lets bring back to the days of goop vagina candles and bee venom therapy
said no one ever
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Something not great is happening over at Supergoop. Six months ago, former CEO Amanda Baldwin left to head up Olaplex (which now wants to get into skincare!), and this spring, Sameer Agarwal, the brand’s general manager of the Americas, also resigned. Most recently, CMO Britany LeBlanc announced last week that she had left the brand, and on Monday, the art director, creative director, production director, and a number of other senior staff were laid off. This is what happens when you make a stale category HOT, and now everybody wants in. “Every cute brand has sunscreen now, and they didn’t three years ago,” said one Supergoop senior employee. Rachel Strugatz also adds that although many creative roles were eliminated, a number of positions were added—mostly in retail planning, performance marketing, and other data roles- which makes sense if they’re going to make that 2026 acquisition goal happen.
But they’re not the only ones trying to get acquired. There’s Glossier, Rare Beauty, Merit, Westman Atelier, Summer Fridays, and of course Makeup by Mario, which we talked about on Wednesday. They’ve all hired bankers to help explore their exit options, and even though they’ve all hit healthy revenue numbers, buyers are reportedly spooked by the high valuations many of them are seeking. Business of Fashion has a solid overview of each brand and their prospects, and The Information shed more light on the situation from the perspective of potential buyers. The overall verdict seems to be that the timing just isn’t great. Interest rates are still high, limiting the amount of capital available for deals: too many brands chasing too little money.
Goop isn’t having a great time either. Overall sales, including Goop Beauty, have been more or less flat since 2021. Their wholesale business is also struggling, with the brand making only six figures in U.S. retail sales at Amazon and Sephora for the month of May- whereas Summer Fridays, for example, made millions at just Sephora in the same period. Their affordable skincare line, Good.clean.goop, is also said to be in the “bottom 15” at Target, where it’s never quite been able to gain traction with the right consumers (whoever those are). Here’s my take: Say what you want about Goop, but when Gwyneth Paltrow launched it 16 years ago, it was the original lifestyle brand. It brought clean beauty and pseudosciencey language into the zeitgeist, and resonated with who it was supposed to resonate with. The issues came when a.) every beauty, skincare, (and CPG brand for that matter), became 'clean', b.) every celebrity began starting their own brand, c.) goop decided to enter every category under the sun (food delivery, TV, athleisure, etc.), and d.) honestly when they lost some of that shock factor. Can they get back to where they were? Honestly, I don’t know. There are so many better options across every price point for all the categories they play in. I can’t believe I'm saying this, but they really should have kept it tight and kooky with the WASPY ladies. Bee venom therapy and vagina candles weren’t for me, but at least they were for someone.
Okay, okay, so I know I called out Kim for copying Bella Hadid, but seeing this Khy ad makes me think the whole white-woman-in-a-white-dress-frolicking-in-a-field-as-she-sells-us-something is just where it's at right now. It actually might be the long tail of this Kim moment, but who can say for sure. Meanwhile, I still have no idea what Khy is about. Like, what exactly is Kylie trying to do here? Are people buying this stuff?
Khloe Kardashian is working on a video podcast for X. No idea what it's called, no idea what it's about, but it's coming this fall and will blend her “boundary-pushing sense of humour with her signature relatability to tackle dilemmas ranging from the everyday to the ever absurd.” You guys think you know what I’m going to say, but you don’t. I actually love this and think it could be great for Khloe. She is by far the most interesting personality of the bunch and shines best when allowed to be funny and irreverent. Plus, she doesn’t take herself too seriously (except when it’s about Tristain but who can blame her). I’m picturing something where people call in with their dilemmas, she gives half-serious, half-mocking solutions, and everyone else has a bunch of opinions. If you listen to the I Said What I Said podcast, that’s the vibe. She will obviously get dragged, but for the right price it could be worth it. More on X…
Elon Musk is sorry he told advertisers to 'go f--- yourself.' I mean, he didn't actually apologize or anything, but speaking at Cannes this Wednesday, he said the remark he made back in November in a CNBC interview was meant as a general point on free speech rather than a comment to the wider industry. “It wasn’t to advertisers as a whole. It was with respect to freedom of speech.” I think he’s sorry. I think he wants their money.
Elon Musk’s mom is huge in China. That’s all.
In a big week for celebrity arrests, Travis Scott was arrested in Miami on Thursday for disorderly conduct. By way of addressing the incident, he tweeted a succinct 'lol' once released, shared his (since deleted) mugshot on Instagram, and started selling t-shirts on his website with an edited version of his mugshot and the words 'It's Miami' printed beneath. They go for $35 and a portion of the proceeds is going to the Cactus Jack Foundation. And they told you merch was dead.
Have you guys seen the video of a Vermont lawmaker pouring water into her colleague’s bag? Truly bizarre stuff. Morrisey said she had initially just 'flicked' water on the bag because she saw a bug on it, but then for months decided to keep dumping water in the bag for reasons she couldn't explain. Sounds like a case for the TikTok diagnosing crowd.
Snapchat is paying $15 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit from the California Civil Rights Department after a three year investigation found that they allegedly failed to “ensure that women were paid or promoted equally”, but were instead “routinely subjected to unwelcome sexual advances and other harassing conduct so severe or pervasive that it created a hostile work environment.” Those who complained allegedly faced retaliation in the form of denied promotions, negative performance reviews, and termination. Naturally, Snap denied all claims but decided to pay up anyway so they can “focus on the future.”
The Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun documentary is coming out this month, and I know some Swifites are going to get crazy again. I’m already tired.
There are three reasons and three reasons only I won’t be buying this new David and Victoria Beckham tell-all book. 1.) Buying an entire book to get some hot goss will make me feel morally questionable. 2.) Buying an entire book when I could get said hot goss on X will make me feel dumb. 3.) I hate reading non-fiction. But if you decide to buy it, I will support your decision and be grateful for any details.
MrBeast is planning to launch a beverage brand and mobile game in 2025, according to court filings. We only know this because he’s in the middle of a legal battle with Virtual Dining Concepts, which had served as his partner for the MrBeast Burger ghost kitchen venture. Among other allegations, MrBeast claimed that VDC harmed his personal brand by sacrificing order quality as it pursued rapid expansion. Thoughts on this are that it all sounds like a lot and he’d better have a great partner this time, because as Logan Paul’s Prime Hydration taught us, celebrity hype can only carry a brand for so long. The same court documents also revealed that he’s on track to make $700 million in revenue this year—three times what he made last year, so I’m not too worried about him.
Reddit's traffic has surged in the last few months, thanks to people like me who Google stuff and then add “reddit” at the end, because who cares about facts and figures when you can get strangers’ unsolicited opinions instead?!
Case in point: the “looking for a man in finance” girl quit her job, and Reddit has thoughts. Is she dumb? Is she smart? Will it last? Look, it might be true that nothing else she’s done has popped off yet, but if this is something she really wants to pursue (whatever this is), then she’s smart to strike while the iron is hot. She told The Post that she’s already made 6 figures from the TikTok, so she at least has a bit of runway to make something happen. Don't be a hater, wish her the best.
I want to talk to you about Boeing, but I’d need several more hours of sleep to do so effectively. BUT. Here are some headlines as thought starters:
This Baggu x Collina Strada collection is cute and all, but wow this product landing page is A LOT. Very “Gen Z” I guess, but also incredibly sensorily bothersome. It’s making me anxious. I’m closing the tab now.
Umm, if #ScentTherapy becomes a thing, I’m actually going to start crying and saying mean things I will later take back and claim I didn’t mean. This will be a lie. I will mean every word but DENY DENY DENY!
TikTok is forming an investment team to acquire music content and companies. They already entered the music distribution market with their SoundOn service, and now, new TikTok job ads posted on Music Business WorldWide show they are forming a Music Content Investment Team based in Los Angeles, New York, and San Jose. The team will focusing on “partnership or acquisition opportunities in the music content space on a global level" and ideal candidates have at least five years investment banking, consulting, or private equity experience, along with a deep knowledge of the music industry. With everything that’s happened with Universal Music Group this year, this move isn’t all that surprising, nor is it a first for a tech company. Apple acquired Shazam in 2018 and Spotify acquired Sonactic in 2022. But TikTok isn't a music streaming platform, at least not yet.
Bytedance has also been silently rolling out an Instagram look alike app called Whee. It’s not available yet in the US, but sources say its main differentiator from Instagram is its emphasis on privacy by restricting photo sharing to designated friends only wrote a great essay on how people are shifting away from sharing pictures of friends and family to sharing pictures of stuff—furniture, food, accessories, and objects in general. It’s sad and it sucks, but I think I also get it. It’s sometimes so much easier to package stuff and present it as a proxy for an actual life than it is to package yourself. An app like this could be a game changer, but regular readers know I think that when it comes to social media, people don’t necessarily want ‘healthy’, even when they say they do. And as we saw with BeReal, social media platforms need to put brands in front of you to make money, so I doubt whatever Whee starts out to be (if it manages to take off) will last for very long.
Kevin Costner didn’t listen to me; he will not be returning to Yellowstone. And there goes that product placement op!
LVMH’s latest acquisition is Chez L'Ami Louis, a tiny Parisian restaurant described as having an 'outsized reputation, portions, and prices.' Neat. The announcement comes as LVMH also enters a 'strategic partnership' with Accor to develop the Orient Express brand, which operates luxury trains, hotels, and sailing ships. Rich people apparently want to do nice things; specifically nice things the rest of us can’t do—and LVMH, the world's largest luxury group, is smart to cash in on this. Earlier this year, they launched a new entertainment division, 22 Montaigne Entertainment, to “collaborate with entertainment creators, producers and distributors on film, TV, and audio projects” based on the 75+ brands they own. What LVMH is doing with these assets gives us a glimpse into the future of high fashion (and honestly fashion in general)- where fashion brands become lifestyle brands with several entry points for consumers to interact with their IP. Of course, those who cannot buy restaurants and hotels are opening coffee shops instead. And that’s cool too.
No one hates ChatGPT more than the guys at Chegg, but they can't be too loud about it because what's a good way to say, “Oops, the kids have found a better, cheaper way to cheat on homework.” The teachers call it karma. During the pandemic, Chegg’s online platform became a lifeline for many as schools shut down- but the once proclaimed “most valuable edtech company in America” saw its shares lose 49% of their value in a single day in 2021. Since then, Chegg has lost around 98% of its peak market cap. The CEO announced a major restructuring plan earlier this week, including a 23% headcount cut and ambitions to build a “platform that incorporates artificial intelligence verticalized for education.” Stocks shot up 15% at the news, so I guess investors are with it.
Real Estate brokers say they’re the first to know when a divorce is coming, and I believe it. “Frequently, couples in the process of splitting reach out to the broker who put them in their current home. They want someone they already have a relationship with, someone they trust. But this can be fraught when neither of them trust each other and everyone is in battle mode. “They want you to take sides, but you can’t,” says Marisol Banuelos, an agent at Keller Williams. “You have to keep everything professional.” Lippman agrees it’s a balancing act. “I once worked with a couple where both were trying to befriend me,” says Lippman. “I kind of ended up in the middle of things, but I was able to stay fine with both of them. One of them often said to me, ‘The only thing we do agree upon is you.’”
Whenever Lana and Quavo decide to drop this, I will be ready.
Excellent as always. I predict a J.Lo/Ben divorce announcement over the July 4 holiday.
As always, I'm in awe of how you're able to keep up with so much stuff. Every morning I hop on your blog like it's my daily newspaper. Also, Sabrina's photos really caught me by surprise because the colour-grading is so gorgeous in contrast.
In other news, words can't describe how much amusement Elon Musk and his business brings me these days.