We Went to a “Placenta Party” This Week
Plus: our sustainability reporting pledge, Kristen Stewart’s dastardly roots, and the Boy Smells rebrand.
Hello! Happy Saturday After Earth Day, a holiday that seems both more urgent and taken less seriously every year.
I realize that, as an editor who works for a beauty publication, it is a bit rich that I would even bring up this annual event. The industry that I report on is a hotbed of greenwashing. I am honestly baffled by the amount of pitches I get every week for a new brand that earnestly claims to be a “sustainable option.” (Sorry: The only “sustainable” option is not to launch a new brand at all. We have plenty of products already; let’s focus on getting those into packages that are better for the environment first.)
The beauty industry is really bad at making recyclable products. Even products that are packaged in material that could be recycled usually aren’t: Any plastic or glass or aluminum container smaller than the palm of your hand is not able to be recycled curbside. I don’t know about you, but when I look around at the products littering my desk, that’s pretty much all of them. There are companies like Pact Collective that are trying to help consumers recycle all those little, mixed material packages their beauty products come in, but that requires consumers to go out of their way to either bring their empties to a store with a collection bin or send them via mail (which, hello, carbon footprint). Plus, at the end of the day, recycling is a supply-and-demand game just like the rest of the business: There still has to be someone willing to buy the materials we want to recycle, and that just isn’t the case for most materials.
Not being a climate scientist in any capacity, I have no concrete ideas for how we fix this massive trash problem, but I know it should be up to the multi-million and multi-billion dollar beauty brands, not the consumers who are currently breaking a sweat every time they open up their 401K accounts. But the least I, and the rest of the Allure team, can do is to not pretend that things are going great.
We made a pledge back in 2021 to eliminate greenwashing terms like “recyclable” and “refillable” (you’d have to refill a product an estimated 100 times for it to make any meaningful impact to your carbon footprint) and “biodegradable” (even plastic biodegrades if you give it a few thousand years) from our reporting. This year, we added a few more terms and reminded people the pledge exists alongside a handy graphic for ways to make your own beauty consumption just slightly more sustainable (the final tip is, I think, the hardest but most important truth).
Party Rocking
Thanks to Danielle Pergament, I now know that—on top of baby showers and nesting parties and sip-and-sees—one could throw a “placenta party” as a part of the celebrations for a recent or forthcoming birth of a child. Pergament, reporting from the frontlines of “Ali’s Afterbirth Affair,” writes about what happens at these parties, and the booming business of placenta encapsulation that’s behind the gatherings. I mean, come on, check out the anatomically correct cake!
Rooted in Tradition
Kristen Stewart got married! She and her now-wife Dylan Meyer had a small, garden ceremony in cute mini skirts and looked very happy but, in apparently the ultimate sin, Stewart did not get her roots touched up before the ceremony. This sent many commenters into a complete meltdown, which annoyed me enough to write an op-ed. Click through to read it (or at least see the hairstyle that had everyone in a tizzy).
Celeb Encounters
Allure’s features director Dianna Singh recently spent a morning with Salma Hayek Pinault who, in an effort to prove that she has never had a facelift and doesn’t wear extensions, flipped her head upside down and asked Singh to run her fingers through her hair. The whole interview is very charming, but I was particularly floored by the fact that Hayek Pinault apparently takes a bath every morning.
In Other News
People really, really, really do not care for Boy Smells’ rebrand, which is being blamed on the much-maligned “private equity acquisition.” My favorite part of this reporting from Beauty Independent is when Boys Smells confirms that the brand had been “taken over by ‘a group of gay investors’” in 2024. • Queen of homemade SPF (and perhaps the world’s most subtle troll), Nara Smith got her first beauty brand deal. • The big business of all those random third-party certifications. • A classic tale: Woman gets hit by car, then posts tutorial for the makeup that lasted through it.
If you buy one thing this week, make it…
Amika x Ellis Brooklyn Miami Nectar Perk Up Dry Shampoo
Every once in a while, a brand collab comes along that seems specifically made for me. This, which combines one of my favorite dry shampoo formulas with one of my favorite summer fragrances, makes me feel very seen. It’s a limited edition, so if you’re also a fan of these two brands, I suggest you snatch a bottle up quick.
