Obviously, embracing an internet It Girl makes you cool. It gives you rizz, or whatever the “rizz” equivalent of the last 72 hours is. But the luxury brand’s attempt to capture the attention of those who don’t recall the Y2K meltdown or T9 texting feels… incongruous at best and tone-deaf at worst.
Available now, DUA’s first offering is a trio of products: a cream cleanser, a daily moisturizer, and an antioxidant serum called a “Supercharged Glow Complex,” all of which boast a new version of Augustinus Bader’s proprietary tech, called TFC5. The blend of peptides, vitamins, and antioxidants “strengthen the skin barrier, support cellular communication, and enhance long-term elasticity,” Rosier says. (Allure editors have yet to test anything from DUA, by the way, so we can’t confirm yet whether the products live up to these claims.)
DUA’s formulas clearly aim to target other skin-care concerns of today’s youth, including “premature aging” and “post-acne marks,” as its product pages state. If you ask Dua Lipa about the mentality behind these formulas, she might say something akin to her statement from the brand’s first press release: “I wanted a cleanser that works hard but still feels gentle on my skin.” Though not particularly insightful, it does provide a taste of the general ethos the brand is going for: approachable, mild, but efficacious. (Rosier said Lipa was “actively involved in creating formulas that feel modern, intuitive, and inclusive,” but it’s hard to imagine her in all that glitter-glam glory tinkering with vials and beakers in a laboratory somewhere.)
While “expanding access,” as Rosier calls it, isn’t a slap-you-in-the-face claim of affordability, DUA’s $40 to $80 price points do show an effort to make this purported luxury-grade skin care more accessible to young people—but that’s a far cry from the under-$25 selection of perfectly good creams and serums they can find at their local drugstore. I can only assume that the minds behind DUA are hedging a bet that its adjacency to Augustinus Bader’s prestige will make its products seem less costly than they actually are—or that Gen Zers will disregard the price tag for the sake of a top-secret ingredient blend with a name that sounds like a retirement fund. (It should be noted that cosmetic industry experts haven’t been able to pinpoint how, exactly, Augustinus Bader’s TFC8 complex incorporates all that groundbreaking stem cell research the brand bases its marketing on.)
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.allure.com
