I Was One of the First Beauty Directors to Try Marc Jacobs' Relaunch—These Are the 3 Products I'd Recommend
Five years away, a whole new vision, and three very good reasons to get excited
If you've been anywhere near Instagram this week, you probably already know: Marc Jacobs Beauty has returned, and it has arrived with considerable noise. The range relaunched at Selfridges last week, marking our first proper look at the brand's entirely new makeup vision—something we hadn't seen since 2021, when Kendo, the brand incubator behind its first chapter, discontinued the original line. The disappearance was unexplained at the time, and it left a devoted cult following genuinely bereft. It took a new licensing deal—this time with Coty, which has produced Marc Jacobs fragrances for two decades—to finally bring it back. And crucially, this isn't simply a resurrection of the old line. The sleek black compacts of the original are gone entirely; what's replaced them is something far more maximalist, more playful, and—simply put—more Marc.
The range has already won fans on the packaging alone. Pop art motifs run throughout: daisies for complexion, chubby five-point stars for eyes, hearts for lips. Product names lean into cheerful innuendo—Born Star Eyeshadow, Money Shot Highlighter Gel, Heart On Lipstick, Drawn This Way Eyeliner. It's maximalism as a manifesto. But the obvious question, and the one worth asking before you hand over your credit card, is whether any of this translates beyond the obligatory unboxing video.
Having spent time with the range, here is my honest verdict.
First impressions
If I'm being honest, I braced myself for style over substance with this launch. Designer beauty relaunches don't always deliver—the packaging does the heavy lifting, and the formula subsequently disappoints. I'm relieved to report that this is not what happened here.
The second thing that strikes you (after the inevitable cooing over the packaging) is how the products feel: The tubes have a velvet-touch finish, and the compacts feel suitably weighty to signal genuine quality—nothing rattles, nothing flexes where it shouldn't, the Marc Jacobs logo neatly lines up upon closing, and picking any piece up feels satisfying in the way that only well-made things do.
The full range
Now, onto the products themselves. There are seven SKUs in total—spanning eyes, complexion and lips—each leaning into what the brand calls "Joyride Sensoriality": skincare-infused formulations with unexpected textures that keep things feeling playful rather than po-faced. Daisy flower oil, hyaluronic acid and biomimetic peptides crop up across multiple products, which feels apt for a launch positioning itself against the clean, skin-first minimalism that has dominated the past few years.
The shade ranges are generous—21 shades in the eyeliner alone, 20 in the lipstick, 14 in the eyeshadow—and the colour editing is confident: proper neutrals alongside cheerfully bold options, rather than the usual hedge. Everything I tried was creamy, pigmented, blendable and impressively long-wearing. But three products deserve particular attention...
From a performance perspective, this is the star of the launch. It goes on with the creaminess of a kajal—zero drag, immediate payoff—then sets with the grip of a waterproof pencil. With 21 shades across mattes, metallics, glitters and duochromes (shade names include Delulu, Big Flex and Gagged, naturally), it offers impressive versatility alongside the performance. I tried the shade You Wish, a matte everyday brown, and it easily added definition and warmth to my waterline and did not budge. Not even slightly. Not even when I really tried to smudge it.
This is the kind of mascara that immediately earned its place as a repurchase: excellent separation, real lengthening, and—crucially—no drop after half an hour's wear. The hourglass-shaped brush catches every lash, and, although I only tried the classic black shade, it's available in an electric blue shade (Indigo) that feels like exactly the kind of thing this range was made for.
Last but not least, this cream-to-powder formula is quite lovely—bouncy and buttery to apply, crease-free and colour-true throughout the day—but I'll be honest: you should buy it for the star-shaped compact alone. A pale green metallic swivel case with 14 shades inside. It's the kind of object you'll keep on your dressing table long after the pan is empty. Some beauty products are just nice to own. This is one of them.
