Tag: Beauty

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Aesthetics Media

Day 1801 and Parked in Front of The iPad

My immune system must be reacting to something, be it travel and environmental factors or perhaps a bug I caught, so I’m in bed and trying to keep my body happy. That means catching up on a few Love is Blind seasons.

As the American seasons get worse and worse, the international editions offer up clues as to the politics and tensions that producers feel the need to offer up to international Netflix audiences.

I am an unabashed fan of the franchise and what it offers up as a cultural mirror especially as different countries try to show the ways their status, class, colonial and power structures impact marriage.

The United Kingdom had a Manchester season that was more commentary on the failures of the working class and the country’s immigration systems than it did romance. It almost hurt to watch.

France’s most recent cast was more pan-Asian colonial tensions at the forefront (with an Algerian or two) than featuring any continental or regional ties. The Italian season reflects a more United Colors of Benetton than Georgia Meloni’s. European franchise spin offs feature more immigration more than America.

While everyone is talking about Netflix acquiring Warner Brothers today, I wonder if Hollywood will drive new cultural directions or if the data driven Netflix will produce endless remixes of subgroups and niches so no matter your identity you too will have an avatar on a spinoff of a reality show. Love may be blind but the watching data sure isn’t.

Lest you think it is all fan service and showcasing different immigrant groups being absorbed into the wider national identities of their former colonial governments, you do see the occasional fusion of sanded off styles meant to appeal across strange niches.

I love watching the style of the country doing offs as it is both globo-homo any and everywhere while still targeting very identity driven and place specific people.

Some make no sense. Who doesn’t love seeing a bizarre fashion choice like a Prada bolo ties at a French wedding? Unless you are an Italian getting married to a Texan girl at Marfa, it’s odd to pick 2020’s most viral celebrity accessory to get married in France on a 2025 reality show.

Sure still see some aesthetic choices you expect for both local and global reasons. Like the Italian party planner with the Gucci bee broach. That seems culturally appropriate with a cast that was variably actually Italian despite their their aesthetics

Long burgundy blazers and Gothic Bulgarian girls could work in any country this year. That’s simply globally appealing in the now in any country. Warner Brothers should be taking note.

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Aesthetics Internet Culture

Day 1795 and Luxury BNPL So Techno-Capital

Like anyone who has worked corporate retail, I keep a close eye on Black Friday narratives. I named a few sales I thought were particularly unusual in my beauty blog based on how I shop for myself on Black Friday. I am a very value driven customer even though I will spend a lot with a brand who earns my trust.

I’ve found there to be less and less worth shopping across fashion, beauty and other consumer goods. Still I do use the holiday to strike a better bargain with a brand I might consider becoming a regular with.

It is a delicate dance between better customers and quality providing the original layer of trust that makes loyalty. This dynamic plays out every Black Friday with a few purchases. Are these your best customers? Maybe if you don’t disappoint them.

Now you have to wonder about higher end customers who use Buy Now Pay Later options like Klarna. Is this just an extension of the freedom we afford luxury consumers in their lives if bizarre credit choices. Why not spend a little more to not require additional liquidity. Maybe that is a more efficient way of social signaling on Instagram for some. I think I’d be worried about that consumer. Their defaults are on another planet.

As for myself I like buying an extra retinol serum and some fancy shampoo. I am not buying $400 moisturizers being resold by Quince. Thats just a little too odd for me. But maybe I will get those weird recovery boots. I wonder what luxury purchases that don’t use extending credit say about my financial niche.

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Aesthetics

Day 1793 and Shopping Around

Black Friday is somewhere between a global celebration of shopping and an affirmation of consumerism as a shared cultural value.

It’s easier and much cooler to denounce consumerism. There is more cultural criticism material of shopping in the genre of commodity aesthetics than there are laudatory treatises on say the bourgeois virtues of shopping well.

Most religions, and many flavors of political governance, focus on dangers of consumer markets and the dangers of overweighting and overvaluation of material things.

It’s just that if we look at the subject from a different direction, it’s quite clear that humans love to make things. Sure we focus first on shelter, food and water but we quickly use our excess capacity to produce. Climbing up Maslow’s hierarchy we look for ways to make things for ourselves and others. If we make surely we must use?

So much of our lives are dedicated to the making of things. We have children. We make tools that make the making of our needs easier and faster. We make art and music. We adorn ourselves with decorative objects.

So why is it that the consumption of the things we make as humans have such a bad reputation? If we didn’t consume adequate food we wouldn’t be able to reproduce. If we didn’t make and use shelter those offspring wouldn’t live to adulthood.

It seems to me that as in all things we make we do so as part of our commitment to being in a community with each other. A Buy Nothing Day may seem necessary when the balance tilts too far from making to consuming but each and every one of us is enabled to make wonderful things for each other. So go shopping if you like.

Categories
Aesthetics Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1787 and On The Same Wavelength

For someone with clear skin on my face (not even a humble brag), I spend what feels like irresponsible amount of time and energy on my skin health. The rest of my dermis is not as tractable as my face. I’ve been fighting eczema my whole life.

This year has been a particularly challenging, as my the IL-17 immune suppressant Bimzelx, I take for my ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis (it’s eczema on the inside), has left me almost catastrophically prone to skin infections.

I’ve had maybe 3 weeks without a disaster (and I traveled) though have still needed doxycycline so I’m optimistic.

I am hoping I can rack up a few more weeks or maybe even multiple months without needing to slice an abscess, manage a deep tissue infection, or get a subcutaneous skin infection.

I do have a new weapon in my battle to keep my skin healthy. I recently acquired a new deep infrared cosmetics mask from Beauty Pie that they are calling “medical grade” but mostly means it has one longer wavelength than their previous mask offering.

Beauty Pie
The Dynamo Deep LED™
Medical-grade technology
Collagen-Boosting Mask $238
  • Medical-grade LED mask proven to improve the overall skin complexion
  • Using 1070nm – the deepest penetrating wavelength used in at-home LED devices to date – to reduce under-eye bags and puffiness, and smooth texture and tone
  • Helps the skin look fresh & hydrated. Using 830nm – supports the skin’s natural restorative and healing function – to boost circulation, improve blood flow, and increase oxygen
  • Skin looks plump & glowing. Using 630nm – enhances the production of collagen and reduces redness – to leave skin radiant and hydrated

I don’t know if it will do much but the longer wavelength is an improvement on their past mask which required something closer to 4 months of continuous use to see results and I was simply never off of antibiotics that interact negatively with red light long enough to get any results. Theoretically I should see results in a few weeks with the longer wavelengths.

I can’t recommend it yet as I just got it and I’ve only used it twice but I used it on my face, my neck, my left butt cheek where I had the infection from inserting testosterone pellets (long story if you missed that one) and on my scalp to see if I can stimulate some growth on my scalp as I shed a lot of hair this year from the stress.

That’s about 40 minutes of mask time so no joke but also pretty amusing. I hope I can use it enough between antibiotics rounds for a win as infrared is meant to do a world of good for pain and inflammation in addition to cosmetics so I’ll use the heck out of it while I can.

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Aesthetics Internet Culture

Day 1762 and New Nodal Points

I suspect that if I am any good at seeing the future it’s because I enjoy touching the present so much.

I think it’s a fools errand to professionalize “the spark” of active players meeting and exchanging information. Not to say that working at your game is wrong. You should work at it. But know what game you are playing.

I’m experiencing a kind of multi-modal view of my own focus and how it can be turned into more time touching reality. I know it sounds silly but the verbiage of the moment is enabling in strange ways.

I don’t always like consensus. I need to experience the consensus myself before I’ll join up. But I love to be first. I love being your first fan. I love being first to a new trend, narrative or aesthetic. I want to see a thing first.

To engage with others in this market place of ideas and trade in our knowledge for our own priorities, is for me, the stuff of life. I love a market. What is the mood of now so I can find others who might understand the possibilities of tomorrow. Every angle counts

I do think it’s all up for grabs future at the moment. I am leaning into some personal weirdness partially for my own happiness but partially because I think maybe this strange node of “people who want to communicate that they value beauty” to the world will be a vector for finding interesting people working on what is going to explode next.

Put out a little value for people with your own skills and maybe that is the node through which you have the opportunity to see what they see and in return you both learn more together.

I am trusting when everything goes up in “the churn” I enjoy picking up new skills. I am enjoying turning myself in a new direction. I think it might actually get me to my original goals. To invest in founders building their weird chaotic nodes of next should be.

Categories
Aesthetics Biohacking

Day 1756 and Oops I Did It Again

Oh baby baby! So it seems as if, in my infinite wisdom, I did not pay enough attention to the early warning signs from my Whoop biometrics and I did indeed need to worry about the fun and games of a subcutaneous tissue infection.

I swear that this IL-17 inhibitor drives me nuts. Despite its impressive effect on my inflammatory biomarkers, it leaves me very susceptible to skin infections. And I have to be constantly vigilant to the first signs of an issue.

I’ll be fine. I did in fact catch it before it turned into anything serious. Where I am at it’s easily treatable with a short antibiotic course that may formerly be prophylactic. My wound area had not shown any signs of spreading nor was I running a fever or otherwise exhibiting other signs of serious infection.

I just had crappy HRV numbers and high resting heart rate three days in a row and it’s not worth risking it. I threw back some basic antibiotics last night and woke up with a normal heart rate again. My HRV is coming up just a little more slowly. Glad I didn’t wait as this isn’t worth any amount of risk to me.

I comforted myself by working on my beauty blog where I’ve got routines coming along for founding subscribers and a fresh post about Shrinkflation at Sephora and a minimalist men’s routine on sale at Amazon.

Retailers are a bit twitchy and everyone needs to be shopping early is the message we are getting everywhere. It’s a weird time. Or at least the retailers need to encourage the top 10%. So if that is interesting to you go subscribe as I’d love to have you in my strange beauty shopping blog meets the business of appearance.

Or if you are feeling adventurous for an honestly embarrassingly low fee I’ll put together a custom routine for you from my sample library or go full autistic and decant you the perfect mix of potions and lotions to meet you precise lifestyle and budget. My autistic obsession is your gain. It’s so much for me for and your skin will look amazing.

Categories
Biohacking Medical Startups

Day 1753 and Vibe Coding for Your Skin Health

Many moons ago, when I was first attempting to get a diagnosis for why I was always in pain and exhausted, I got a battery of allergy tests. I did the “gold standard of allergy testing” called patch testing which is a form of pin prick testing designed to pick up responses that may be delayed.

It was an awful experience. I barely made it through the 5 day trial between the 100 allergen pin pricks and final measurements.

I remember begging the doctor for a way to measure early. I asked if I could take some Benadryl to take the edge off. Alas the only way it would be accurate and covered by my insurance is if I gutted it out.

You are not allowed to shower, sweat, be exposed to UV rays (no going outside) or take immune suppressants that might subdue your body’s response.

I was struggling to breathe, my entire body itched and ached, and I had a migraine so bad I couldn’t see for the stars & dizziness. It’s possible I wasn’t stable enough to have adequately consented to the test but I did get my final results.

Out of 100 common allergens tested it was confirmed I was extremely allergic to 10 of them with another moderate sensitivity set of twenty or so that I should merely try to avoid as opposed to my firm “no go” list.

The dermatologist gave me a sheet with 75 different chemical names and formats that I might encounter in the wild from these core allergens:

Budesonide
Ammonium Persulfate
Benzisothiazolinone
Limonene
Oleamidopropyl Dimethylamine
Formaldehyde
Lauryl Glucoside
Methylisothiazolinone
Propolis
Thimerosal

I instructed to search ingredient lists for these names any time I purchased a household product, personal care item, cosmetic or other item which might include these ingredients which ranged from nail care to vaccines.

It was honestly quite overwhelming. And some of the above ingredients are in basically everything. I dare you to avoid Limonene for a month.

So my husband and one of our best friends did what any practical minded engineer would do and they made me simple Google sheet where all 75 varietals could be checked if I plugged in the ingredients from any item.

I used it for years. I’d plug in the INCI from every brand I encountered into the sheet no matter what. I gave away a lot of products to friends.

Today it occurred to Alex that we should probably vibe code the thing into a proper web application using Replit so other people could check ingredient lists for their own allergies.

Within two hours, most of which was waiting on the kindly AIs to do their thing, we had a fully functional web application.

You can set your own allergens or click a few buttons for common allergens and “clean ingredient standards” and run a check for an all clear.

It isn’t super fancy but it doesn’t need to be. It just needed to keep your data safe, be easy to log into so you can securely check and access your personal list and generally functional enough to change and set allergens. We’ve put it on our own little domain just to see how much this will cost to run (and we’ve set up alerts so it doesn’t go bonkers) but we figured this should be accessible and simple.

And while there are other options on the market, most are bloated, overly paranoid and designed for scaring California moms rather than quickly helping people with clear preferences for avoidance and actual tested allergies. So hopefully our pain can help you breathe easier.

Some options for chemicals and irritants you can select on our app.
My own settings of allergies and sensitivities
Categories
Aesthetics Biohacking

Day 1752 and Too Much Protestant Work Ethic

I am pouring far too much autistic enthusiasm into my pet beauty shopping column that has a roughly half and half ration “theory of appearance culture in Protestantism” and half “specific routines at different price points” but I am enjoying it.

The heavier lift is going to be the work I am putting into the individual routines for the founding subscribers who have paid good money for help and I intend to give them my absolute all. I admit I’ve put way more thought than is probably necessary into each one but it’s a joy to track down specific products and geographic needs. It’s a shame that market editor was never a well paid enough job at a fashion magazine as I am pretty good at it.

Like, of course, I have opinions on the German drugstore market and its cost effective actives lines versus the old school naturals brands and where to acquire them. I don’t have quite as extensive a sample library of the market staples on hand but you know I spent hours browsing the grocery and retail shops when I was living in Frankfurt.

And on that note I’m going to bed early as I’m healing from my various biohacking experiments and I’m exhausted even with all the effort I’m putting into wound healing it still takes a certain about of rest to actually knit things together no matter how much time I spend with HBOT or what peptide stack I’m taking (it’s a spicy boy on the way in I’ll say that much).

Categories
Aesthetics Medical

Day 1751 and On Brand with Protestant Renunciations and Wound Care

I really misjudged my healing time on the testosterone pellets even though I pretty much always assume a worst case scenario for myself. I’m not really hurting but I am pretty bruised which is typical for me.

We may have some room for improvement technique with it so I am encouraged if the is as bad as it gets. I am not seeing any benefits from it yet and ugly bruising and a bit of an opening on an incision isn’t so bad.

A lot will depend on how well I recover and how much the hormone actually helps when I’m not healing. I’m also in the luteal horrors phase where my hormones are most ridiculous so I’m curious to see the curve.

The best part of this remains that I have a world class treatment for skin wounds on hand. Hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy’s best research has been in wound management from burns to slow healing diabetics. So if I have to nurse a wound doing it with oxygen at pressure is actually pretty baller.

And to make it even more on theme, I spent most of my time in there writing out a column on skincare and the Great Male Renunciation of Appearances as part of my beauty shopping column and excuse to write about the secret history of appearance and its power.

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 1750 and The Protestant Work Ethic and Masculine Beauty

I am booting up the more practical aspects of writing to provide value, as opposed to the writing I do here, which is to provide a thinking space for myself, and if I’m lucky occasionally my notes will help someone else.

Setting out to provide utility to others is a much higher bar as I’d want the content to meet my own expectations for value. I don’t have necessarily have expectations for utility here even if it provides it more than I’d expect.

I am enjoying preparing posts with research, and the next post teaches a little about the Protestant Reformation and The Enlightenment’s role in the great “Male Renunciation” of appearance.

Afew short centuries upended thousands of years of cultural norms that showcased the importance of masculine beauty and taste and replaced it with a drab mind first Cartesian split.

If I’m going to put together historical context, I figure it has to help the reader feel freed enough to experiment with their own world and consider that they can regain lost or hidden knowledge that was once foundational. In this case how masculinity communicated power, status and taste through appearance.

If you are aspiring to better yourself, to pursue an aristocracy of the soul, we will start with mastering the basic ingredients you will encounter in a drugstore and how they might build into reclaiming your appearance. We will go from there to Pareto-optimal options for building a habit that helps age well and look its best.

So I am having a bit of fun thinking about appearances. Anything anyone of us can do to free up another human to choose a life that is better for them is worth the time.