appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Carolina Malis

Contributing writer for Style by SCMP, specialising in beauty, wellness and lifestyle


Once upon a time, beauty products lived where the tiles are: stacked on the bathroom shelf or lined up beside the sink, waiting for their moment. Fast-forward to now, and beauty rituals have migrated to the nightstand, where a miniature altar of essentials promises to help switch off your body – or at least make it feel like it got the memo.
Bathroom beauty is functional: cleanse, treat, rinse, repeat; bedside beauty is what you reach for when your mind is still humming, but your body is calling time. That’s also why it’s rising alongside “sleepmaxxing”, the social media umbrella term for optimising sleep through routines, products and gadgets. Bedside beauty is less about chasing sleep and more about making rest feel easier to achieve.

For Leo Park, co-founder and CEO of Seoul Beauty Club, that mindset isn’t new; it’s just gone global. “Nighttime is when skin does most of its repairs, and K-beauty built routines around that a long time ago, even before it became a trend,” he says. What’s changed is the appetite for doing less, as people get bored with constantly trying to fix their faces, which is why overnight products feel like such an easy compromise: “Overnight products feel convenient. You apply once, rest, and let your skin recover instead of constantly treating it.” It’s calmer, more realistic, and it works with the idea that skin doesn’t need a pep talk at 11pm – it needs time.
What Park sees most is a preference for bedside staples that feel like self-care without the effort. “From our curation, overnight collagen masks are what the members consider bedside essentials,” Park says. They’re the sort of product you can apply half-awake and still feel you did something kind for yourself, which is why he sees people go for comforting overnight formulas such as Dr Ceuracle’s Vegan Kombucha Tea Sleep Mask, or a deep-collagen option like Sungboon Editor’s Deep Collagen Power Boosting Mask. “These are the products that people can reach for without requiring a full routine – good to keep beside the bed,” Park says.

Warmth is one of the oldest relaxation cues there is, and in Japanese wind-down culture, it’s practically a language. Maiko Shimazaki, founder of Revitalist15, a New York-based wellness brand rooted in Japanese relaxation rituals, puts it plainly: “Warmth is a power switch for relaxation.” Part of it is physical, as “heat increases blood flow to muscles and soft tissue, [allowing] tight areas to loosen”, she says. As that tension eases, it becomes easier for the body to follow.
Part of it is timing, too. “In the evening, our core body temperature naturally begins to drop,” she explains. So when a bath raises it briefly, and it falls afterward, “that drop helps signal that it is time to sleep”. And then there’s the emotional part: warmth can register as safety, shifting the body out of fight-or-flight and into rest-and-digest.

No wonder the bedtime category is full of heated pads and self-heating eye masks. In Japan, they’re almost mundane, which is partly why something like Kao’s MegRhythm Steam Eye Mask doesn’t read as a gadget so much as a simple extension of bath culture: it’s just warmth, a little scent and a few minutes where your eyes are gently off-duty. Shimazaki’s own take is very much in that lane: Revitalist15 makes a self-heating eye mask infused with a sandalwood blend, designed as a tidy, bedtime-friendly moment, warming on contact with air and reaching around 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40.5 degrees Celsius) as it releases steam and scent.
Scent can do something similar, Shimazaki says, as our sense of smell is directly connected to the parts of the brain that regulate emotion and memory. She’s quick to add that there’s no universal sleep note, since fragrance is deeply personal, and what calms one person can energise another if the association is wrong. “The most relaxing fragrance is the one your body responds to positively,” she says. It’s the same logic that explains why the nightstand is filling up with small, repetitive gestures – the kind your body learns to recognise.

That cue-building is why the bedside category feels so intuitive. Some of it is pure practicality: Laneige’s Lip Sleeping Mask, a cult favourite that’s become almost unavoidable online, is basically an occlusive cushion that seals in moisture while you sleep, so lips can recover overnight. Next to it, one of L’Occitane’s hand creams is a perfect staple for a quick massage that’ll bring softer hands by morning. And for those spots that seem to show up the second your head hits the pillow, a pimple patch belongs here too. Something like Hero Cosmetics’ Mighty Patch is the most bedtime-appropriate solution imaginable: stick it on, stop thinking about it, go to sleep.
Others are more about atmosphere. Silk eye masks like Slip, an Australian brand, aren’t just about aesthetics; blocking light can support deeper rest, and there’s research suggesting an eye mask overnight might improve next-day alertness and memory.

Then there’s the in-between zone, including products like pulse-point balms, pillow sprays and nighttime oils, which turn bedtime into a tiny ritual of touch, even if the science on transdermal absorption isn’t settled. People still swear by them, and it makes sense; massaging anything into the skin can be relaxing, and scent can become a cue.
The only time the nightstand starts to feel less intimate is when it turns into a scoreboard; sleepmaxxing has a way of escalating from pleasant ritual to data project easily, which is why the bedside table works best when it stays simple. The goal isn’t to perfect the night, but to make bedtime feel less like something you crash into and more like something you choose.


Luxury bar soap revival: how Chanel, Jo Malone, Diptyque and Aesop elevated everyday cleansers

What is ‘nailmaxxing’? Natural, ‘clean’ trend is hot right now, but it’s not easy to nail

5 beauty highlights from Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Laura Mercier and more

7 ways to reduce dark circles under the eyes without using make-up or needles. Think coffee

Skincare

Bedside beauty: the overnight skincare products migrating from the bathroom to your nightstand

Bedside tables are getting crowded as more beauty products move out of the bathroom to be within easy reach before sleep. Photo: Trunk Archive

Dr Ceuracle Vegan Kombucha Tea Sleep Mask. Photo: Handout

Revitalist15 Self-heating Eye Mask. Photo: Handout

Kao MegRhythm Steam Eye Mask. Photo: Handout

Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask. Photo: Handout

Slip Silk eye masks. Photo: Handout

The truth about face oils, which have been part of beauty regimens since ancient Egypt

Despite having played a role in beauty regimens for millennia, face oils still get a bad rap. Photo: Handout

Noble Panacea The Absolute Nourishing Lift Oil. Photo: Handout

Clarins Santal Face Treatment Oil. Photo: Handout

Dr Barbara Sturm Ceramide Drops Face Oil. Photo: Handout

The Face Oil by Augustinus Bader. Photo: Handout

RéVive Rescue Elixir Anti-Aging Oil. Photo: Handout

The Facial Blend by Subtle Energies. Photo: Handout

Biossance Squalane + Vitamin C Rose Oil. Photo: Handout

8 pharmacy products worth buying in France, from La Roche-Posay to Bioderma

La Rosée Sun Stick SPF50 is one of the many popular beauty products you can find at Citypharma, or other pharmacy chains across France. Photo: Handout

La Roche-Posay Cicaplast Baume B5+. Photo: Handout

Bioderma Sensibio H2O. Photo: Handout

A313 Vitamin A pommade. Photo: Handout 

Embryolisse Lait-Crème Concentré. Photo: Handout

Caudalie Beauty Elixir. Photo: Handout

La Rosée Sun Stick SPF50. Photo: Handout

Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse. Photo: Handout

Klorane Dry Shampoo with Oat Milk. Photo: Handout

The secret to a calm epidermis might be soothing anti-inflammatory skincare

Products like Chanel’s Hydra Beauty Camellia Glow Concentrate promise to tame inflammation. Photo: Handout

Votary Ultimate Rich Cream. Photo: Handout

Tata Harper Calming Crème. Photo: Handout

Dr. Barbara Sturm serums. Photo: Handout

Tocobo Cica Calming Sun Serum. Photo: Handout

Skinceuticals Phloretin CF. Photo: Handout

Laneige cica products. Photo: Handout

La Roche-Posay Cicaplast Balm B5+. Photo: Handout

Dermiotic Pre-serum Elixir. Photo: Handout

Mantle The Miracle Mask. Photo: Handout

Brow Aid Browboost. Photo: Handout

4 of the best vitamin C serums for supple and glowing skin

Vitamin C serums, such as The Good C Vitamin C Serum by Dr. Barbara Sturm, help to reduce the signs of ageing on skin. Photo: Handout

 Augustinus Bader The Vitamin C Serum. Photo: Handout

Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Vitamin-C Day Serum. Photo: Handout

SkinCeuticals C E Ferulic. Photo: Handout

Dr. Barbara Sturm’s The Good C vitamin C serum. Photo: Handout

How celebrities are reshaping self-care with wellness brands, from Hailey Bieber to Kourtney Kardashian

Lemme, founded by Kourtney Kardashian, offers nutritional gummies and even lollipops. Photo: Handout

Goop The Martini Emotional Detox Bath Soak. Photo: Handout

Venus Williams has tapped the sports-meets-wellness space with her Happy Viking brand. Photo: Handout

Kin Euphorics is a functional beverage brand by Bella Hadid rooted in Ayurvedic medicine. Photo: Handout

Respin Health, a menopause care brand by Halle Berry. Photo: Handout

Kate Moss’ Cosmoss failed to find an audience. Photo: Handout

Stripes, another menopause care brand, by Naomi Watts. Photo: Handout

InBloom by Kate Hudson offers nutritional solutions. Photo: Handout

Cosmoss Dawn Tea. Photo: Handout

Magazines

Style

Beauty

Trends

K-beauty did it a long time ago, but now bedside beauty is rising alongside ‘sleepmaxxing’, from Laneige’s Lip Sleeping Mask to silk and self-heating eye masks


K-beauty did it a long time ago, but now bedside beauty is rising alongside ‘sleepmaxxing’, from Laneige’s Lip Sleeping Mask to silk and self-heating eye masks.


Wellness

Fragrances

Interview

Luxury brands

Bedside beauty: the overnight skincare products migrating from the bathroom to your nightstand

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}K-beauty did it a long time ago, but now bedside beauty is rising alongside ‘sleepmaxxing’, from Laneige’s Lip Sleeping Mask to silk and self-heating eye masks

K-beauty did it a long time ago, but now bedside beauty is rising alongside ‘sleepmaxxing’, from Laneige’s Lip Sleeping Mask to silk and self-heating eye masks