The Rhode To Hell Is Paved With Good Inventions
Here for a goo time, not a long time.
You wanna shine so bright in the day and the night? You wanna turn the other cheek and *SURPRISE—OH NO MY EYES*? Can you handle having a cosmetic lighthouse on your face? Well giddy up because the look of the century is all that and more: it’s slime princess galore.
It’s giving 90% humidity.
It’s giving Caution Wet Floor sign.
It’s giving: I TOLD U SO.
I know what you’re thinking: everyone says they want to look sweaty, but it seems like nobody wants to sweat these days. Understandable. Sweating can be quite uncomfortable and unpredictable. Looking like you’re sweating softly, however, can be wetly sensual. And we all agree at the most sensual looks are always damp.
Now, I’m not going to take it personally that this hyper-dew aesthetic is popping off about six years after I evangelized it on the now defunct XoVain (RIP), however, I’ll forgive the crusty masses for finally seeing the light… that is reflected off my forehead and cheekbones with every turn.
People always ask me: Sable, how do you look so like that?
And I tell them: You have got to get comfortable with goo on your face. It goes against all our former education emphasizing the matte-ification of it all, plus our cultural fixation with clean clean clean, but whatever you must do to acclimate to the feeling of a sticky-bouncy complexion, you must. Embrace a life of grime. Look good doing it.
And before long, you may not have a choice. You see, the powers that beam are pushing this agenda hard. At first, they were just teasing the idea of glass skin, and now it’s jello skin and glazed donut skin. Skin is becoming more and more edible by the hashtag. While we all were eviscerating our pores with exfoliating acids five years ago, we must now soothe our raw, ragged skin barriers with goo. Not just any goo — Hailey Bieber goo.
Roll what you will about celebrity brands, but it is wholly a reflection of our cultural values and obsessions being marketed back to us. The democratization of fame and its everyman aspiration has us even more rabidly fixated on it, as it is now a very real and sometimes inevitable possibility for all of us. It’s made a currency of idols to consult when seeking guidance and merch on how we should be living bestly (or just where we should leave our money).
Mrs. B has accomplished what I could not: getting you to put goo on your faces. Her press people did send me the three-product line, which I was not expecting to feel any which way about, and it turns out I am in neutral approval of them all. Their resulting aesthetic isn’t anything I haven’t experienced through many a K-beauty product (the originators of the goo agenda) but the peptides and ceramides offer consumer assurance that they are Doing Someting™. I don’t doubt that they are, but I also don’t think that’s as much the point of their interest. Lots of products Do Something™ but not all products give you parasocial gratification as well. (Tl;dr, the serum and moisturizer are nice but the lip balms are my pick of the lot.) Also, it’s a lot cheaper than my girl Isamaya’s debut beauty line, including a very glazey-girl serum primer. (If you were in the beauty sphere circa 2014, it’s giving liquid RMS Living Luminizer, minus the coconut oil.)
I have not experienced Skinlacq, but I was sent the eyeshadow palette, which contains one shade that is my favorite dry highlighter for eyes and face. It’s one of those sheer, fine glitters that’s invisible at one angle and sparkly on another — so fine that (on camera) it looks just like a wet reflection. Unfortunately, this is the one shade that arrived crumbled in the pan (mine is not the only palette to have arrived partially crushed, a common pitfall of new eyeshadow palette launches, I find).
There is, however, a new balm in town, one that runs gooey circles round the other goo and unfortunately (or not) escapes this jello donut marketing rapture. That is the Jones Road Miracle Balms aka beauty’s hockey pucks.
I mean, these are HUGE. $38 seems a lot for just some tinted vaseline, but they are so big you can probably de-pot half of it and go in with a friend or something like that. And you’d still have a massive amount of goo.
You simply smush your finger in there, and then tap, smear, and blend it into the parts of your face you want to be extra gooey gorgeous, and wah-lah.
Whilst I cannot speak to any miracles being performed, I can tell you that the goo is exceptional. It is also not for the dry of heart — it’s gonna make your face feel like there’s goo on it, because there is.
Do I look like a jello? A glazed donut? Or maybe a sweaty pane of glass? Sure, I guess. I don’t know if there is much beyond that to ascertain from this “trend” of looking like… this. Perhaps it is an exaggerated picture of health — one that implies that you are so much more alive and hydrated and wellness than everyone else. But perhaps it just means that our eyes are widening to the possibilities of how to express with skin texture. When I was a young lass, I’d have been bullied for daring to shine so shinily on my face region. How times have changed! K-beauty and edgy fashion editorials have successfully served us goo. Who else is next?
Still so unsure of how to apply the jones road balm, it feels so... light?