The Beauty News That Has Unhinged Me This Week
There will be a Tiktok Style Show sponsored by. . . Glamhive and Mary Kay? Well then! I honestly cannot name a single Mary Kay product to save my life right now but good for them.
Unilever is buying Paula’s Choice, one of my longtime favorite brands, and TBH the general reception from beauty insiders on this subject is suspicion and dread at the prospect of reformulation. Please don’t! Signed, mgmt
Five companies make a quarter of the world’s single use plastics.
Immediately related to that are two facts: L’OREAL buys .1% of the world’s entire supply of palm oil and also the fact oil companies are now enlisting lifestyle influencers to promote their gas stations! (L’Oreal is actually a leader in transparency regarding their oil consumption by a lot of NGO standards. I do find it interesting that the leaders in this regard are hygiene/beauty companies, when other industries use a lot more oil in production.) If you did not know, oil and plastics are immediately related by how they are refined and the fact petrolatum is a byproduct of crude oil. I’m not going to get lost in the weeds about this right now - I am still screaming internally at the thought Shell is paying influencers to take #Shellfies.
On that note, this profile on how one lawyer one a HUGE suit against Shell is really hopeful and I’m going to pick up his book.
On the hand, the latest Nestle/Cargill Supreme Court case is a huge loss for lawsuits against corporations and. . . lawsuits against child slavery.
Thought this article linking Shein and fast fashion companies to Trump’s Trade Tariffs used a really smart framework.
Canon put AI Cameras in its China offices that only lets smiling workers in. Mmmmm, surveillance and affect, combined to form a hobgoblin of dystopia. Hey lady, smile more. [I apologize for typing that, I, too, am screaming.]
Here is my personal tweet curation at the moment, also:
I am signing up for driving lessons so I can finally be a Full Adult And Equal Partner on Road Trips, so I think I should get this bumper sticker in preparation:


Some book recommendations for you:
Bath Haus: A Thriller by P.J Vernon
Mask for Mask by JD Scott - poems about korean spas and cruising! What more could you want, honestly.
This excerpt from The Natural Mother of the Child will probably make you want to buy the book, a memoir of non-binary parenthood. And you should! I had the IMMENSE BLESSING of reading this as an ARC while going through the embryo freezing process with my partner, who is also non-binary, and it was pretty much the only source of community we had the entire experience, given we were still in full lockdown and were only leaving the house to go to the doctors or go get groceries. If I hadn’t kept a journal of the process, which we are still going through, I probably would have… I don’t know, animorphed into a single teardrop of loneliness? I don’t know. It’s a really intense process, one I’m not prepared to share right now, but I am so grateful to Krys for writing more trans stories into this space. We sorely need them.
Ok. I’m going to enjoy the rest of my weekend now. Hope you can do the same. In the mean time, here are my questions for you:
What is a particular smell you miss?
Do you have a favorite horror movie and if so what is it? Did you watch a lot of horror movies in the past year?
Do you have any recurring dreams?