Look Good, Feel Bad!
The Don't Buy List: Issue #73
Hello and welcome to another edition of THE DON’T BUY LIST.
I got an email from makeup brand Laura Geller the other day with the subject line “1,000 Blushes Sold Daily!” This is a fairly standard marketing hook; I see an ad or article about how “a bottle of L’Oreal Hyaluronic Acid Serum sells every 60 seconds” roughly every 60 seconds. The framing suggests consumer trust, popularity, and efficacy. But what if we flipped those associations? Whenever we hear “a tube of Maybelline Great Lash Mascara sells every five seconds,” we — and the reporters who use this angle for clicks — should also hear: waste, overconsumption, conformity.
Anyway! Onto the links.
IN THIS ISSUE: Holecare! Child labor in luxury perfume! Injectable filler for your phallus! Wellness anxiety! Contaminated face creams! Enough with all the skincare already! Facetune Moms! Botox Brides! What’s next for Olaplex! Whole-body deodorant! Grace Coddington! Glow-downs! PG-13 retinol! Drinking sunscreen! and more!
HOLE-Y HELL: Back in December 2023, I predicted “butthole beauty products” would soon be a thing. Many of you thought the post was satire. It was not! A month later, Megababe founder Katie Sturino announced the launch of a new “butthole cleanser.” Last week, my friend sent me this Instagram ad for Asset’s “Hole Serum.”
And just the other day, Brennan Kilbane wrote “‘Holecare’ Is Here. Do We Need It to Be?” for Allure. (The SEO slug? “how-to-care-for-butthole”.) Consider this a plug — no pun intended — for a paid subscription to The Review of Beauty. The info behind the paywall is consistently six-plus months ahead of the curve.