The 9 Coolest Color-Changing Products We’re Obsessed With

Remember that coveted mood ring you were low-key obsessed with in elementary school? The one that magically changed colors as your mood shifted from excited and giddy (bright red) to cool and collected (deep, navy blue). As we now know as semi-wise and somewhat-mature adults, it wasn’t your mood that was transforming your ring, but your temperature *earth shatters*. And though mood rings have pretty much fallen off the face of the earth, the color-changing obsession hasn’t, and it’s officially hiting the beauty sphere in a major way—with heat-activated and pH-changing beauty products. Yup, color-changing cosmetics are here (well, they’ve always kinda been here, but now they’re SUPER here), and call us nostalgic, but we’re seriously into them.

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Aside from totally feeding into our fixation on anything ’90s-related, color-changing beauty products are truly changing the way we pick our makeup shades. Because if methodically trying to find the perfect bronzer for your skin tone, or a light-pink lipstick that doesn’t wash you out feels overwhelming and annoying, you’re going to love color-changing products, which make the decision for you by transforming into a unique hue once it hits your skin.

And no, we’re not pretending that beauty brands have cracked the code to literal sorcery—these color-changing products are less magic and more science, utilizing special pigments that react with your pH or skin temp to produce a color that looks unique on everyone (because everyone’s skin tones are inherently different). Basically, you need to test them out on yourself to see the science in action. So we’ve rounded up 9 of the coolest color-changing products, including a neon yellow lipstick that turns into a perfect, coral pink, and a soft, blue-gray nail polish that transforms into a deep copper hue in the sun. So wake up the mood ring-obsessed kid in your heart and give these color-changing cosmetics a try—you’ll be transported back to childhood in no time.

Photo: ImaxTree

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