity or irony. There are things that people wouldn’t typically respond to, because they aren’t considered young, chic, elegant, or whatever. I kind of like those awkward, odd, or outdated things. A mint eye shadow is certainly a particular taste, and it’s not a particularly good taste, maybe, but that’s what I find appealing about it. What feels youthful is just not worrying about whether it was old or new, good or bad taste, retro or futuristic. It’s just saying, ‘I like it. I’m going to use it,’” he says.
On his right wrist, Jacobs has a tattoo that says “Perfect.” It’s the name of a previous fragrance of his, and he hasn’t gotten any new tattoos lately, but the ethos of it remains true, inspired by a text in the I Ching: “I am a perfect being, in a perfect world, where everything that happens benefits me completely.” It carries forward into Marc Jacobs Beauty 2.0: “It is about being perfect as you are, and that doesn’t mean that you don’t want to play with makeup. It means you don’t need it as a solution. With natural makeup, people want to cover the dark circles under their eyes or they want to create contour, and that’s all fine. But the creative side I’m interested in is the ‘I’m good as I am, and I enjoy doing this.’”
A version of this story appears in the Summer 2026 issue of ELLE.