Botox May Get More Expensive & Brands Will Try to Dupe SkinCeuticals

Plus, an inside look at the high-stakes world of celebrity beauty brand ambassadors.

While companies gleefully shilled non-existent brow blowdryers and mini lip balm stand mixers for April Fools’ Day, the real joke of the week was yet another round of tariffs on goods imported to the U.S.—a 10% baseline tax on imports from all countries, with higher taxes on imports from certain regions like China (34%) and the EU (20%). Experts have pretty much unanimously agreed these tariffs will raise prices for U.S. consumers, including on beauty products.

While some beauty brands will try mitigate the effects by sourcing ingredients and packaging components from countries who are subjected to those lower import taxes, there are some ingredients that simply can’t be found anywhere else. One example we’re keeping our eye on is Botox, the world supply of which—yes, that means all of the Botox—is manufactured in one tiny town in Ireland. (For anyone wondering how that works, you can read our executive beauty director Jenny Bailly’s story from when she visited that tiny town, Westport, in 2018.) Tariffs on Irish imports are now set at 20%, so the price of the already-pricey treatment is likely to go up.

Botox, of course, is a brand name—the Kleenex or Jacuzzi of neuromodulators—so does this spell good news for alternatives like Xeomin or Jeuveau? Will consumers start to cut back on their injectable re-ups or decide this is a priceless luxury? It’s something we at Allure will continue to report on, so stay tuned.

C You Soon

While your Botox is likely to get more expensive, there’s a different bit of skin-care news that might mean good things for your wallet. After 20 years, SkinCeuticals’ patent on its famously effective CE Ferulic Serum has expired, which opens the door for other brands to try to recreate the magic. While some have speculated that this could mean cheaper versions, SkinCeuticals wasn’t charging $182 per bottle for fun. The cosmetic chemists writer Kara Nesvig spoke to about the news are skeptical that less pricey dupes will live up to the OG. As she wrote: “Potency comes down to the quality of the ingredients themselves and the product manufacturing process, too. ‘Somebody can put in vitamin C, not stabilize it, put in the vitamin E and ferulic acid, then say it's the same as SkinCeuticals,” Perry Romanowski, a cosmetic chemist, says.”

Images courtesy Judith Viorst.

The Final Fifth

On April 1, Judith Viorst—whose name you likely recognize from her children’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day—released a collection of essays about life’s “Final Fifth,” ages 80 to 100+. The book, Making the Best of What’s Left, is one of my favorite of the year so far. At about 170 pages, it’s a quick read that made me sob and laugh out loud and use my highlighter at an alarming rate. And, lucky for me and you, she wrote one additional essay just for Allure, “At 94, I’m Still Worth Looking At,” in which she explores her various style transformations throughout the years, a quest in avoiding the invisibility that can seem inevitable for women of a certain age but also, as she puts it, finding a look she likes a lot.

Mark Pernice

Testing the Bro Drip

In the last of her three-part series exploring the rising “longevity” industry, Fiorella Valdesolo got a NAD+ infusion, the IV drip that supposedly boosts energy levels and slows down aging that’s been shouted out by everyone from Joe Rogan to Hailey Bieber. It’s a fascinating look at how hype has become far more important than scientific evidence when it comes to these wellness trends.

The Influencer Gender Pay Gap

This week, a publicist for Collabstr, an “influencer marketplace” that connects brands with content creators for branded campaigns, shared the company’s 2025 Influencer Marketing Report with me and, frankly, I found it much more interesting than I expected. Some takeaways I shared with the Allure team:

• The average amount an influencer gets per collaboration is $202 (which I think just shows the scope of people considered “influencers”—thanks to the whole Alix Earle/Gymshark debacle everyone now knows her rate, at least for that doomed collab, is $1 million).

• Influencers who are men make, on average, 40% more than influencers who are women, which this report speculates is because men are just in higher demand because there are fewer male content creators than women. Still 🫠

• Influencers in the “LGBTQ niche” make the most of all the niches! (Other niches include “vegan” and “actor” lol.)

• Influencers based in Salt Lake City are by far the highest paid on average compared to influencers in other cities.

  

Allure; Source images: Getty Images.

Star Wars

While more normie-adjacent content creators are only making a couple hundred bucks per collabs, the original influencers—movie stars—continue to rake it in. Since late last year, Melissa Meltzer has been working on a feature that dives into the high-stakes world of celebrity beauty brand ambassadors. It’s full of juicy details about the whole business works—including how much these stars are raking in, which honestly makes Alix Earle’s deal look like pennies.

Tummy Tuck Tales

As the popularity of plastic surgery rises, so does the popularity of so-called mommy makeovers, a nickname for a bundle of procedures like breast lifts, tummy tucks, and liposuction that more women are getting after they give birth. Earlier this year, we shared the stories of 17 mommies who’d gotten one of these makeovers. Now, those women are back on Allure.com, divulging the information they wish someone had warned them about before they went under the knife.

If you buy one thing this week, make it…

Ellis Brooklyn Guava Granita Eau de Parfum

Kara McGrath

Those infamous April showers have arrived in full force. As I write this, it has been pouring rain for the past 12 hours and isn’t supposed to stop pouring rain until next Wednesday. So with no sun in sight, I’m seeking cheeriness from my fragrances, and Ellis Brooklyn’s latest launch is hitting the spot. It’s a fruity floral scent with notes of guava, banana, and vanilla—a tropical vacation inside a hot pink bottle.