The Don't Buy List: Botox, Britney, & Anti-Capitalist Beauty
Plus some personal updates!
Some Personal News
As you may have noticed from the last edition of The Unpublishable, I’ve migrated my newsletter to Substack! This seems to be the easiest way to for me to 1) publish content that is easily accessible and shareable and therefore, more likely to reach people and catalyze the kind of change beauty industry so desperately needs and 2) get paid.
I know that as a current subscriber you probably already get this, but just to reiterate: It is oh-so-hard to do both.
Mainstream beauty publications make money in two main ways. They sell ad space to advertisers (meaning, they sell access to your eyeballs to advertisers — your attention is the product they’re peddling and advertisers are the customers they aim to please) and/or they collect a commission when you buy the products linked to in their articles. That’s partly why the industry is plagued by misinformation — marketing masquerading as science, beauty ideals disguised as empowerment — and why every freakin’ article seems to have approximately one million in-text product links and a ~convenient~ “Click To Buy” section underneath. (Which is not to say that all content is misinformed or manipulative or pandering — there is a lot of great content out there!! — or that all products are “bad”. I’m juuust explaining how things happen.)
Lately, journalists across all sectors — politics, finance, fashion, beauty — have flocked to the private newsletter model to flout the influence of advertisers and affiliates, myself included. Except… I have a problem with this mode of making money, too. Ugh.
My conundrum is this: If I put my content behind a subscription paywall, the information won’t reach as many people. And my goal is not to hold information hostage for profit; my goal is to create change. In order to do that, I need people to read and have realizations! To share and have conversations! To band together and demand better from the beauty industry! So I’ve decided not to put my articles, investigations, and essays behind a paywall. The pieces I write will always be accessible to all.
About that whole “getting paid” thing…
Since I don’t feel good about making the articles I write “exclusive” to paying subscribers — because exclusive is the opposite of inclusive, and inclusivity is one thing this industry needs more of — I’m offering an alternative “exclusive.” In addition to my regular articles, paying subscribers ($5/month) will now receive The Don’t Buy List: a bi-weekly roundup of product-free content from across the internet, curated to broaden your understanding of the beauty industry and help us all break free from beauty standards. (This was formerly the “Recommended Reading & Listening” section at the end of every issue of The Unpublishable — now expanded and available to paying subscribers only.)
In addition, paying subscribers will be able to comment on articles and participate in pointed, moderated Unpublishable group discussions — think Clubhouse, minus the anxiety of appearing on camera and the time constraints of live panels. Plus, you know, there’s the joy of supporting the creation of ad-free beauty content that doesn’t push products on people.
(Note: If you already donate to The Unpublishable on Patreon, there’s no need to pay on Substack, too! Your contribution carries over and you’re on the “paying subscriber” list.)
Without further ado, the first iteration of The Don’t Buy List, available to all just this once :) to entice you to sign up for the paid version of The Unpublishable :) please :)
The Don’t Buy List:
Beauty content that doesn’t push products.
What Framing Britney Spears can teach us about beauty and power. You have to read Tavi Gevinson’s response to the new Britney Spears documentary on The Cut. You just do. The author pushes against the film’s bizarre assertion that Spears had total control over her hyper-sexualized persona as a teen/the pop star’s critics were simply uncomfortable with this display of womanhood. “If you, the viewer, share in that discomfort, you are just another misogynistic cog,” Gevinson writes (*with sarcasm*). This is an easy stance to take, because it allows us to bypass any sort of introspection about how outside factors have influenced the ways in which we express ourselves (our clothing, our makeup, even our opinions). As Gevinson writes, though, “It is absurd to discuss her image from that time as though there was not an apparatus behind it, as though she existed in a vacuum where she was figuring out her sexuality on her own terms, rather than in an economy where young women’s sexuality is … commodified.” Sure, Spears is more visible than most, but this sentiment applies to all of us. Of course society’s standards inform our self-image!! And in the same way Framing Britney Spears ignores these influences to conveniently position Spears’s patriarchy-friendly expression of sexuality as empowerment, the beauty industry ignores these influences to position our patriarchy-friendly expression of beauty as empowerment. But “having power is not the same as being free,” Gevinson notes. I mhmmed through every paragraph thinking, “This applies to beauty! This applies to beauty!” and then Gevinson, in her genius, tied it all back to beauty.
You can’t cherry-pick when to care about Asian culture. Do you own a gua sha? A jade roller? Ever tried acupuncture or cupping? Did you go through a 10-step skincare K-beauty phase? Then you need to pay attention to the recent rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans, because cherry-picking when to care about Asian culture — like, say, when it benefits your beauty routine — isn’t a good look. Here are some resources: Visit Stop AAPI Hate to report an incident and/or donate to the cause. Support businesses in NYC’s Chinatown through Send Chinatown Love. Chip in for mental health services by donating to the Asian Mental Health Collective. Or, Google how to get involved in mutual aid efforts in your area.
The celebrities, please, they still need to be stopped. This week saw the launch of Jada Pinkett Smith’s “eco-conscious” personal care brand, Hey Humans (again, the most “eco-conscious” thing a celebrity can do is NOT START ANOTHER “SUSTAINABLE” BEAUTY BRAND and instead SUPPORT ALREADY-ESTABLISHED SUSTAINABLE BRANDS BY OFFERING ADVICE, INFRASTRUCTURE, INVESTMENT, OR AN AUDIENCE) and the sad, sad news that “Kris Jenner Skincare” may soon be a thing.
Can we laugh about Botox? In “Happy Fortieth Birthday From Botox”, The New Yorker’s Emma Rathbone hilariously/heartbreakingly writes from the POV of the neurotoxin: “Look—it’s simple. We make you feel bad about getting older; you give us money.” It’s plainly-stated truth positioned as parody (“When you feel like shit at Marshalls, crushed by a cascade of little insecurities and self-recriminations that have appreciably degraded the fabric of your life and the experience of your time here on earth … let’s just say we are ‘here for it.’ That’s where we really dance like no one’s watching, where we #livelaughlove, and other girl-talk, faux-empowerment idioms”) — which, really, is the only way one can point out the absolute absurdity of the frozen-face-as-female-empowerment angle without inciting an angry (on the inside) mob of injectable enthusiasts.
Eh, I’m conflicted about “skinimalism.” Laura Pitcher interviewed me about the concept for Dazed Beauty, which you can check out here. Obviously, I’m all for people using fewer products — but I don’t actually love the term “skinimalism.” It’s cutesy and time-stamped, which makes it sound like a fleeting trend. It’s shouldn’t be a fleeting trend — it should be the simple truth. Minimal skincare is better for your face, your finances, and the planet, and using less is an easy way to rage against the marketing machine. As I told Pitcher, “As anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideology becomes more mainstream, it’s harder for consumers to justify buying so much unnecessary stuff, and harder for brands to get away with using shelfie imagery to promote their products without seeming out-of-touch and insensitive.”
Have you read any Ursula K. Le Guin? I just ordered some books of the author’s essays, and the essay “Introducing Myself” knocked me out. (I found a scanned PDF of it on the internet here, or you can read it in The Wave In The Mind.) The way she describes moving through the world as a woman as “being a very poor imitation or substitute man” — it’s stomach-twisting in its truth. Deeply funny, in the saddest way. “What a mess I have made of being a man: I’m not even young,” she continues. “Just about the time they finally started inventing women, I started getting old. And I went right on doing it. I did not stop. I have allowed myself to age and haven’t done one single thing about it, with a gun or anything. What I mean is, if I had any self-respect wouldn’t I at least have a facelift or some liposuction?” Oof. Yes. No. Read it.