It's A Woman's World?
The Don't Buy List: Issue #76
Hello and welcome to another edition of THE DON’T BUY LIST.
In a clip from the forthcoming music video for her single “Woman’s World,” Katy Perry takes six jade rollers to the fully-made-up face. The rollers are maneuvered by disembodied hands — a visual that makes me think of ancient Egypt.
“Every morning before sunrise, Ramses the Great would open his eyelids to find dozens of officials, servants, assistants, and slaves waiting to guide him through his elaborate beauty routine,” David Yi writes in Pretty Boys. This display of patriarchal power “may be the original beauty industry.” So forgive me for asking Is it? and Are we? when Perry sings, “It’s a woman’s world, and you’re lucky to be living in it!”
Anyway. Onto the links!
IN THIS ISSUE: Luxury ice! Bella Hadid is the new Cindy Crawford! Consumer responsibility! Nature’s revenge for self-obsession! Joy in beauty! A movie about skincare! How to market nothingness! Mewing! Merch! & more!
MESS GALA: I’m very much looking forward to joining my podcast co-host
and guests and in NYC for Emily’s Mess! Live event (“The Met Gala of Alphabet City”) at Half Gallery on July 25 at 7pm. Bad celebrity fashion, Sunny D hard seltzer… this event will have it all. I’d love to see you there! Tickets go on sale soon; link will be sent out via .ICED OUT: Read
’s latest on ice as a luxury item in the Anthropocene:“Last summer, I learned a decrease in diurnal temperature range (the difference between the maximum and minimum temperatures within a day; in short, it’s hotter at night now) caused by global warming is especially hard on the bodies of the elderly and unhoused. There’s simply no relief. When a heatstroke victim is brought into the hospital, the solution is shockingly crude: they are submerged in a body-sized bag full of ice slurry until their core temperature drops.
In my own town, the demand for ice was so intense last summer that the hospital contracted with a gourmet grocery more known for burrata flown in from actual Italy and their instant wine chiller than, you know, humanitarian efforts. I found this out the same day that Glossier launched two new shades of their liquid blush, Cloud Paint, by posting a photo of ice cubes embedded with edible flowers and emblazoned with the Glossier ‘G’.
Also note that as the world gets hotter, ice seems to be the skincare industry’s hottest ingredient — only in purchasable forms, of course, like $85 ice rollers and $155 iced serum cubes.
MAKE IT MEAN SOMETHING: Cindy Crawford is an “entrepreneurial role model among aspiring supermodels,” says the New York Times, rightfully citing her 20-year-old beauty brand, Meaningful Beauty, as the blueprint for model-founded cosmetic companies today (Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, Miranda Kerr’s KORA Organics). I’d say Bella Hadid is her direct successor with Orebella; both brands market physical products (skincare, perfume) by assigning them metaphysical properties (meaning, soul-deep self-knowledge).
WIZARD OF JAWS: “I was Mike Mew’s patient from ages nine to fifteen, or thereabouts,” Gabriel Smith writes in The Paris Review.
“Mike Mew is the head of the closest thing dentistry has to a cult. This was not true when I was nine but it is now. Mike and his father, John, believe that in humanity there is currently an epidemic of ugliness. They promise that you can build yourself a new and strong and masculine jawline, basically just by swallowing different. They call this mewing. His New York Times profile calls him a ‘celebrity to [the] incels,’ but girls like him too. He has obtained adoration on both 4chan and TikTok. Mewing is a big thing, a real phenomenon.”
Read the full thing here.
BUG IN THE SYSTEM: As lice infestations are (anecdotally) on the rise, a researcher with the Pest and Insecticide Research Center in Buenos Aires told the Washington Post that selfies are “a significant transmission source.” Pressing your head to someone else’s “to fit into a cellphone frame … could give head lice an opportunity to crawl from one head to another,” the article says. A modern twist on the myth of Narcissus…
BECAUSE YOU CAN’T BUY NOTHING: I’m seeing lots of ads lately that imply it’s ideal to not wear a particular cosmetic product, then assume that forgoing cosmetics isn’t an option and propose an alternative product instead. Vogue Runway tweeted: “As it continues to get hotter this summer, moisturizer and tinted creams become lifesavers in the heat” — the subtext being, “It’s too hot to wear foundation.” Milani’s “Face Set. Mind Set.” makeup-setting spray campaign claims “When your face is set, your mind will follow” — the subtext being, “When you don’t have to worry about your makeup melting/smearing/whatever, your mind will be clear.” In both instances, the obvious solution is removing those particular products from your life, not replacing them (with a lighter-weight tint) or adding more (with a setting spray). I’d conservatively estimate half the industry is made up of offerings like this — goods that attempt to solve the problems of other goods (e.g. barrier repair moisturizers, scalp treatments for product buildup).
SIMILAR: These kinds of promos kill me.
Is the difference between these two photos (imperceptible) really worth $108??
REMINDS ME: Of when I reported on injectable “tweakments” as “self-care” for Fashionista five years ago.
Lisa Goodman’s trademark — literally — is The Untouched Look™ and her [GoodSkin] website proclaims, "We Believe in Botox That Only You Can Detect." The goal is to provide subtle treatments that make the patient feel better about their face, but don’t necessarily register to the rest of the world.
Goodman has tapped into something interesting here. "This experience contributed way more to the way that I feel than the way that I look," the writer of Well + Good's injectables-as-wellness treatise said after getting Botox and cheek fillers. "A poll of about 20 of my closest friends and colleagues revealed no one could tell I'd had a treatment done."
Jillian, a 32-year-old public relations professional who recently had her first injectable appointment at Alchemy 43, takes this sentiment a step further. "As soon as I got in my car, I instantly took a look at myself in my rear view mirror and already felt better about myself, even though my lips were swollen and forehead was starting to bruise," she tells Fashionista.
While this idea of feeling-good-despite-not-looking-any-different (or, in Jillian's case, looking worse) is often used to justify injectables' inclusion in the self-care conversation, there's a flip side to that coin: If it's about how you feel — especially in a way that's imperceptible to the outside world — why are expensive injectables the vehicle of choice?
This is not well or self-caring behavior. It’s Beauty Culture Brain.
MERCH WITH PURCHASE: Free gifts with purchase are getting out of control. Per Sarah’s Retail Diary: Right now Glossier gives away free sticker sheets to customers who buy five lip balms, Merit and YSE send customers who spend $100 or $125 respectively a free tote bag (no one needs another tote bag), and Versed offers a bubble headband with orders over $50. I personally detest merch that has nothing to do with the company’s core offering — it’s wasteful, and worse, it’s waste for the sake of encouraging overconsumption. (“I want this tote I don’t need, so I’ll buy more beauty products I don’t need to meet the threshold.”) When the merch is “free,” you can assume the amount it costs the company to produce is covered (or surpassed) by the profit margin of the other products being purchased; that, or it’s less than the usual cost of customer acquisition. The company’s data shows you will buy enough of their core product — either now or later — to offset the unnecessary extras it’s produced. If I may quote Isabel Slone’s latest piece for
:“While many critics intone that individual actions taken to combat climate change are futile when 71% of global emissions since 1988 have been produced by just 100 companies., we must acknowledge that these corporations are not typically in the business of creating goods there is no appetite for. ‘It’s the consumers that actually burn and demand the fossil fuels that these companies provide,’ Richard Heede told Vox in 2018.”
SKINEMATIC: Elizabeth Banks is set to star in “Skincare,” a campy thriller about an aesthetician launching her own beauty line (Aug 13). Finally, modern skincare is recognized for what it is — not care, not health, not art, but (mostly) mindless entertainment!
MORE RECOMMENDED READING:
“Can Beauty Be A Source Of Joy?” by
for“Pretty People Really Do Have It Better” by
for TIME“Facial Hair Tattoos Are the Next Frontier of Gender-Affirming Care” by Nicole Dall’asen for Allure
“You are your body: here’s how to feel more at home in it” by Elna Schütz for Psyche
“The Influencer Is a Young Teenage Girl. The Audience Is 92% Adult Men” by Katherine Blunt for the Wall Street Journal
FINALLY: I’ll leave you with this tweet from Jason Okundaye.
Sometimes it’s good to feel bad.
You’re Gonna Die Someday No Matter How Young You Look,
Jessica
the mike mew article was fascinating for me since i spent my youth (and still do) seeing a dentist whose philosophy is 'if its not broke dont fix it'. i never had braces because even though my teeth are kinda crooked they weren't crooked in a way that was harmful. i'm very glad i didn't get braces for cosmetic purposes since they do erode your enamel (obviously its better to have braces if you need them even if they erode enamel, but i didnt need them). the article really felt like it was describing the 'look healthy at the expense of your health' beauty culture trend that we see everywhere and also a weird tie in to 'same-faceness'/'instagram face' but w mike mew as the blueprint instead of instagram filters.
“Because you can’t buy nothing” this exactly! I’ve gotten SO MANY ads on Pinterest for body-hair removal devices that open by admitting how cumbersome, wasteful, and painful shaving with disposable blades is. “Ladies, your razor is not your friend,” they say, telling me to throw my razor away… and buy this other product that does the same thing 🙄 Sooo close to getting it but no