I’m not exactly a Dollyologist, but like most Americans, Dolly Parton had my heart the moment the chorus of Jolene cracked it wide open. It wasn’t until I moved back to the United States and started to see more of her interviews, her fierce advocacy for gay rights and children’s literacy, and her whip-smart humor that I realized she is a different kind of majestic. But, the picture was still incomplete.

It wasn’t until I listened (well, re-listened, in 2020 I binged the series in 2 days) to Dolly Parton’s America by Jad Abumrad (who recently wrote a touching piece on his time interviewing Saint Dolly) and Shima Oliaee that I realized Dolly Parton was a prolific writer. One that encapsulates so much of the complicated, fraught and beautiful experiences of being American. As one episode proclaimed, in another life, Dolly would have been Beethoven.

The first episode of this 11-part series makes you realize just how deep and nuanced the Dollyverse is. In 1968, Dolly Parton released the song The Bridge. It’s about a woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock and contemplates suicide. Radio programmers avoided the song, and Dolly was advised to shy away from her work. She stuck by her song, even though it went unplayed by the powers that be for years. Little did they realize, Parton had based The Bridge on The Knoxville Girl, a very popular Southern murder ballad (men killing women was an entire genre of “ballads” which would play on the radio)… let’s review the lyrics:

She fell on her bended knees, for mercy she did cry.

“Oh Willy dear, don’t kill me here, I’m unprepared to die”

She never spoke another word, I only beat her more.

Until the ground around me within her blood did flow

I took her by her golden curls, and I dragged her round and around.

Throwing her into the river that flows through Knoxville town

Go down, go down, you Knoxville girl with the dark and rolling eyes

Go down, go down, you Knoxville girl, you can never be my bride.

Dolly Parton, the “dumb blonde” from Sevierville, Tennessee, wrote a profound ballad from the victim’s perspective. For the first time, the narrator was flipped. The abuse, abandonment, and betrayal was told by those that so often experience it, women. She didn’t care that the song was considered vulgar; from her vantage, it was the truth. That’s what mattered. Telling truths and facing subjects that many deemed “complex” with a dazzling smile was a consistent thread throughout her life. If you are like me and want a more complete picture of Dolly Parton beyond her discography, I cannot recommend this series enough, along with Tressie McMillan Cottom’s essay on the impact of her life as a writer. We are all so lucky to have been alive at the same time as Dolly Parton.

Goop canceled its Sam Altman Dinner, and this video sums up why simping for techbro losers is universally embarrassing.

In a turn of fate that no one is surprised by, Gwyneth Paltrow was having Sam Altman over for dinner. After it leaked, it got canceled. I posted about how fitting it was for Goop, a superspreader of misinformation, to cozy up to the creator of a super-engine of hallucinatory echo-chamber sycophancy. A reminder: Goop has raised upwards of $80 million as of 2018; we are now in 2026 (more money has probably been raised as the company doesn’t seem to be growing at the expected clip). For those who don’t know how company valuations work, you need to create a return on investment. It may not be happening for the wellness brand; so, to flatter the richest of the rich with dinner parties? Well, let’s say I’ve seen it with other companies in my work experience.

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While I expect a level of tone-deafness from a founder who built an entire business off women’s wellness without actually doing anything to make women well in America, I find the lack of self-awareness around tech bros interesting. You could make the argument in the early 2010s that they were making the world more connected and lending voices to marginalized communities (highly recommend Careless People), but now? We’re in a rage-bait, literacy-crushing surveillance nightmare.

I can’t even write an article on Substack without being policed by tools to “update” my writing as it “may appear to be AI-generated.” Aren’t these the same tools that train off my words? How surprising society largely hate the men that steal our art and labor, train models for their singluar profit and then subject us to the indignity of digital witchunts weaponizing our own work as their source material. And for what? To lay off more Americans? It’s mortifying to simp for them.

@Theshelahmarie helped summarize my feelings on AI, surveillance, and algorithms best; I’m TIRED of living in a nerd colonizer’s wet dream. I’m tired of hearing how much easier and more productive my life will be while they revoke our rights to something as simple as mail-in voting. I don’t need AI to make music, write or create; real people can do that. I need somebody who isn’t a colonizing nerd to take over tech because these applications are eroding institutions that help keep equality in check. I’ll be doing a longer post on the book “Muskism,” but let’s say it’s a hell of a lot worse than the manufacturing and economic system of Fordism.

An interesting take on the literal cost of living with Kevin Anderson and Aaron Bastani on Novara Media

I was finally able to watch this video a few weeks ago, and before anyone gets in my comments about the minutiae of the science, that’s not what I want to talk about. Kevin Anderson, a climate scientist, connected the dots for me on why our leaders are so devastatingly dense.

There are no illusions that humanity is on a path that, if we do not take drastic action, will lead to mass extinction. Not of the planet, but of humans and any creature that’s unfortunate enough to be alive during this era.

And what has the response been from many elected leaders of the human species? Well, it’s cheaper to die.

Anderson points out that we are the first civilization (that we know of) aware of its demise, which may explain much of the anxiety and existential dread many of us feel. To then watch these same incompetent elected officials demonize communities as cultural and economic scapegoats is infuriating. While the people of Pompeii didn’t realize they were about to be entombed by a volcanic eruption, you and I both know what path we are on. I mean, waterspouts turned into tornadoes in New York, but American “leaders” are focusing on trans people and immigrants, as if they are in any way the problem. It’s infuriating and quite literally an existential and civilizational crisis. Global warming is leading to mass natural disasters. If humans make it, we will go down in as the era that deemed it too expensive to survive.

Yes, I do feel like Jennifer Lawrence in “Don’t Look Up.” This is how I act at parties (invite me!)

Reminder: you can always act, organize and mobilize your local community… and that’s better than doing nothing. Swing Left is a fantastic organization; you can work towards getting officials that actually care about our survival here.

SOME GOOD NEWS: There’s a potential skin cancer vaccine!

I wrote about the incredible news this week that there is a skin cancer vaccine. You can read more here, and I’m going to shout out Dr. Shereene Idriss for a great summary.

The beauty industry really doesn’t do itself any favors.

Lastly, everyone in the beauty industry, stop giving insane, unsolicited advice. From Tarte sending mailers telling people who to “fix” their faces with dotted lines that (black) mirror an episode of Nip/Tuck, to a plastic surgeon sending the Prime Minister of Denmark a message asking her if she “wanted to get that little spot on her nose fixed,” we’ve lost the plot.

In her response, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who has led Denmark through Trump’s deranged requests to buy Greenland, posted the exchange on Instagram.

“The last thing I heard as we left Kyiv yesterday was the air siren,” she wrote, screenshooting the plastic surgeon’s message. “One of the first messages I got when I was back in Denmark was this one. Come on.”

“I can’t count how many messages I’ve received over time about my appearance,” she went on to say. “Especially that I have ugly teeth and thin hair. The fact that I have an ugly ‘wart’ on my nose and good advice on getting Botox.” She concluded with: “I’m fine with my body. Such as it is, when you are a woman approaching 50.”

A reminder: stop giving women (or anyone!) your opinion on what they should change about themselves. While not many of us are busy leading an entire country, say something of substance, or shut up.

A good reminder that we have a lot of work to do in regulating social media, as it just supercharges extremes and the constant feedback loop of body optimization. To soothe my soul, I’ll be watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Nothing quite like Tim Curry in fishnets saying “don’t dream it, be it” to heal me. Rest in peace, and power to three artists who truly made the world a better, more curious place: Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and Yayoi Kusama.

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At this point, does anyone have the Herculean strength not infinitely doomscroll upon opening Instagram? Considering I pay to have apps block me from using the free addictive platforms (TY Opal), I somehow still spend an inordinate amount of time online. I’m bringing back my weekly CP picks where I share what I’ve enjoyed from the online world. It’ll ra…

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Influence has always been, quite literally, about stars.

Long before Instagram or YouTube launched the influencer economy, there was influentia, the medieval Latin word for a flowing-in. From the start, it was an astrological term: the stars pouring down onto a person, flooding them with a fate they never agreed to. Even the flu got its name from it. Nob…

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As an elder millennial, I’m starting to understand what it means to be part of the gaslit generation.

Can’t afford housing? It’s not quite our penchant for avocado toast, but the financial fraud that tanked the economy marring our ability to earn.

Anxious? It’s not the “participation awards.” More likely it’s the inaction on climate change, social safety …

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Whenever I see an essay on beauty, I’m suspicious. For one, I work in beauty, and of all the journalistic beats, beauty can publish egregious misinformation with very little pushback. Lest we forget, “non-toxic beauty” and “clean” wellness helped pave the way for MAHA, which is decidedly making our lives shittier. Yet beauty, and its pursuit, is rarely treated as a subject worthy of political or intellectual discussion. Jia Tolentino’s essays are among the exceptions.

Her latest piece for The New Yorker is an update to her widely read 2019 piece “The Age of Instagram Face.” Seven years later, we see in “Our Plastic Surgery Nightmare” exactly how much has changed in the world of ever-rising beauty standards. Namely, Botox is table stakes; now the “aspiration” is a facelift; undetectable work is the new trend (I have thoughts here because the Love Island aesthetic begs to differ); men are now part of the fold with the supremely misogynistic and toxic “looksmaxxing,” and AI has added a new layer of dystopian hell for us mere mortals. The takeaway was, unsurprisingly, that the arms race to be the hottest girl on the algorithm shows no signs of slowing down and will likely become further desensitized to ever more extreme forms of “work.”

And why would these trends slow down? Shame (obviously) doesn't work. We've been trying to shame women for existing since time immemorial and yet, here we are. The other option — tech regulation — well, that hasn't been tried. When I open my apps and see perfectly smooth, angular, repetitive "hot girl" faces, I know enough about cosmetic procedures to understand that many of these creators are editing their faces digitally, or collecting procedures like a weapons stockpile in an arms race. The more “hot girl” ammunition you get, the more visible you are in the algorithm, and the more attention you can monetize. This is where Tolentino's essay left me wanting: the diagnosis is on point, but do we have any solutions? Are we doomed to increasingly aggressive but undetectable beauty procedures?

Good Noticing’s podcast also asked this question. Compare the world of beauty in 2019 to Clavicular’s bone smashing in 2026, and the overuse of lip filler is almost quaint. Beauty extremes are obviously escalating in the attention economy, but do we have any solves? While it’s validating to read that internet beauty is alarming, many essays feel resigned to the hamster wheel of increasingly insane beauty standards. We’ve now reached the point where being human isn’t extreme enough; AI is the new standard.

I think we can all agree it cannot be good for our brains to see so many before-and-after face-lift videos, but would everything change if we "went back" to "real beauty"? Probably not, because what even is that? Take the beauty standard of youth: how one ages “in a real way” varies wildly between individuals. It's no wonder that largely white women openly protest unfair beauty standards around youth; we are the most impacted by it.

When I was running a clinical trial for my skincare brand Dieux, we had to open recruiting to people over 60 to find Black women with deeper fine lines and wrinkles. Pale women? We were recruiting people in their late 20s. What's "real" is individual. The standard — and holding women against it — is the problem: it will always praise some faces while punishing others. That’s the patriarchy. There is no portrayal to get right. The only real liberation is to stop judging our faces at all, positively or negatively. And while beauty standards are getting increasingly bizarre, expensive and risky, it's not like women in the 1790s (lead face cream), 1890s (corsets), or even 1990s (heroin chic) had it healthy. What's new is the unregulated delivery system: technology built to escalate whatever gets your attention, no matter the psychic cost.

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A few weeks ago, Meta launched a wildly unpopular AI feature called “Muse Image.” The gist? You were automatically opted in to anyone using your likeness in their AI-generated content. That’s right, anyone on the internet could use pictures of you, your kids, your life for whatever they wanted. Reminder: generative AI uses more energy than other forms of computing, and for what? Slop? My energy bill is going up because someone wants to use my face in their content? Our lakes are getting zapped because a creep wants to use your kids in a video?

I wasn’t alone in my outrage. The online backlash was so intense that Meta reversed the feature almost immediately.

So now that we know platforms do react to critique and coordinated action (please read that sentence a few times if you think the way AI is being released and foisted on us as “inevitable,” it’s all planned and not in the average person’s favor), there may be actual solutions to dismantling Instagram Face. Some suggestions for everyone to bring out the digital guillotines over:

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1. Black-bar label all AI avatar content. I’ve seen too many mega-viral posts from “Korean Beauty” influencers only to realize the creator isn’t real. It’s already against Facebook’s T&Cs to leave AI content unlabeled; why are there no ramifications for this? Pitchfork protest outside Meta until this is rectified.

2. Stop juicing AI content in the algorithm. We know “Instagram Face” performs well on social media; make the AI versions perform less well or seriously throttle performance when it isn’t labeled properly. Same goes for content around disordered eating and pro-ana content. Some days I swear I’m in a Tumblr post on Instagram, and I hate it.

3. Make it easy to opt out of beauty and aging content entirely. Controversial as a beauty founder, I know. But plenty of people aren’t vain like me (I’m shallow when it comes to my epidermis; I want to know how to preserve it; it’s OK to say that). And one more important gate: STOP SHOWING KIDS ANY BEAUTY CONTENT. That includes lifestyle influencers. GRWMs are ads, and I won’t hear it differently. Before someone says, “If you try to stop kids from seeing it, they’ll find a way.” OK, then, I guess you’re one of those parents who lets your kids smoke cigarettes. From my POV, you don’t make things that we know are bad for children easily available. We have an overwhelming amount of evidence that platforms like Meta can hurt children and are harmful to them, so... IDK... maybe we try some things? The lawsuits are being won!

4. Like AI, black bar disclosure on skin-filtered or augmented feature content if you’re promoting skincare or beauty products.

5. Screens. I’ll leave this to the educators and parents (or maybe I need to interview some), but the tablets, phones and laptops are not exactly proving to be a net positive. Let’s revisit how we use them, and when.

After a few decades, legislators are finally understanding that Big Tech is acting a lot like Big Tobacco, and we need to regulate it. So, let’s give them some ideas.

It’s important to protect girls. It’s important to be aware of the problem. And, it’s important to be honest that participating in beauty is not some grand feminist act; it is vanity. It’s also important to think about what we can actually do before the next deranged iteration of “Instagram Face” arrives. These same techbro billionaires—who, interestingly, go through their own glow-ups with very little commentary on their obsession with youth and beauty1—are monetizing our time and attention. They then take those profits to manipulate politics, build data centers, destroy the environment, and keep us distracted.

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I’m working on some letters to send to your representatives to change how beauty is being shown to us online, and collective ways we can complain to get tech companies to change. If Muse Image could get rolled back in a day, surely Meta can start labeling AI “content” in such a way it’ll be too embarrassing for people to post in the first place. Below: a bill I'd love to see become law, and a win in New York worth copying elsewhere.

• Encourage your senators to back Bernie Sanders’ sovereign wealth fund for AI. And, before you balk, Norway does this for oil, and their people are doing just fine. If we don’t do it for AI, maybe we can do it for our oil and gas industry :)

• Encourage your local state representatives to consider statewide moratoriums on data centers. If you need an example of a state that did this, New York just implemented one.

There are plenty of things to worry about in the 21st century, but one sits at the top of my list: lies are wildly entertaining. The truth? Boring as sin.

Back in 1710, Jonathan Swift wrote in The Examiner1 that “falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.” Three hundred years later, the observation still holds, we’ve just turbocharged how lies spread with social media, platforms that prioritize entertainment over accuracy.

Take sunscreen. Researchers2 analyzed more than 1,000 TikTok videos tagged with the five most popular sunscreen-related hashtags. Seemingly, there was good news, the overwhelming majority — 87% — promoted sunscreen use. The logical conclusion would be…accurate information dominates, right?

Of course not. The researchers found that videos which doggedly criticize sunscreen pulled significantly more likes, shares, and comments than the ones promoting it. This engagement signals to the algorithm that it’s popular. As a result, the lies got shown more. Conspiracy theories tend to be engrossing, more viral and generate far more engagement than scientifically sound arguments3.

TLDR; there is an overwhelming amount of garbage claims to sift through online. Unless if you have “digital health literacy,” defined by the TikTok study researchers as an ability and access to resources to find and look at health claims well enough to make good decisions, you’re doomed to getting scammed on the internet. So let’s talk about how to counter that.

A Practical Guide To Avoiding Digital Balderdash

I like to picture the internet as the wilderness. Considering it triggers our fight or flight response, might as well4. Men with mini mics are akin to poisonous mushrooms, do not consume or consider for too long. Links in bio to supplements are sleeping bears, so run. And claims around non-toxic products are a sudden storm; seek mental shelter away from them. There are patterns and cues that salespeople — who have cleverly positioned themselves as wellness influencers and coaches — always give off, which can help you avoid the dangers of the internet.

Which brings me to the panicked DM I got about retinol.

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“IS THIS REAL??” Followed by a link to a video on TikTok. I scrolled through my mentions and had received about 10 tags on the same video.

When I saw the preview thumbnail, I didn’t even need to click to know I was about to get into some biohacking nonsense that would inevitably raise my blood pressure. So, let’s deep dive into all the crimson flags of the viral post @taylorloveshealth created. Maybe you can share these tips with a loved one who gets sucked into the wellness-to-QAnon pipeline.

Before we even get to the post, let’s start with his profile.

• He’s a health coach. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant so I did some digging.

• Taylor is less of a health coach and more of a salesman. His “integrative” health courses that promise to teach you how to “ascend” your health are vague, and it’s pay to play. He has no credentials, no training from what I can see on the website, just vibes and some anecdotes.

None of that stopped his retinal misinformation video from racking up 700,000+ views and 25,000+ likes.

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So, let’s break down why his post is wrong, and why the solution, conveniently, is to buy his ‘courses.’

@taylorloveshealthstop using retinol. stop using tretinoin. and before anyone tells me it's working — i know. that's not the point. the VATTC trial. archives of dermatology, 2009. 1,131 people randomized to topical tretinoin 0.1% vs control cream, twice daily on the face and ears. terminated 6 months early because the topical tretinoin group had significantly more deaths than the control group. that's a published RCT result. go look it up. retinol, tretinoin, retin-A — they all convert to retinoic acid in your body. retinoic acid is the active ingredient in chemotherapy for leukemia (APL). published research shows after 12 months your epidermis is thinner than baseline. the barrier compromise means anything else you apply absorbs into your bloodstream up to 3x faster (Ferry et al. 1990). accutane? category X for pregnancy (confirmed birth defects). documented elevations in LDL, triglycerides, liver enzymes. insulin resistance at 5 months independent of lipid levels. not opinions. published studies and FDA labels. full framework on what's actually going on with your skin → taylorloveshealth.org not medical advice, educational only. all love 🤍 #liverhealth #healthtok #retinol #skincare #accutane

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According to Taylor:

• Retinoids work short-term for looks.

• He claims retinoids damage people’s skin and health over the long run.

• He recommends people get off retinoids to “improve” their health.

• His main piece of evidence is a study that was halted after a few years due to concerns around death.5

The study Taylor leans on is the Veterans Affairs Topical Tretinoin Chemoprevention (VATTC) Trial. It ran from 1998 to 2004 and was published in 2009. 6

Some important considerations of the study:

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• 1,131 veterans were enrolled. 97% were men, and the average age was 71.

• That’s an old, overwhelmingly male cohort… and this group skewed toward smokers. US life expectancy for men sits around 75 to 76. Over a multi-year study, some of these men dying isn’t exactly shocking.

• More men did die in the tretinoin group than in the placebo group (because there were deaths in BOTH groups), and the difference was statistically significant… but… there’s a but.

• The causes of death were all over the map, lung cancer, vascular disease, respiratory and chest problems. The cause of death was more associated with well established complications caused from smoking.

And the researchers themselves? They explicitly warned against the conclusion the coach is drawing, writing that the trial was not reason to hesitate about using topical tretinoin in practice without additional evidence (since the study didn’t prove anything). This study was done almost two decades ago, no research has even hinted at what Taylor suggests.

To double down on the point, an article from 2009 interviewed the researchers:

"We didn't see any evidence for a cause-and-effect relationship," said Dr. Martin Weinstock, chief of dermatology at VA Medical Center in Providence, R.I., and a professor of dermatology and community health at Brown University, also in Providence.

I cannot stress this enough, be so wary of people on the internet telling you “the truth.” Especially when it contradicts decades of established research. Taylor didn’t discover anything, he just can’t read or interpret studies properly.

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Why retinoid slander is a particularly annoying take from the biohacker bros…

If you made it past the beginning of Taylor’s “research” you’d know he went on to spread the same tired myths of retinoids. Things like…

• “Retinoids thin your epidermis.” Which, no7. Retinoids thicken the epidermis and restructure your skin’s top layer so it’s stronger than it would be without them.

• “Retinoids permanently sensitize your skin and let pathogens into your bloodstream.” The sensitivity is real, but temporary. Dr. Albert Kligman — the dermatologist who pioneered topical tretinoin — documented that once you get past the “retinol uglies” (the dry, flaky adjustment phase), that sensitization fades. Long-term, retinoid use make your skin barrier stronger, not weaker.

• Taylor goes on to say…“The only real way to fix your skin is my website.” Convenient.

Look, you don’t have to use retinoids. You don’t have to use tretinoin. Not everyone cares about having stronger skin or beauty standards around having smoother skin.

But it’s a special kind of stupid if you’re into longevity science and then trash one of the only proven ingredients that keeps skin acting younger.

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Retinoids do the very things we associate with younger skin: they signal fibroblasts to make more collagen, they speed up cell turnover, and they help skin heal faster from injury. I find the ever-escalating beauty standards exhausting too, but that doesn’t change the fact that vitamin A derivatives are safe and genuinely effective.

How to navigate the hellscape of social media:

• If someone’s selling you something, be skeptical. They have an incentive to bend the truth. That includes me, I have to fight the urge to oversell daily. That’s ok, I’m human.

• If someone’s trashing an expert consensus in a field they have no expertise in, be skeptical. They aren’t truth tellers…

• Lastly, is that talking head even a real live person? AI is a whole new flood of nonsense. A reminder, doctors are being impersonated, random people’s identities are being stolen, it’s getting weird out here.

In today’s internet, don’t trust your eyes and ears by default. Learn to double-check, and look for what the actual experts say. In this case, who ran that study Taylor wanted us to pay attention to? Epidemiologists and dermatologists. Not a single health coach in sight.

Keep tagging me in the most viral misinformation you find, and I’ll continue to debunk it. Because lies may travel faster, but I still believe the truth catches up.

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Citations, Please:

And this is what I‘m eating.

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Sometimes I see a post on social media so infuriating that I viscerally lose it. My appendages go numb as my heart pumps electricity. I have to bite back the urge to scream about how nonsensical, how dangerous, how foolish a person is being online. “DOES NO ONE SEE HOW DISHONEST THIS IS?” I bellow (in my head)... Then I remember:

1. Some people are totally …

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Mark Zuckerberg wants you to believe he’s building a “Future For Everyone.” With his resources, there are many ways he could (easily) do this. He could fund a SuperPAC for progressive candidate…

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TW: if you hate fertility, just scroll past the next paragraph.

For those who follow me on social media, you may know I’m in the midst of an egg retrieval round. I feel incredibly privileged doing this process, but also, objectively, it sucks. I’m bloated, uncomfortable, angry, and my partner—though he’s been incredible through this—hasn’t become the equ…

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As someone who has their fair share of MAGA family members, there’s a maddening reality about getting into arguments: evidence doesn’t matter. This makes arguments that immigration is good for the economy, that trans people aren’t who women should be afraid of, that climate chaos is real, and that trickle-down economics doesn’t f****ng work all moot. Th…

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Morning Shed. Bleph. Lip flip. Morning shed. Nasolabial folds. Deep plane lift. Face tape. Fat Graft. Lollipop scar. Tox. Facial balancing. The list of chronically online cosmetic terms and treatments is as infinite as our endless scrolling. Every day—nay, every hour—it feels like a new standard, a new “miracle” for looking “forever 35” is added to the …

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Perioral dermatitis (POD or PD) is a rash that works in mysterious ways. For some, it’s triggered by toothpaste. For others? Mango skin. And if you’re in New York? Anything from weather changes to stress to an overly complicated skincare routine can be the culprit.

The one thing we do know? Perioral dermatitis is annoying, and looks like the unholy union…

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There’s a game I play on my phone. It isn’t Wordle, or Candycrush, it’s more a dystopian “Where’s Waldo?” An “eye spy” for AI slop. As I scroll, whenever I see some slop, I screenshot it. Bonus points if it’s in my industry (beauty and wellness).

Most of the AI I see is innocuous and bizarre, there are more disturbing trends. Like AI characters impersona…

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Last week, Rumer Willis got “canceled."

It started with an Instagram post. In a selfie-style video, her baby’s head bobbing in and out of frame as she shared advice she “wished she could have given her younger self.” It read like a MAHA laundry list. I’ve copied and pasted them below, along with some thoughts:

• RW: 🌸 “That signature fragrance you love? It…

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History repeating itself has never been the problem; it’s that human nature doesn’t change. And with the internet, what used to take months or years now unfolds at warp speed. In the last few weeks alone there have been controversies with American Eagle, Urban Decay and now E.L.F. cosmetics. Why is there so much controversy?

Just a few weeks ago, the in…

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There’s a myth that refuses to die in the beauty industry: that during a recession, lipstick sales surge. It’s called the “lipstick index.” It’s so persistent that when I was fundraising, tech investors with zero insight into the space were suddenly interested. Their rationale? Beauty is recession-proof.

Only problem is, there’s no data to back that up.

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We’ve known for years that everything is getting... average. Brands chase trends in color, design, and formula, all in hopes of going viral. Fashion, products—even our features—are increasingly molded by the same algorithms. Homogenization isn’t new, especially when profitability is the goal. But today, the speed and ease with which companies can copy e…

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It’s no secret that shame has long been used to influence behavior. The Victorians even had a name for it: moral suasion—the idea that social pressure and education could be used to shape public conduct.

And to be fair, shame isn’t always a bad motivator. Consider cigarettes. Public policy combined with social shaming around second hand smoke led to a dr…

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