Oil Everything

In the marginally-watchable Silo series on Apple TV, the people of the future are stuck in giant silos—art-directed relentlessly in the dullest browns and grays—that protect them from the toxic outside world. The silo’s lone window gets clouded over time. Whenever a person is sentenced to die and expelled into the toxic landscape, their invariable final act is to helpfully clean the window from the outside for their former compatriots, after which they stagger dramatically to their death.

Each day, multiple times a day, I reenact this scenario: my phone, my sunglasses, my computer, and my plastic-aviator reading glasses (recommended to me by the genius makeup artist Jeanine Lobell of Stila and now Neen fame) require near-constant desmudging. This is the cost of my obsession with oils: face oil, hair oil, body oil, not to mention olive oil, the food. Cleaning a screen more often than I might otherwise is a price I am happy to pay.

The most non-beauty-industry aspect of oils is that a great oil is . . . a great oil. It refuses to satisfy the need for the “newness” that the much of the beauty industry runs on; find an oil you love, and you’ll find yourself always returning to it.

Oil-free was the thing, forever. Then, some time in the early 2000s, after hearing about it for years, I tried the Shu Uemura cleansing oil. People (especially makeup artists) said it was great for oily skin, which made no sense to me (more oil on already-oily skin?). I tried and almost instantly converted: it not only cleansed thoroughly, it left my skin soft instead of squeaky.

A few years later, Josie Maran came out with her (still-incredible) face oil—a moisturizer, of a sort I’d never seen before. It, too, surprised me: not only did it not make me break out, it made my skin feel (and look) fantastic.

When, some years after that, the brilliant makeup artist Alice Lane told me about this incredible oil called Vintner’s Daughter—she said it was a full-on miracle, no matter what type of skin you had—I was skeptical. “I mean, what’s with the name?” I remember saying. Then I tried it.

I realize that even before I’d heard the words “Shu Uemura”, before I was really a beauty editor, I already loved an oil. The first beauty “event” I ever went to, in maybe 1990, was to meet a kid from Boston named Philip B. at his friend’s apartment, where he was reportedly performing miracles on people’s hair. My friend worked for Vogue; she dragged me along, together with another Voguette. Philip, towering and effusive, poured oil in our hair, warmed it with a blow-dryer, waited, and then washed it out in his friend’s kitchen sink. The transformation—particularly on the other two, who were blonde and thus already coloring their hair—was jaw-dropping. Frizz, dullness, and split ends were replaced with unbelievable shine, softness, bounce, and great texture. What is perhaps even more amazing is that 30 years later, it delivers the same mind-blowing results.

30 years later, I now also color my hair, so the hair oil from Philip B. makes an even-more dramatic difference for me than it used to. Look at it! It’s insane! And if you could feel it, before and after the treatment, you would be more amazed. And if you could smell it, you would definitely be like, I have to buy that oil. Put it in your hair and sit in the sun/blow-dry briefly/go in a sauna/any sort of brief or long warmth, and then shampoo as usual. True magic.