2025 Beauty Predictions: Stepford Skin, SpaceX Technology, Products As Pets, & More!

Hello and welcome to another edition of THE DON’T BUY LIST! 2025 is careening toward us at a speed I find distressing, if only because I fear the coming year’s beauty trends will seek to further reduce human beings to objects and infuse objects with our stolen humanity — perfume as a proxy libido; blush that imitates the physiological effects of experiencing an emotion; lip balms that carry their own phone cases, purses, water bottles, etc. But more on that in a minute.

First, as social proof that signing up for this newsletter was a good idea, a round-up of its 2024 accomplishments: In January, I was profiled by Country & Town House and formally celebrated my new monthly column at the Guardian, Ask Ugly, with a launch party. I spoke to the BBC about tween skincare in February, and was a guest on one of my favorite podcasts — Nymphet Alumni — in March. Come April, I relaunched the newsletter with a new name: no longer The Unpublishable, but The Review of Beauty. (I actually regret the new name now… but rebranding the newsletter again is a bad idea, right? Right??) I traveled to Wales to speak at HowTheLightGetsIn, the world’s largest philosophy festival, in May — and also launched The Review of Mess, my podcast with

. The next month, I published my most popular column to date: The State Of The Bush. I published a small piece in The Drift in July. I took it easy in September (thanks to Anita Bhagwandas and Ochuko Akpovbovbo for guest-editing during my break) to get ready for October’s most memorable moment: this newsletter’s first-ever in-person event, The Hole Debate! In November, I spoke on a panel hosted by Dazed on Hedonism, Wellness, and The New Face of Gen Z. And to close out the year, I was interviewed by Emily Algar for the Legacy Issue of RUSSH Magazine.

Throughout the year, my work in this newsletter was quoted in or highlighted by NBC News, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Post, New York Magazine, Business of Fashion, Vogue, Vogue Business, Glamour, Vox, the Evening Standard, A Rabbit’s Foot, Dazed, Atmos, Grazia, InStyle Australia, theSkimm, and more.

I published 78 articles here! The Review of Beauty’s readership grew from 91,000 to a little over 117,000. More than 113,000 of you access most of my reporting for free, thanks to a small percentage of paying subscribers, to whom I am very grateful.

Lest this all comes off as gloating, I want to share that paid subscriptions haven’t grown this year. The opposite, actually. I have fewer paying subscribers today than I did at this time in 2023 — meaning my income declined in 2024, even as my free reporting reached more people. There are a few reasons for this, some within my control (fresh content plan coming soon) and some outside my control (or not aligned with my values). For one thing, the newsletter market is more saturated now than when I started this project five years ago; every day there are more independent writers competing for readers’ limited time, money, and inbox space. For another, the rise of recommendation culture — accelerated by the drive to define oneself through consumption — doesn’t bode well for an anti-product beauty newsletter. Readers want to shop! And of the Top 10 fashion and beauty newsletters on Substack, The Review of Beauty is the only one that does feature brand advertisements, collaborations, sponsored posts, or affiliate sales. That means The Review of Beauty is the only top fashion and beauty newsletter not adding to its profits by selling you stuff. (For context: Magasin, a popular fashion newsletter, can earn up to $7,000 in affiliate sales in a single post.) I could offset the dip in paid subscriptions by pushing you to buy my favorite Manuka honey cleanser or jojoba oil — or by writing more articles about how a particular product can change your face rather than why beauty culture makes you want to change your face — but I won’t. It would undermine this newsletter’s mission. I started The Review of Beauty after years in traditional beauty media, where I saw firsthand how good reporting gets shaped, cut, compromised, and corrupted by advertisers and affiliate sales. I’m committed to keeping those influences out of this newsletter.

Unfortunately, I need to increase the cost of a subscription in the coming year to $6/month, or $65/year — my first price hike in half a decade. (The beauty industry can’t say the same!) If you’re already a paying subscriber, you have nothing to worry about; you’re locked in at whatever price you subscribed at for life. If you’re not a paying subscriber yet but would like to be, now is the time to upgrade at the original cost of $5/month. Prices will increase on January 5.

Upgrade Now For $5/Month

Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading.

Now, as for my 2025 beauty trend predictions…