Hello! For some reason I woke up incredibly early in the mood to write and listen to Imaginary Friend by Tove Lo on infinite loop, so I must subject you, kindly, to a new missive. Here’s some stuff I’ve been thinking about over the past few days:

• Prehistoric female hunter discovered upends gender role assumptions, National Geographic. This is a classic case of “please remove your gender roles from those folks bones, bro, anyone can be murderous” for me. It’s always weird to me when historians and researchers assume a masculinized view of power. A few years ago I did a lot of research for an essay that utilized a lot of archeological research to examine women in pre-civilization. I concluded that women can be just as metal. I stand by it. If you are interested in that sort of thing, War Before Civilization was a very informative read in that regard.

  

• Pharrell has a new skincare line out that I am genuinely curious about. I noticed in the ALLURE profile that is also has intentionally accessible packaging, braille and raised lettering and rounded bottles and all. Someone read my VOGUE Business article on the lack of accessible beauty packaging last year, I guess!

• Wild to note that there have been a lot of beauty scams related to COVID… asking for free product for front-line workers. I didn’t even realize that was a thing, and I hope the organizing efforts I’ve been a part of weren’t assumed to be that or were the inspiration for some of this garbage. :(

• In a wholesome attempt at bi-partisanship in my reporting, I feel duty bound to offer a positive Lauder update. Estee Lauder Companies reached net zero emissions and 100% sourced renewable energy globally for its direct operations. They’re on track to hit a target in the Paris Agreement: reductions required to keep warming to 1.5°C. This is really cool, and they released their 2020 Progress Report on Sustainability recently to show their work. The other big beauty conglomerates haven’t released their figures for the year yet otherwise I would have compared them. L’OREAL has similarly ambitious goals on reducing their impact on the environment, and arguably it’s harder for them because they have a footprint that is substantially bigger than Lauders.

• Speaking of L’OREAL, they awarded start-up Reforestum a spot in their incubator program as part of their “Tech for Beauty" challenge. From their website: “Reforestum gives you the power to plant and track your own forests. These trees will offset your carbon footprint and reduce your contribution to climate change. . . Follow your forest and the CO₂ it captures. Share the growth of your forest with the community. You can even visit your forest in the real world.” Sounds cool. Considering how much deforestation happens due to the demand for palm oil in the beauty industry, this makes total sense to invest in for L’OREAL.

• Something I’ve been thinking about since they were announced: Are Beauty Companies’ Grants and Mentorship Efforts Delivering on Promises to Boost Black Owned Brands? Summarily: not exactly. “We need less mentoring and more access to money.”'

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Anyway, that’s all for now. Hope this is good food for thought for you, as well! Feel free to share it. If you’ve got the coins to subscribe, a portion of subscriptions for the next two weeks will be going to Fair Fight, in an effort to help stop voter suppression and aid in the organizing efforts for the Georgia runoff elections. All proceeds from my Depop’s perfume stock will also be going to the same efforts, and free shipping is already activated. Talk to you soon.