many are they who have beauty thrust upon them
few are they who turn it to billions (FREE NEWSLETTER)
Good morning and welcome back to as seen on!
I was going to do a whole London/Edinburgh trip recap, but I don’t have it in me right now. I doubt I ever will. I did have a lovely time though, despite the shitty Edinburgh weather. I met three amazing Substack friends and came home with about ten books. Arrived to find five more.
It’s nice and sunny here in Nuremberg, but any inclination I have to enjoy my last two weeks is immediately squashed by the reality that I have to pack. I hate packing. I tried to convince my boyfriend to fly in from Portland to do it for me, to no avail. Said it wasn’t practical. Shame. I heard everyone’s a moving influencer now though, so if you know of any German companies willing to sponsor my move, let a girl know! Happy to wax poetic about tightly packed cardboard boxes and bubble-wrapping efficiency.
, and I were very funny and very smart on the last episode of their podcast The Review of Mess, so you should give that a listen. And while you’re at it, go read my interview with Mad Realities founder Alice Ma. It’s really good. Her company is working with Hollywood to bring old formats to TikTok.Today’s newsletter is free because it felt right. Happy Friday and I hope you enjoy.
Happier Grocer will start stocking Ballerina Farm Protein Powder this summer. Feel free to send your reviews in. The Neelmans told BoF their farm lifestyle business is profitable, with future plans for an agritourism site featuring hospitality and an event space. Fun. I never want to read a Ballerina Farm feminist think piece again — but I would like to know where the money’s at. When asked about a potential reality TV show, Daniel Neelman replied, “Never say never.”
Remember how Simon & Schuster’s publisher Sean Manning told The Cut they were developing a web series called Bookstore Blitz? “A sort of literary Criterion Closet Picks.” Well, the first two episodes are live, and I kind of like them.
I never read anything good about the crypto industry. Honestly, I don’t. In the last few weeks, Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs sold CryptoPunks to the digital art nonprofit NODE Foundation, “crypto-luxury” brand 9dcc shut down, and a crypto investor was charged with kidnapping and torturing a man in an NYC apartment for weeks — apparently to get his Bitcoin password.
Hoka's year-on-year sales grew just 10% in its most recent quarter, signaling a significant deceleration from their typical growth rates, while On reported growth of 43%.
Each new Khy drop makes me mad.
Alix Earle plans to launch her own brand next year, but she won’t tell us what it is just yet. The obvious choice would be skincare, but I’m trusting her to be better than that. I like Alix the same way I like Kim Kardashian, which is to say I enjoy the spectacle of their existence. Many are they who have beauty thrust upon them, few are they who turn it into billions. Back to Alix — instead of taking cash for brand deals, she’s taking (demanding) equity. “We negotiated Alix’s fee in equity betting that Alix would get the upside if and when they sold. [It] turned out we were correct and the equity was converted at a pretty significant gain.” I’m very interested in how the highest tier of influencers are doing business. She has some very mart people on her team.
The definition of doing the most is Phlur creating a limited edition “Burnouts” candle to celebrate their founders’ appearance on Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni’s podcast.
I need to be paying more attention to Urban Outfitters. Maybe we all do. The company — which includes Anthropologie, Free People, and rental service Nuuly — announced record sales last week, up 11% in Q1, with stocks popping 21%. While Anthropologie alone accounted for over 40% of total revenue for the quarter, Nuuly saw revenue surge 60% as average active subscribers jumped 53%. Rent the Runway has only a third of those subs by the way. This month, UO launched On Rotation, a new retail concept where brands rent in-store space to get in front of the brand’s Gen Z shoppers. Nike will be the first partner. Might check out the UO store this weekend.
Tower28 posted an apology on their Instagram after facing backlash from their “community” over the white cast their new SOS FaceGuard SPF 30 left on some users’ faces. A few people complained in the comments that the apology note itself wasn’t accessible due to its low contrast imagery. Tower28 apologized for that too. Anyway, I feel like brands should never use the words “safe space” in their copy.
Business Insider just cut 21% of its workforce, after laying off 8% of staff last year and 10% the year before. Status’ Oliver Darcy called the rollout “messy and emotionally raw.”
Meanwhile, Food52 co-founder and executive chair Amanda Hesser is stepping down from her company to (probably) focus on her Substack. Between 2019 and 2021, the now 16-year-old company nearly tripled its revenue from $32 million to $80 million and secured more than $160 million in investment from The Chernin Group to finance its expansion. In a media tale as old as the last decade at least, things began to go downhill shortly after. In 2024, the brand took in only around $28 million in revenue and brought on Erika Badan, former Barstool Sports CEO. Still, Food52 laid off 40% of its staff in March this year. Amanda’s Substack, Homeward, already has almost 705,000 subscribers, thousands of whom pay. It’s currently #1 Rising in Design. Leaving to focus on Homeward makes all the sense in the world. Really, what more can be done for publications like Food52 — save for perhaps joining Substack themselves sometime in the future. I shudder to think how much money some of these companies raised.
Nothing could actually make me go out and buy Old Navy athleisure, but I do appreciate this Lindsay Lohan nostalgia-core ad. I’m convinced there’s a Lindsay stunt double somewhere in there.
A group of Montauk teens started a seasonal newspaper, and America is really excited about it. The Ditch Weekly, which has a staff of 20, is profitable in its sophomore season and hopes to “persuade other teenagers to put down their phones and pick up a newspaper.” Like I said, America is very excited about this development — if my LinkedIn feed and the comments section are to be believed, anyway. People are so very proud of them. They want to invest! Dispense advice! Share it with their kids! I, too, think this is great. It’s also a reminder that, for many Americans, a key indicator of a well-adjusted childhood is boisterous entrepreneurship. The more analogue, the better.
The Cut tapped Allison Bornstein to write a new fashion advice column. This is the second creator in as many months they’ve brought on to start a column.
Karlie Kloss, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, and five other investors have bought a limited partnership stake in the New York Liberty, valuing the team at $450 million. In the last month, the WNBA team has signed partnerships with Fenty Beauty, Essie, and Away. The Wall Street Journal called their mascot Ellie the Elephant one of today’s hottest influencers, and they collaborated with Players on a limited edition fan zine. Everyone is watching women’s sports.
Cosmo launched a new video series called Blind Date, where editor-in-chief Willa Bennett goes on dates with “everyone you wish you were going on dates with.” Looks fun. I respect Willa’s grind. I like to think the next hot young editor-in-chief is currently writing to the void on Substack.
Just last week I was bemoaning the maddening state of young adult TV. Now, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage—the team behind Gossip Girl, The O.C., and Hart & Dixie—have announced a new show about Barneys New York. I’m sat.
WhatsApp is partnering with sports publication OffBall to host group chats between athletes, celebrities, and creators, where about 1,000 fans can watch the chat and react with emojis and memes. Earlier this month, LeBron James took over The Chat to share commentary on the NFL Draft, and tomorrow, Golden State Warriors star Jimmy Butler will do the same for the UEFA Champions League final. When THR published this article yesterday, the OffBall WhatsApp channel had 48k subs. That number has since gone up to 65k.
Vulture broke down the anatomy of an Alex Cooper Interview. “Celebrities seem both intrigued by and eager to impress her, despite the fact that the majority of the time, they’re exponentially more famous than she is.” You should also listen to The Cutting Room Floor’s Recho Omondi’s interview with Day One FM about how she conducts interviews and makes them go viral. As recommended, this is my next audiobook listen.
It’s a great day for Sydney Sweeney to be shilling soap made from her “actual” bathwater.
Kesha is a tech founder now, and she has the grand declarations to prove it. The artist is launching a Smash, “community-based platform to connect and protect music creators,” otherwise described as “LinkedIn for music creators,” or a “Fiverr-style marketplace.” Frankly, I don’t know what any of this means and I’ll be surprised if I ever write about it again. Love the sentiment though. Bless her.
OnlyFans owner Fenix International Ltd is apparently in talks to sell the startup to an investor group at a valuation of around $8 billion.
Tinder plans to launch a “double dating” feature this summer where users can pair up with friends and match with other pairs for dates — all part of their plan to “woo Gen Z.” Also part of that plan: replace CEO Faye Iosotaluno, who’s had the job for less than two years, with Match Group (Tinder’s parent company) CEO Spencer Rascoff. You know it’s dire when they bring in the big guns.
I want to be messy right now. It’s really sunny outside and I’m in high spirits. By now, we all know that OpenAI is acquiring io, the device startup CEO Sam Altman and legendary Apple designer Jony Ive have quietly been working on for two years. The startup is already valued at $6.5 billion. Altman described the products they plan to release as “a family of devices that would let people use A.I. to create all sorts of wonderful things,” enabled by “magic intelligence in the cloud.” I know AI is kind of scary (I use it daily) and I know it’ll steal all our jobs soon (specifically 50% of entry-level office jobs in the next five years), but I’m kind of curious to see what they’re cooking. As in, I just may enjoy seeing Apple crumble. I don’t know. Might be fun.
Hailey Rhode Bieber née Baldwin is now (maybe) a billionaire.
Who would have thought? Me!
Back in April, Reuters reported that Rhode had hired JPMorgan and Moelis to find a buyer for the three-year-old brand. Two days ago, Hailey announced that Rhode had been acquired by e.l.f. in a $1 billion deal. E.l.f. will pay Rhode’s equity holders $800 million at closing (a combination of cash and stock), and depending on the brand’s growth over the next three years, they could pay as much as $200 million more. What a flex. Hailey will continue in her capacity as Rhode co-founder, chief brand officer, and head of innovation, as well as act as a strategic advisor for e.l.f. The remaining Rhode team, including co-founders Lauren and Michael D. Ratner and CEO Nick Vlahos, will join e.l.f. Beauty.
According to BoF, Rhode currently generates annual revenue of around $200 million, and Puck reported that they made $90 million in revenue from its website in the final two months of 2024. The Rhode team has been hard at work with this rollout: the Sephora announcement, the Vogue cover, and now the acquisition announcement. Rhode will be e.l.f.’s first brand in Sephora and will help the beauty conglomerate (which continues to outperform rivals Coty, Shiseido, and Estée Lauder) diversify its supply chain outside of China, where 75% of its products are made.
As
said, Rhode is who we thought Glossier could be, but Rhode couldn’t exist without Glossier.I’ve been documenting the stilted beauty M&A landscape for a while now. In short, many of your favorite beauty brands are ripe for an exit—but no one is buying. Glossier, too big and expensive for most obvious buyers, is betting on their high-margin fragrance business to boost sales and revive brand heat. And of course, there’s Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty, which reportedly enlisted Vennette Ho and Goldman Sachs last year to explore a sale. Rare is still a bigger business than Rhode—valued at $2 billion with $400 million revenue—but like Glossier, it’s brand heat is showing signs of cooling down. A source told Puck’s Rachel Strugatz that Rare was the “biggest makeup share loser at Sephora in the past year,” and YipitData shows it lost about 2% market share between April 2024 and 2025. Interested to see how Rare fares with rhode’s Sephora entrance.
It’s been fun to watch the (very fast) ascent of rhode. More to come, surely.
E.l.f has a solid track record of winning in the digital space, and doing it at scale. Ultimately, I think it’s smart to have exited now. Beauty consumers, like beauty itself, are fickle, and a celebrity brand will always have some risks tied to it. Excited to see how E.l.f expands the brand, and what Hailey will do next. Because once you start building stuff, it’s hard to stop.
aww, justice for old navy athletic wear! i've exclusively worn their leggings to run for the last 10 years and some of my pairs have held up literally the whole decade
"I never read anything good about the crypto industry" fr! 😭 it was the only "business community" willing to work with Trump + his family after January 6th 🙄