All Caught Up: Sephora birthday parties, tech oligarchy, big noses are hot

Forget Chuck E. Cheese

I am writing this on Wednesday night at approximately 10:07PM. It has been quite a week already *gestures vaguely* and it is only continuing to be.

Question for the team (yes we’re calling the readership here a team) – my career newsletters are often the ones that are most highly read. Is there anything you guys want to read about from me? Ideas swirling around in my head are:

• Writing! In general. I’m often asked how I write so much (I really don’t think I write all that much!) But it is a big manifestation of my Personal Brand etc, so how does one go about that without wanting to barf.

• A 6-month reality check in on transitioning out of entrepreneurship.

• Networking without hating yourself about it.

• Developing a media diet that helps you, not harms you.

This week's picks include 'fourth spaces,’ functional fragrance and Flashes.

Christina’s weekly scroll – 

1. Forget Chuck E. Cheese – kids are now having birthday parties at Sephora. Do makeup tutorials really compare to ball pits? Arcades? Laser tag???

2. Meanwhile, Bliss is moving away from Gen Alpha, telling the Sephora kiddies to go home and "let the adults shop in peace.” Love, tbh.

3. Julia Fox and Martha Stewart ONLY wear MAC!

   Nikita note: I AM BEGGING YOU LET ME WORK ON THE MAC STRATEGY.

4. SNL animated shorts are back <3

5. The tech oligarchy is stealing our sexuality. Great read from

   Magdalene J. Taylor
   on the American Gooning Conspiracy.

6. MoMA’s new exhibit, Pirouette: Turning Points in Design, is now open :~)

   “Design is a fundamental element of life, an enzyme necessary to our evolution. [...] Pirouette: Turning Points in Design features objects—from Post-Its to Spanx—that embodied experiments with new materials, technologies, and concepts; offered unconventional solutions to conventional problems; and had a deep impact both on design and the world at large.”

   

   Shigetaka Kurita. Emoji. 1998-1999. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2024 NTT DOCOMO

7. Pucci x Bala is cute but I would have loved to see some prints.

8. Can't get enough of the new Sakara campaign by Corrine Weldon.

9. Discovered PDF To Brainrot c/o this TikTok. You upload a PDF and it turns it into a brainrot video. Lol.

10. There are no jobs. The current job market is grim, as

    Femcel
    puts it:

    “How did we get to a point where it became acceptable to force 24-year-olds to turn themselves into a brand and build a massive network and take three people to coffee per week for “informational interviews” and post on every social media platform and have a website and a blog and a portfolio all for a job that you could probably get in 2005 with an associates degree and a year of work experience at a frozen yogurt shop?”

11. Kith is partnering with the Brooklyn Museum to celebrate Black History Month. The collaboration includes a capsule collection (ofc) and a limited-time pop-up at the Brooklyn Museum Shop.

12. The Mickey 17 press tour content has been so fun! Loved seeing Robert Pattinson get a personal color analysis in Seoul.

13. Coors Light just dropped a beer can face roller. Coors not included, lol.

14. Rhode x Tate McRae is cute… but pretty expected.

    Nikita note: I am so bored of the SKIMS strategy rinse and repeat going on here!

15. Having said that – the music video for Tate McRae’s new song "Sports car" (directed by Bardia Zeinal) is perfect. "U forgot to leak this..." !!!!!!!

16. Cheetos created a font called “The Other Hand” inspired by the statistic that 99% of people eat Cheetos with their dominant hand. Really fun.

17. Miss Cat! Doja Cat teamed up with Taco Bell again, this time for their Super Bowl spot. (Speaking of the Super Bowl, I read that Fox sold out its in-game ad inventory before November.)

18. Maybelline is now the official beauty parter of the Women’s Lacrosse League. Apparently, lacrosse is one of the fastest-growing sports in the U.S., particularly among girls(!)

19. More sports! e.l.f. is the first-ever beauty sponsor of the Wonder Women of Wrestling Varsity Tournament, the largest high school girls' wrestling competition in America + they’re also the official beauty sponsor of the Toronto Maple Leafs!

20. Annnnnnd McDonald's is debuting its first-ever signature meal with a female athlete: the Angel Reese Meal.

Nikita’s weekly scroll – 

1. Quince launched supplements. While I am partial to their sheets (I’ve had a few Brooklinen and Parachute sets tear on me) IDK how I feel about cheapie supplements. Or supplements beyond a multivitamin if I’m being real.

2. Koto just dropped Seasoned, a nice little set of guides on getting into the industry.

3. Friend of the brand aka the ever-excellent Severin Matusek just launched a Substack, and this edition about how evil is in feels timely.

4. Big noses are hot. Get with the program. Remember the p*ssy nose discourse from a few years ago…

   Christina note: Hell yeah they are!

5. A Black woman made a Linkedin catfish profile to make a point. And the point she set out to make is exactly what we all suspect.

6. Even kids are sick of phones in schools.

7. An insurance company is launching “cancel culture insurance” which includes a 60-day plan with PR support and a 24/7 hotline.

8. SKKY partners made an investment in 111Skin. Very curious about the portfolio strategy here Skimberly! Hot sauce and skincare. Everything a girl needs, I guess.

9. Bluesky is launching a ‘vibes-only’ focused photo and shortform video app called Flashes.

10. Lots of eye-rolling about functional fragrance (myself included!) and

    Arabelle Sicardi
    rightfully setting the record straight about the ancient science and traditions of functional fragrance. A reminder that while we all have hot takes online they are sometimes a bit tepid.

11. Super Bowl coverage corner: Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal revive ‘When Harry Met Sally’ for Hellman’s. Charli xcx and Miss Martha Stewart herself for Uber Eats. Also the Hims and Hers commercial… about GLP-1s is soundtracked to “This is America.” I’m not linking that!!!

12. I can’t fully jump the paywall on this article, but from what I’m sniffing out – Peloton is trying to copy my beloved Ladder app (yet again!) by launching teams and other support elements that make Ladder great. BOOOOO. As someone who was a Peloton user and is now an avid Ladder user… Ladder all the way.

13. Let’s call something something for a trend report I guess. Eventbrite launched a trend report about ‘Fourth Spaces’ – let me ask you is it really a Fourth Space, or are your hobbies just…mediated through your phone because that’s life now.

14. “We’ve exhausted our powers of artistic reasoning to make superficial sense of catastrophe.”

15. Populism demands a badge - a color. I just hate that it has to be my beloved red.

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˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚Little Treat Corner ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

Christina’s weekly report:

READING: The Sweet Life of Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song.

EATING: Eleventh Street Pizza.

PLAYING: This video. On repeat.

OBSESSING: This programmer did some coding magic and turned her late night YouTube spirals into a dynamic timeline of everything she has ever learned!!!

RECOMMENDING: Booking your hotel in advance…

TREATING: Myself to a new manicure!

Nikita’s weekly report:

READING: Don’t Believe It by Charlie Donlea.

EATING: Ice cream.

PLAYING: This playlist my friend Bennett sent me!

OBSESSING: Over laying down.

RECOMMENDING: Laying down.

TREATING: Myself to a three-day weekend next week.

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