some of the beauty products i have purchased and enjoyed since i told myself i should stop buying beauty products two years ago because i never consistently use them and they rot

i am homely and i never go outside, what in the fuck do i need bronzer for?

(none of these are affiliate links, which just makes this whole thing even stupider)

i love to gaze at a beautiful influencer. i looove being influenced; i love watching a tiktok in which someone careful and not-lazy perfectly applies products seamlessly to their smooth, hairless face and then buy that product and hastily slap it on top of my prickly menopause upper lip and wonder why it does not look the same! i love to purchase a tinted moisturizer that “looks like real skin, but better” and slather it on my skin only to find that the color the computer predicted would match me best is too dark with a burning red undertone that makes me look febrile and worse!
these are some that i got that look the least fucked up on me:
danessa myricks yummy skin (“seamless and skin-loving”)
beauty of joseon daily tinted fluid sunscreen (“silky, lightweight, radiant”)
supergoop! glowscreen (“luminous and sunkissed”)
lisa eldridge skin tint (“plumped and refreshed”)
fenty eaze drop (“smooth, instantly blurred”)
make up for ever super boost (“hydrating, plumping”)

i have two phases: 1 “makeup is a scam, it’s all fancy vaseline that costs too much, who even gives a shit” and 2 “IF I JUST GET THIS NEW HIGHLIGHTER IT WILL FIX EVERYTHING WRONG WITH MY FACE.” and, i gotta say, i love being in phase 2. no better feeling than being served a carefully curated ad for a product that will fix the exact thing i hate about myself at that moment. didn’t realize i had wrinkled lips before instagram told me so, let me go ahead and put this lip wrinkle flattening cream in my cart!

you know what else i think i like? EYEBROW MAINTENANCE. but maybe i actually don’t because i don’t do any. i haven’t gotten my eyebrows done since i moved to michigan eight………..nine years ago?? finding a brow person is so stressful, it’s such an intimate act that is so easy to miscommunicate to a new person and their waxes and threads! the one lady everybody here goes to always has a minimum two-hour wait at her shop at any given time and are you fucking kidding me. i’d walk around with schitt’s creek brows until i die before i sat? and waited?? for two hours??? for eyebrows that might get messed up?????? does anyone other than a bitch that hates you even notice the unkempt state of your brows anyway? so now i just put stuff in mine to make them shiny and face the same direction and you know what? it’s fine.
my nephew’s adorable wife is a popular orthodontist on tiktok and tbh watching her videos is easier and more convenient than picking up the phone and bothering travis to find out how everybody’s doing, so that’s what i do. one day, we as a nation have to sit down and have a serious conversation about how “looking at your instagram” is the same thing as “calling to check on you.” if i posted a meme today about being a stupid bitch? you don’t have to dial my number, you already know that i am okay. anyway ariel is young and has the energy to groom her eyebrows and in one of her videos she used this anastasia brow freeze and i knew i had to have it because i cannot resist a tantalizing pot of clear jelly, plus it requires a separate spoolie which feels fancy but on noooo it’s secretly disgusting. where does one put a semi-sticky hairy brush without it becoming covered in every bit of loose detritus tumbling around your bag. i want to throw up just thinking about it, so i don’t use that anymore but if you have a stronger stomach than mine you should go for it because it’s good.
of course i’ve used boy brow but i feel about glossier kinda the same way i do about, let’s say, sabrina carpenter’s music: sure i like it but also consuming it makes me feel like a weird old creep trying to be cool and young by partaking in something that’s meant for twenty-two year olds.
these days i’m married to nyx crazy lift brow glue lamination gel (why do they have to call it all that, it’s so many words) which comes in a handy squeeze tube with a silicone brush at the tip and you just brush the liquid up through your eyebrows and they stay put and your enemies can’t talk shit if you run into them at the grocery store.

i have extremely juicy eyeballs so i do not use mascara or eyeshadow in any form and i learned years ago to never, ever even try to put anything on my actual eye, not even as a gag. i also haven’t put anything on my nails other than soap and water since i almost killed myself with nail polish remover a few years ago which, if you haven’t already, you can read all about in this handsome, best-selling book.

i am an expert at only one thing and it is gorgeous gorgeous red lipstick and here are all my top tier kinds:
lisa eldridge velvet ribbon THE KING, THE CHAMP, THE DON DADA. whatever superlative you throw at her, it fits. she’s expensive and she can only be ordered through the mail, but she’s glorious.
pat mcgrath dramatique (okay????) mega lip pencil in garnet glow i love a chunky lip crayon because it makes me feel like i’m not trying that hard, even though a decent-looking red lip is nearly impossible to maintain and is literally the most hard, unless you sit very still and never speak or eat or drink.
MAC retro matte in ruby woo a classic, the perfect shockingly bright, dry-ass red. a moist red lip looks disgusting to me, like i just got done feasting on fresh roadkill and didn’t have a fork or a napkin, so i like a matte as matte can get and this old broad has been a staple for forever because she rules. i first learned about MAC in high school when my friend suzi introduced me to the perfect 1996 brown lipstick one day when we were bored in choir. remember when we were kids and it was chic to walk around looking like you just sucked shit off a dog’s balls? loved showing up to tenth grade looking like a 37-year-old realtor!!!!!!!!!!
fenty icon velvet in the mvp first of all, if the word “velvet” is in the description that is an automatic yes for me, no matter what, plus it’s a real banger. rihanna simply does not miss.
make up for ever rouge artist for ever matte liquid in constantly on fire this is like, a traditional super-liquidy lip that dries down like paint and is vivid and will not budge, UNTIL: at some point in your evening you will realize that you have been spitting little red flakes and crumbs everywhere every time you open your mouth plus you get visible pale pink cracks in your lips whenever you smile, which sucks because it’s impossible to touch up once it reaches that point? you really need to use a cleansing balm and scrub it all off so you can start from scratch, which you are not going to do unless you are at home or insane. looks good as hell but is probably best for a photo shoot where you don’t have to move too much or possibly a silent retreat.
violette fr petal bouche in cerise désir this is another fucking banger, one that makes your lips look and feel like a lush, sumptuous rose petal in full bloom. a high quality rose, not the little grocery store shits that are brown and curling at the edges.
into you pudding pot lip clay my current obsession is this cheap shit which is amazing and is really about to find a prime spot in my leaving the house bag. you can use a little for a blurred situation or you can use a lot if you are me and prefer to look like you got stabbed in the face, and the texture is so smooth and she feels so creamy on your mouth and she smells a little bit like hospital pudding which for me is a plus!

a few things i’ve been sitting and looking at with my unmade face:
-culture creep: notes on the pop apocalypse by alice bolin
-poker face season 2
-the nba finals
-here to make friends podcast
-american manhunt: osama bin laden
-what happened to katy perry?
-r/weddingshaming
-mission impossible 8
-rolling stone dot com
-mobland!!!!!
-the tylenol murders (it was actually kinda terrifying?)

i grew my hair? or, more accurately, i stopped cutting my hair??? i shaved my head when i was sixteen because i simply cannot be bothered with my hair. i just can’t. if i have to touch my own hair for more than a minute and a half i get mad. the last time i used a blow dryer or a curling iron was in 1995, before any of you were born!!!!!!!!! i am not a hair person, BUT: i have lovely hair. at least when i allow it to grow more than a quarter inch from my scalp, which i typically don’t because then i get dandruff and also i’ve spent more time trial-and-erroring natural hair styling products than i have on formal education and never found the one so i’d inevitably end up back in the barber’s chair.
i always thought that my flaky scalp was due to dryness, but i was reading the seborrheic dermatitis subreddit (adulthood, this is it) and someone posted about how you should buy shampoo for oily hair because you don’t want to “feed the yeast” on your scalp (being a person is like being a dog) and so i did and now my scalp is at a point where having hair on it doesn’t make me want to peel my skin off like an onion.
there have been many innovations in the world of natural hair styling products and if you are in the market for some you’re in luck because i’ve tried them all. every single one. i could open a sally beauty supply out of my fucking bathroom. i never rank shit because i don’t want to accidentally hurt someone’s feelings, but here are my top 4b-4c (if you don’t know what that designation means, skip over this) curly hair styling gels and gloops and glops:
#1 pattern beauty curl mousse
#2 mielle pomegranate and honey curl mousse
#3 luv ur curls all-in-one: kinky coily
#4 the doux crazy sexy curl or mousse def
#5 eco style krystal gel (the closest comp to my beloved proclaim activator, rip queen)
factors considered: stinkyness (anti), crunchiness/definition (pro), and ease of use (if it requires any more work than emulsifying into wet hair, i will not do it)

BORING SHIT THAT IS ACTUALLY USEFUL
-when i’m in chicago my favorite place to stay is the sophy in hyde park. it’s really beautiful and every room has a compact generic hotel couch that they don’t try to pretend is an extra bed, which i appreciate. every room also comes equipped with a record player which………………….imagine being that guy. “slip into something comfortable, babe. i’m just gonna crack open a $47 bottle of minibar wine and put this art blakey LP they left on the desk on the hi fi.” come on, brother. we’re not doing that! they have these soapbox makeup remover wipes in the bathrooms and they’re so good i ordered a box the first time i tried them. they don’t have a smell and they aren’t irritating and your face feels magically clean after using just one. i like to keep them in my bedside drawer because i love getting in bed before i remember to wash my face, and these are easy to use while lying down in the dark.
-a tip for your beauty sleep: the “mack daddy” of ear plugs. i’m not even sensitive to noise but there’s something so soothing about walling off my skull from outside penetration before falling dead asleep.
-this isn’t makeup necessarily, but i am always trying new creams and potions for my butthole and i have a couple new faves. yes we have a tushy on the toilet and yes i only use the finest toilet papers available, BUT: sometimes miss girl needs some extra tender loving care. if you have hemorrhoids or diarrhea all the time, it makes you feel less like lying down in traffic if you lubricate your bum. my tried and true is sir preparation h with lidocaine. i leave tubes of it everywhere: glove box, desk drawer, medicine cabinet, coffee shop, favorite restaurant, your mom’s house, literally everywhere. sometimes i get fissures (asteroid, where are you?) and this stuff works better than the weird goo my doctor makes me pick up from the compounding pharmacy!!! megababe just came out with a roid cream called butt stuff and, first of all, HOW COULD I RESIST. it’s marketed as “the first maximum strength hemorrhoid cream made by women,” a truly hilarious thing to say. is this where feminism is at now, it’s a notable mark of progress to use a poop cream made by ladies???? fine, who cares, i love it, all i ever want in life is a numb asshole, and Ms. Butt Stuff does the trick.
-i don’t buy fancy body soaps anymore because, despite my desire to lather up like a fancy woman in a commercial, the kind who closes her eyes and sighs contentedly as she smooths bubbles over her elbows, the skin on my gross, deformed leg is weird and reactive to anything upscale, plus i don’t want to smell bad and the natural deodorant i like needs a little help. so now i use this acidified bar soap and let me tell you something: it’s a dream. it is neither special nor glamorous, truly the most utilitarian thing you could ever put on your body, but it changes the ph of your skin or something? and you never reek?? and i use it on my face and my face skin has never been smoother or more supple??? the price is exorbitant, that’s real, but if i wanted i think i could stop wearing deodorant entirely so maybe it’s actually saving me money. and that’s what we call girl math!
-my gums are receding into my skull at an alarming rate (this, too, is adulthood) and i’m on the record as a hard toothbrush person but i gotta keep a softy around to switch it up sometimes, and my friend emma wrote in her newsletter about how much she loved curaprox toothbrushes so of course i got one because i need to have cool things other people have, i just do. it’s almost repulsively soft; it feels like an infant is rubbing your molars with a damp cotton gauze wrapped around their slimy little finger, but once you get used to it it does get your teeth clean. they have a diagram on their website about the exact way you should hold the brush and the angle at which it’s best to clean your gums and teeth, which makes me feel like i’m doing science. anyway here’s a link to the gay ones, for pride.

don’t feel pressured to buy any of this garbage, because i have zero brand deals and only make money from the 37 people who pay for this newsletter (bless), so i do not give a shit if you buy the shit i like!!!!!!! unless you buy all the things i like, in which case i believe that will legally make us siblings. the song i listened to on repeat while full-body cringing over my many cracked, dried out, expired blushes as i wrote this: b-attitudes by samantha crain

love you, mean it