C.R.E.A.M.

all in with 40+ beauty/what you can expect from this here newsletter

For the past three years, I worked as a (somewhat unlikely) beauty editor, writing mainly for women over 40. Over this time, I tested hundreds of products, interviewed dozens of dermatologists and estheticians, and reviewed more skincare studies than I can count. I now know which bougie-expensive beauty brands are bullshit (most!), the best laser for brown spots, and how to find an under-eye concealer that won’t settle into creases or make you look like Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

What started as a job I imagined would be stable but completely vapid, turned into work I found fascinating and even rewarding. Mainly because (unlike my [cough-cough] former employer [cough-cough]), I love older women, and I know — while there’s a lot of lip service out there — responsible, reliable content made specifically for us, content that wholly considers our needs, talks to us straight, and isn’t just about selling us unnecessarily expensive crap and/or a deep-plane facelift, is increasingly rare.

Midlife is an emotional and physical cataclysm, of course. Through it all, we’re taught to both fear aging and revile its effects. There’s an ever-swelling societal expectation that we should age “gracefully,” when that grace most often involves distorting our anatomy and setting fire to whatever coin we’ve managed to stash.

When it comes to beauty after a certain age, we’re damned when we do and damned when we don’t. It may be easy in theory to disavow the entire enterprise, but in practice, it’s certainly not simple. If you are a human female, I'm sure you have all sorts of complicated, conflicting, nuanced feelings about your face (and neck and chin and…). I do too.

Why is my hair suddenly thin as a doll’s ponytail? Does microneedling do fuck all? SHOULD I START SHAVING MY FACE?

Moving forward, I’ll be posting more frequently about beauty. Some posts will be shorter one-off recs (the $15 brush that helped my hair stop shedding, etc), while others will be more expansive (reported) dives. My hope is that this newsletter will answer your midlife beauty questions and serve as a no-nonsense guide.

While beauty and all its many complexities will be the main focus around here, I’ll still be sharing essays about midlife messiness and survival — in my mind, the two are deeply entwined. In addition, I’m going to push further into affordable style, covering clothes geared specifically to those of us in the creative class who can’t necessarily afford a $500 top but still like cool shit (we are legion!).

If you happen to have stores of cash, I’ll be offering a regular Imaginary Wardrobe series of heavyweight/worth-it investment pieces and reckless sartorial follies because, hey, a girl can dream.

This is just off the top of my head! There will be more to come!

If you want to join the party, now through August 1st, there’s a 20% off sale, including the entire unhinged Extended Scenes library.

Thanks for being here. xo

Earlier:

• “i’m old + vain, but never want a facelift — are lasers the answer?”

• this is the best LED mask to buy

• does estrogen cream work for your face?

• good-ass summer clothes for when you’re on fire