Happy St. Patrick’s Day! It’s your skincare obsessed bestie. Thanks for inviting me to drop by, and I can’t wait to start sharing my recs with you. Here is what you can expect from me this week.

• WAY TO GLO: authentic skincare secrets

• GLO ABOVE+BEYOND: let’s hear some business stories in beauty

• GLOSSIP: sales events you won’t want to miss

• ICYMI: news, trends, and things to chat about over brunch

WAY TO GLO!

This week, we are discussing a major culprit for ageing skin. It may not seem immediately obvious—and you may not even think it had done it for you—but oh ya, trust me, this food (or shall I say poison ☠️) is silently changing your skin.

Before I hand over public enemy #1, let me first dial this all back and walk you through some context. To begin with, what makes up our skin?

For you nerds out there, our skin has 3 layers: 
1. Epidermis 
2. Dermis 
3. Hypodermis 

As the “epi” in its name suggests, Epidermis is the outer layer that we see and touch. It protects our body from germs and elements that surround us, and works around the clock to shed and generate new cells each day.

Dermis is the next layer beneath the surface, and makes up about 90% of what we call “skin”. This layer is super important so let me come back.

Hypodermis is at the very base. It is comprised mostly of fatty cells and therefore acts as the cushion between the skin and the body.

Below is a visual to give you a sense of the overall structure 😃.

Visibly, dermis sits in the middle of it all, and appears to be the thickest layer among the three. This layer is actually so critical to the overall function of the skin as an organ, that most considers it the “true skin”. For starters, it supports epidermis with nutrients through the blood vessels for cell regeneration. It keeps our skin moist through sebum secretion (an oily lubricant). Most importantly, it contains two very vital building blocks (structural proteins) in our skin—collagen and elastin.

Very important question - what is collagen + elastin?

Think of collagen as the network or “glue” that holds the body’s tissues together, whereas elastin is the connective tissue protein responsible for the skin’s elasticity. Together, they are responsible for skin’s integrity, firmness, elasticity and hydration. Collagen and elastin work like Tom and Jerry to hold the storyline together.

Check out this super cool visual demonstrating the intricate web that collagen and elastin form:

To understand the influence of collagen and elastin, think of a baby’s skin versus your grandma’s 👵. Pinch the cheeks of a child and the skin snaps back immediately. Grandma’s might feel a little thin, saggy and slow to bounce back. This is the biological difference between the abundant amounts of collagen and elastin within youthful and aged skin.

Inevitably, as we age, (for some as early as in our 20s) collagen and elastin start to disintegrate intrinsically (estimated to be about 1% decrease in productivity per year). Extrinsically, factors such as hostile environments or bad habits can also accelerate this disintegration process 🤔. Bad habits, you say?

Pay attention. I am about to drop the bomb now.

The one thing you want to avoid here, is sugar.

My friend, in addition to the many awful things it can do to the body, sugar is ruthlessly cruel to our skin. In a nutshell, it silently breaks down the proteins in our skin through a process called GLYCATION.

In the bloodstream, sugar attaches to proteins and produces harmful free radicals called advanced glycation end products (AGEs). As AGEs accumulate (and yes the more sugar you eat, the more they form), they damage the proteins around them — proteins such as collagen and elastin. And you can imagine, without collagen and elastin, the crisscrossing pillars for support, our skin will start to sag and wrinkles + lines appear 🥴.

So, if you are a major sugar tooth, you may have already noticed some visible markers. The tell-tale signs of glycated skin are:

1. Hard and shiny looking skin surface

2. Deep crosshatch lines across upper lip

3. Discoloration and hyperpigmentation marks

4. Deep crevices around laugh line

5. Sagging skin around jaw area

Scary right? You’ll hate me now, but the nail on the coffin here is that the damages done by glycation can neither be reversed nor repaired.

Your best bet, is really just to start making changes to your diet and slow down those extrinsic factors for further collagen + elastin breakdown.

May I suggest some tips for going forward?

1. Cut down on sugar, if not eliminate completely from diet

   Try keeping your intake of added sugar to minimal and no more than 10% of your daily calorie intake. Avoid hidden sugars including those in pastries, snack bars, sauces, drinks (cocktails included), etc.

2. Drink plenty of water

   Water is essential to the production of collagen and elastin. This will help you replenish and speed up the protein building process.

3. Load up on antioxidants

   The goal is to neutralize and protect the body from the damaging effects of free radicals. Naturally occurring vitamins and minerals inhibits glycation by preventing sugar from attaching to proteins. You can find antioxidants in everyday foods like berries, leafy greens and green tea. For foods super high in antioxidants, check out this list here.

Let’s start from here and we can check back in 2-3 months to see the results.

Like this stuff? Then share with your friends & family. Having your support and feedback is what gets me going each week.

GLO ABOVE+BEYOND

How rare is Rare Beauty? In the year 2023, it appears rare enough to be a stand-out among the dime a dozen of celebrity-endorsed beauty brands out there.

If you recently strolled by a local Sephora, no doubt you came across Rare Beauty. This vegan and cruelty-free makeup brand is founded by none other than our #girlboss, Selena Gomez, and it is arguably one of the most successful celebrity-backed makeup brands out there today.

At 30 years old, Selena has already tackled so many different roles. It is hard to quickly summarize the two decades of wonderful work she’s done across TV, music, film, social media, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy. She was recently nominated for both the Golden Globes and the Emmy for her part (best performance + executive producer) in Hulu series, Only Murders In the Building. As a longtime champion of mental-health awareness, she is now launching a mental-healthcare startup WonderMind to help democratize and destigmatize care for well being. My favorite of all her projects has been her pandemic cooking series Selena + Chef, in which she partnered with up and coming (sometimes celebrity) chefs—while cooking delicious meals—to raise money for charity. The first four seasons of the show collectively raised $400k+ for 26 charities.

No matter who you ask, by the numbers, Rare Beauty is one of Selena’s most successful ventures. Even in its first year, amidst mounting supply chain and retail challenges, the brand hauled in $60M in revenue and became the most raved brands in beauty. The table stakes are all there: minimalistic aesthetics, precise formula, wide range of shades, and cleverly crafted product names like Kind Words Matte Lipstick and Positive Light Under Eye Brightener. 

Everything else equal, the success of Rare Beauty is very closely tied to the personal brand and, unfortunately, some of the personal struggles Selena dealt with over the years. In an Elle cover story published in 2021, Selena said:

Rather than letting the obstacles get the best of her, Selena Gomez used her struggles and experiences to help her create My Mind & Me, WonderMind, and Rare Beauty. And in this decade, that may be the winning move for a mission-driven celebrity brand: a bona fide story of overcoming personal struggles, and the subsequent, relentless, continuous, efforts fighting for a clear mission. As a result, Rare Beauty is wholesomely authentic, in its products, in its marketing, and in what it represents.

Along side Rare Beauty, Selena started Rare Impact Fund as part of Rare's signature social impact programs—with a goal of raising $100 million to address youth mental health. Rare Beauty donates 1% of sales directly to the Fund and raises additional funds with Foundations, Corporate Partners, and individuals.

In February 2023, Selena officially de-throned Kylie Jenner as the most followed woman on Instagram with 399M+ followers. I trust that she is using her platform for good: empowering women to crush the traditional beauty standards, and to embrace their unique, rare, and imperfect selves.

GLOSSIP

• CASHBACK

  Rakuten 6% cashback on Ulta, stack it with the sales event!, use my referral link to receive $30 when you sign up.

• SALES EVENTS

  Sephora 50% off daily deal items, ends 04/01

  Ulta 50% off must haves, ends 04/01

  e.l.f. Cosmetics 30% off fan favorites, ends 03/31

  Clinique 30% off site wide, ends 03/24

ICYMI

• TRENDS🤟 

  - Are gen-z’s outdoing millennials with BORG?

  - Always had a thing for Queen E’s brooches, but they are finally IN now.

• BUSINESS🤝 

  - Ryan Reynolds sells Mint Mobile to T-Mobile for $1.35B.

  - How Bill Ackman predicted the COVID crash, and made a fortune.

• CULTURE🤙 

  - Why Oscar attendees wore blue ribbons?

  - Tswifty is dropping some sugar bombs before her Eras tour.

• RANDOM🙌 

  - Is mother nature nudging us to replace plastic with this?

  - This sterling silver Nike and Tiffany’s collab is a Wowza.

• FOR FUNSIES 😁💖 

  - Haley Lu Richardson is all of us in a nutshell.

  - Check out New Yorker’s Book Recs for This Week.

That’s it for today friends! Will see you again next week~