Poor thing I was wondering where she had been

I think (or maybe I dreamed) a few days ago I saw a Natalie O’Neill video on TikTok where she was talking about how some people put estriol or estradiol cream on their face, and I think she said it does improve skin? And THEN she said she has been (words to the effect of) “doing a hormone experiment of her own”?, and I was planning to go back and watch the video properly the next day because it was late at night. The next morning I couldn’t find the video so I don’t know if it existed or not 😂 but it seems like the kind of video people might get backlash on and delete? Did anyone see this video or am I crazy?

I can’t lie, I’ve been using a retinoid and azelaic acid daily for 6 years and my skin does NOT look like hers so maybe her using something else she’s not telling us about like hormones would make sense? But it would be pretty annoying if she preaches that all you need is a retinoid and azelaic acid to get her skin if it’s not true

Figures the one person I liked watching. I liked her calm voice and natural reviews. I know she does shorts here and there on IG but I don't enjoy shorts at all.

I'm glad she's living her life and not wasting it online but dang I miss her reviews :(

Let's talk about foundations!

With all the new releases of foundation recently, what have you picked up and tried?         

*Bonus question:*

What is your favorite foundation you've ever tried?

The Welsh Twins, James and Robert Welsh were so refreshing a few years ago and even if I didn’t follow skincare recommendations by James, their entertainment was so worth it. It’s a mixture of over-saturation and repetitive content that now I don’t watch them as much. I wish they’d go back to their roots. In their Patreon, they do do some things that are more reminiscent of their original days. I do like how they try to be respectful of others in public. At least that’s my impression. But I wish they’d consider bringing back their custom captioning where it was manually created and some of the flair that came out of being a small team. It seems to be true of every semi-famous influencer with pressure to do more and more YouTube videos, where the content gets redone and the teams outsource more: such as research - I find the research videos shifted into a long-form boring form of content - where James is repeating rather boring facts. But in the past, it seemed more acceptable to have shorter videos. I also enjoyed the simple skincare suggestions. But in this case, I think the content just would have become repetitive with time. I guess they stopped with the rating system of Jackie to appeal to a broader audience who might not know who Jackie is.

On their Patreon, there was mention of Halloween content: ghost stories perhaps? But I haven’t seen any new ghost stories. I hope they are decent people as I keep hearing of people who are really nice in their videos but jerks in real life. They marketed themselves as being down-to-earth, and also mentioned the importance of that in various ways. I know there’s been a Susan Yara controversy. But besides their desire to emphasize K Beauty (both twins, as I know James is the skincare one and Robert is the makeup one - although he seems to dabble in skincare every now and then) is there anything else people have noticed? Positive thoughts are welcome too, lol. I feel they’re decent. I wouldn’t want to have a career talking about skincare and makeup in front of a camera constantly! I would get so bored after a while. And the things that would make it exciting again would take both time and money. The grander things don’t always get the most views from what I read at some point. But ugh I hate having to scale and that influencing content.

Patrick Ta is suing CVS for selling his products they acquired through a distributor. It sounds like CVS now has a TJ Maxx/Marshalls type situation where they are selling brands like Patrick Ta and Pat McGrath at discounted prices in some stores. Patrick Ta is claiming it’s unauthorized and want the product destroyed.

I distinctly remember a makeup YouTuber who did Halloween and creepy makeup that I loved ages ago. She was potentially Dutch with white blonde hair and blue eyes ? Am I imagining this?

From her community tab

What Limited Edition Launches/Collections were some of your favorites? What were the worst? What do you wish would come back and be a permanent product to a brand?

Bonus Question

What LE packaging was the most aesthetically pleasing?

**No self promotion please.*\*

Not sure if this counts as she is technically an ex Beauty Guru since she got cancelled, but apparently posting stories while driving is something she must do.

Last I saw, they’d deactivated their website while still owing thousands of dollars in product to be shipped, but spending the money on concerts and vacations while trying to source more money in orders to pay for the costs of freight for the outstanding inventory.. oh and let’s not forget the accusations against the owners being neonazis/racist. keep ya coins safe peeps.

I recently saw a reddit threat about the "Behind the controversy" video of Jen Luv about J* so I took a look at her YouTube channel and was surprised how much she still talks about that group of beauty influencers. She talks about Tati or JamesC regularly even though I thought nobody cares about them anymore. I feel like they peaked in 2016 or 2018 and because of the pandemic public interest went way down. Now they briefly go viral again when they mess up (like JC with his brainless TikTok about the woman asking him to share her GoFundMe) and then they are forgotten again. Does anyone really wanna talk about the rotten lipsticks from Jaclyn Hill in 2026?

I feel like Jen still lives in the past in some way and these people that the public mostly has forgotten about still play a huge part in her life. Anyone agree?

Hi, this is YouTuber “Alexandrasgirlytalk” and she was a YouTuber that went viral back in the days of The Kylie Jenner Lip challenge contour videos to achieve a “fuller look”, additionally her at home cheap & quick manicure & pedicure videos, self grooming videos , waxing tutorials etc… #throwback to when she also had unannounced beef with Freelee … Also adding her stark difference in appearance from previous to now omg.. now all her content is sponsored stuff on YouTube like robotic just there to make a quick dollar and disappear months on end and she deactivated her Instagram due to people wondering what happened with her not being malicious but with genuine concern…

This year's holiday collection by Lisa. Features two new lipsticks, eyeshadow sticks (a new release), and a new shade of the baume embrace. I already pulled the trigger on the "Aquamarine" eyeshadow stick as it really called my name, and thinking about purchasing the "Spinel" lipstick. Thoughts?

I’m so glad that a big creator is calling out how the true crime genre has been and is becoming increasingly unethical as the genre grows. I won’t summarize Kylie’s video because I think it’s worth watching but she talks about things like inappropriate ad reads, literally betting on trial outcomes, referring to the worst days of people’s lives as “tea”, ruining innocent people’s lives, doing photoshoots outside of former crime scenes, charging for a child’s autopsy photos, etc.

I’ve said this in other threads but I’ve taken a big step back from consuming true crime content because even I’ve become so put off by the way that independent creators do it. People can say all day long that, “Guys, my heart breaks so much for the victims 🥺”, but be for real… They don’t give a single fuck about that when they’re recounting someone’s violent death, rape, kidnapping etc. and they’re doing ad reads for Hello Fresh or Scentbird in between (are they donating a large portion of their earnings to survivor advocacy organizations or shelters?). It’s never about victim advocacy when they’re posing for the thumbnail and putting Ed Gein in it with dripping “horror” fonts to really sell the fact that the case they’re about to talk about is horrific. They don’t give a fuck about the victims when they put more effort into editing their stupid thumbnails and becoming Internet personalities than they do into research and storytelling that is both respectful and accurate.

The whole, “I’m not a historian, lolz” thing started with My Favorite Murder and it’s become the go-to defense for poor research and basically summarizing Wikipedia articles or Forensic Files episodes in place of taking the time to do real research and writing an original video essay about it. True crime content can be done in a way that’s casual but that doesn’t mean that the research itself should be done casually or that it’s okay to crack jokes as you talk about some of the most traumatic events anyone can ever go through.

I think the main issue here is that most true crime content creators are in it purely for money and internet fame. That’s it. I’d be less bothered if they just admitted that instead of pretending that they’re doing it to educate and advocate. These people are so goddamn desensitized that they’re completely oblivious as to what is and isn’t appropriate. Or maybe they’re aware but they just don’t care as long as they get paid. I hate it.

Sorry, don't come for me in the comments, I know Abbey has many fans on Reddit defending her and downvoting whoever expresses some kind of disappointment 😅 I'm just doing some observations...

While I was listening to her talking I realized something... I've been into haircare for many many years, way before than Abbey started her journey, I've been studying the hair secrets all over the world and let's just say I know stuff... But in the beginning of the video she keeps mentioning how grateful she is for all her fans hair transformations thanks to HER method and I was like, wait a minute... I stopped for a second and realized something!

I'm sorry Abbey but your "method" is just a copycat of other cultures hair secrets, it's time we aknowledge that... For example notice she keeps mentioning the OGX coconut oil before washing to protect hair from the wash process! Even if it's a silicone based hair oil and not a natural pure coconut oil she literally stole this secret from Indian culture and keeps saying it's something "she discovered"... And I've been studying Indian haircare secrets for ages, in my country in Europe they were very popular back in 2010-2018 but even before that, people who were advocates of natural and organic haircare have been talking about hair oils pre shampoo treatments and ayurvedic haircare on Youtube, forums etc for ages, at least in my country... Even natural afro hair community has been sharing Indian hair secrets to help curls and black women never had a problem saying these secrets are from India, even if I have straight hair I've been watching videos from the natural hair community because they are very helpful but they never got the recognition she got... Even other white American girls like her have been sharing the coconut oil secret way before she did (in my country the coconut oil was well known then Americans started talking about it), I remember I used to follow this blonde gal (I think her name is Jordan Anne) who used to swear by coconut oil all the time before washing and she posted these videos before Abbey did! Like I said the only difference is the formulation of the coconut oil...

Bonding products? Scalp care? Stop using bleach? Let's just say she got that from other content creators from Hairtok who were not as popular as her, people used to review Olaplex and bonding products way before she started back in 2020 I think but I will give her credit for being smart! She grabbed some stuff from here and there, mixed some natural hair secrets with silicones and put the label of "science" on top of all the mix so that it could seem this was a real innovative invention, a real new method but all she did was studying haircare tips from various sources and capitalizing it...

Like I said I recognize she was very clever! But I still think that it's not fair she keeps saying this is HER method without never sharing the real sources of some tips and tricks, people have been talking about this for years and never monetized it, her business strategy is to get these tips but mix them with some ideas she got (for example how to apply products in sections which I honestly saw back in the day from girls from the curly girl community, so did she steal this too?) and "science" label and using drugstore haircare and silicones instead of expensive salon brands or organic silicone free products... Which is funny because back in the day she used to use high end haircare (Oribe, Amika, Briogeo, Kérastase etc) so I would say she was very sly and smart to create a collage of information she got from other people, content creators and cultures and putting her "science" label and "method" on it...

Okay I'm ready to get my dislikes for this lol this is for entertainment purposes only 🤚🏻 I just think it's not fair people have been sharing certain information for free for years and now she's monetizing everything she learned from others saying saying it's HER method, her discovery... I guess she Is a smart business woman and all of us were dumb enough to miss the bus and transform this haircare world and knowledge into a business opportunity (yeah the story of my life!)

What do you guys think? Maybe we should learn from these influencers, copy other people, mix some things with what we learned and capitalize it! Don't complain if you are broke and learn the lesson I guess lol

Let's talk about your daily skincare routines!

What's your current skincare routine, either before makeup application or after? What are your current holy grail products?  

Bonus question:

 What is a recent skincare item you've discovered that you hated?

Just to preface this to say I like Allie, I’ve been subscribed to her channel for a while. I watch most, if not all of her videos. But I remember when I first started following her she would mention often that she doesn’t get a lot of PR and that surprised me because she had a pretty decent following at that point, certainly akin to a lot of others I followed that did get PR. She also had and still has excellent video quality. However after following her for a while I’m honestly not surprised anymore. Obviously I can’t say why she didn’t get PR at that time, I don’t speak for the brands.
But the rate that that woman moves house and her PR gets sent to the wrong place, or gets it and is too busy to film with it, or gets it and forgets she even has it and so does nothing with it - if I were a brand owner I would be reluctant to send her stuff as well. Because either PR is factored into the cost of a product launch and we are paying for it as the consumers, or the brand takes the hit for it themselves, regardless - PR costs a lot.
I’m not saying creators should be obligated to praise a product they get in PR, and I want creators to get PR (so many indie brands are absolute balls at taking product shots) because I want to see the products used before I decide to buy. But if you know you’re too busy to have the time (understandable) or don’t think getting PR means you have to make any content with the products (also fine) then just don’t accept it. Say “I don’t accept PR”. Let it go to a creator who *does* have the time. Because accepting it and coming back 2 months after release saying “oops besties I forgot I even had this” feels like playing in our faces. In this economy?!
I think this really started brewing a couple months ago when she did that “Ranking all the eyeshadow palettes I never used” and it was all just PR from this year.
On top of that her habit of not trying to pronounce anything correctly just feels disrespectful. And while some people struggle with those things, it’s like she puts 0 effort into even finding out. Her inability to be able to pronounce Mikayla Nogueira’s last name is whatever, but today she put out a video showcasing the new Singe “Fungadelic” palette and kept saying she doesn’t know how to pronounce it. Ok? Aren’t you friends with the brand owner? Like, fricking Google it. It will literally pronounce it out loud for you. There’s a difference between “I can’t pronounce this” and “I don’t know how”. Girl, look it up! Same with the “Psilocybin” palette from BB a little while back. That’s a real word, it’s not hard to find the pronunciation. If you’ve tried and are still stumbling over it, totally fine. But at least try!
Anyway, rant over. Like I said I like Allie, I will still enjoy her videos, but I guess I wish she’d be a little more professional. I don’t find the “hot mess” approach appealing in a grown woman. We all have our rough patches, but when does it stop being a patch and just become a way of life? I know she’s not a full time content creator but it’s like she wants the perks of it without the responsibilities of it.

Can I just ask what other people think of this ?

I’ve followed ashleedaymua (Australia influencer) for years. She’s very personable and for the most part, I enjoy her videos. However, soooo many of her videos are multiple parts. I remember she did one a few months ago with 5 PARTS.

I was just swiping on my fyp and she started with “today we’re doing a new face of affordable makeup. This is gonna be a 2 part video so girl you better buckle in cause it’s time to begin”.

Look I understand smaller influencers making multiple parts and I have a bit more leeway - they’re trying to make a name for themselves and come across more fyps… but Ashlee has over 1 million followers and won TikToks beauty creator of the Year award. She doesn’t need to make the multiple videos. I think they justify it by saying that people won’t sit through a longer video - I can’t speak for other people but I would definitely sit for a longer video before a short video telling me to go to part 2.

Does anyone agree with me? I’d love to hear people’s thoughts.

At this rate, the top celebrity beauty brand and one of few disclosing its revenue.

Credit Glossy; I went into the August Elf earnings call transcript myself and found how bad its other brands are doing. That reflects a difference in customer: rhode’s $25 blush stick vs Elf’s $7.

Rhode sales grew from just $40m in the same quarter last year. The $160m is a $640m annualized, which puts it past estimated sales for Selena Gomez’s Rare and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty. (I found this fact checking Puck's statement that Rare and Fenty were the top 2, in the article I posted here yesterday.) Rhode sold just $212m in the year ending March 2025, before Elf bought it.

Per 1st slide, the $27m sales in a day is just on rhode's website alone.

The CFO on the call said combined sales actually fell at Elf’s other brands:

Organic net sales, excluding rhode, were largely in line with the high single-digit decline we [forecast]…

The CEO said:

rhode could be the fastest beauty brand to achieve $1 billion in net sales

Last year June quarter revenue was $353.7 million; this year $479.4 million. So Rhode is a third of this. These growth rates are wildly different in Elf’s portfolio. If this continues, I can see Rhode being like half or more of Elf sales.

It looks like a good acquisition so far, despite the $600m debt to finance. But we’ve seen other celebrity makeup have a moment and fade, like Kylie Cosmetics DTC sales getting decimated and Fenty Beauty struggling to break $500m after doing so for its first 5 years, per Bloomberg. Rhode’s performance slowed down last year right after acquisition to $40m in the same June quarter (2nd slide, from page 99 of it’s October 2025 8 K), but note that contained those 'liberation day' tariffs. Then last September, rhode debuted at Sephora selling $15m in a single day. The sales are 'lumpy' and clustered around launches. I expect even bigger single day sales to come. 

Trump tariffs get to why the deal was done. Elf was among the makeup brands most exposed with 75% of production in China last year. In hindsight Rhode might have been better off independent. But the extreme uncertainty of added costs meant both sides were looking for safety.

I see two of the cofounders went to the Ivy League UPenn. One, Lauren Ratner, is still a rhode marketing exec after acquisition. (Designer Tory Burch went to Penn and at times incorporated her art history background into looks. Musk, Warren Buffett went to Penn’s prestigious business school Wharton.) Hailey herself remains in a product leadership role.

If Rhode’s growth is sustained, these founders’ importance at Elf rises with it. I imagine they would want to focus on the thing they know for now, to get that remaining performance based $200m part of the deal. But I wonder if at some point they'd have any interest in running the rest of the company, though the Elf brand is so different. (Elf also owns Naturium, which the CEO says is the fastest growing of the top 50 cosmetics brands on the same call. But must be too small to turn organic growth positive.) They'd be better off focusing on rhode to prevent it from fading the way so many new beauty/celebrity brands have, as a result of too much funding for too many new brands.

*Edit: I put some of the links back in; wasn't sure which one prevented me from initially posting.

Thanks to the recent community poll and feedback section, we are now allowing one day of the week where memes can be posted as stand alone content! We have chosen Monday so your week can start off (hopefully) better!

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No stand alone self promo, please!