Retail Therapy 003: Skincare Routines & Shifting Vibes
You feel that? It's the vibes. They're shifting.
Time for an admission: when it comes to skincare routines, I simply don’t have one. That is unless you count slathering a bunch of Weleda on my face after I get out of the shower. So when my wife told me about a technique called “slugging” that she started mixing into her nightly routine, I knew it was something I needed to absolutely try.
If you’re unfamiliar with slugging, here’s a brief explanation:
“The latest viral skincare trend is called ‘slugging’ which involves coating your face in Vaseline to moisturize your skin overnight. Though the fad has become a talker recently (with over 80 million views on TikTok), it's not particularly new. It has long been popular in the Black community as well as in the K-beauty world to replicate that natural, dewy glow and combat dryness.”
On Tuesday night, I found myself standing in front of the mirror with so much Vaseline on my face that I felt like I could scrape it all off into the container and reuse it the next night. The after-effects of such an act? Well, for those, you’ll have to entertain this edition of Retail Therapy.
In addition to our skincare routines, we also dove into the Very Online™ conversation that developed around a recent article from The Cut titled A Vibe Shift Is Coming. I wouldn’t consider myself a Master of Vibes as much as an Appreciator of Vibes, but the fall-out from the column was too much to ignore.
If you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, hopefully this excerpt will help:
“Monahan, who is 35, breaks down the three vibe shifts he has survived and observed: Hipster/Indie Music (ca. 2003–9), or peak Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, high-waisted Cheap Mondays, Williamsburg, bespoke-cocktail bars; Post-Internet/Techno Revival (ca. 2010–16), or the Blood Orange era, normcore, dressing like The Matrix, Kinfolk the club, not Kinfolk the magazine; and Hypebeast/Woke (ca. 2016–20), or Drake at his Drakest, the Nike SNKRS app, sneaker flipping, virtue signaling, Donald Trump, protests not brunch.”
And she continues:
“He thinks the new vibe shift could be the return of early-aughts indie sleaze. “American Apparel, flash photography at parties, and messy hair and messy makeup,” he riffs, plus a return to a more fragmented culture. “People going off in a lot of different directions because it doesn’t feel like there’s a coherent, singular vision for music or fashion.” He sees Substacks and podcasts as the new blogs and a move away from Silicon Valley’s interest in optimizing workflow, “which is just so anti-decadence.” Most promisingly, he predicts a return of irony.”
Still somewhat confused? Yeah, me too. We at least tried to make sense of it.
And to finish things out this week, we also tossed some additions onto our wishlists that we’ve been keeping a running list of.
Will’s Wishlist
Barrett’s Wishlist
To listen to this week’s episode of Retail Therapy in its entirety, look no further than Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, if you’d like to watch it, look no further than YouTube.
Feedback? Compliments? Comments? Concerns? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this week’s episode.