The Digest 17

the "cutie patootie-fication" of makeup and palate inspired palettes

Welcome back to The Digest

Before we get into it -

Yesterday was a dark day in American history, and I feel I can’t send this out without acknowledging that. This presidency will affect our lives and the industries we talk about here in ways that we can’t even begin to understand right now. And while I’m not here to educate you about politics, I will certainly discuss it when I feel it’s important or relevant to my areas of interest as no industry will be untouched. I won’t belabor the topic unnecessarily - we’ll be hearing more than enough about this man and we all need spaces that are somewhat separate from that darkness. Let me be clear that this is an anti-Trump space, and always will be.

We’re at the beginning of a long and difficult few years, but it’s more important than ever that we band together in community and support each other. Please know that I am here and happy to help crowdsource help in whatever ways necessary as needs arise for anyone who is part of this community. I’m grateful for you and wishing you peace and resilience in tough times.

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Throughout the week, I keep track of everything that feels culturally relevant in the areas that I care about. I take that list from my notes app and turn it into this download of understanding consumer culture, tracking trends, and dismantling beauty standards to keep you in the loop on what I think you should know about this week. I hope you enjoy and take your time to Digest.

Think of this as a curated morning paper to replace your AM doom scroll, best read with coffee in hand

x Jo

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“New year, new menu—2025's fashion trends are all about indulgence… Welcome to the gourmet era of fashion, where color palettes are as mouthwatering as a Michelin-starred meal”

On that note, Vogue published a story on the “6 food trends fashion needs to know about in 2025” - we’ve been talking about this (and some of these exact examples) for a long time here

Glow Recipe celebrated their new Cloudberry Bright Moisture Cream with a pop up at Leons Bagels, which featured cloudberry jam + deluxe samples of the cream. They also gifted the (bedazzled) product + bagels to influencers on silver platters with Kerrygold butter

Chopova Lowena¹ just introduced fragrance for the first time

“Along with the incoming president shaking up the country with unhinged cabinet appointments, unethical immigration laws, and oppressive reproductive legislation, Donald Trump and co. may also be coming for your perfume”

In October, I said: “Across all of the 2025/26 color reporting and trend predicting I’ve read, I've not come across much mention of light purple as a color to watch. Even so, I feel pretty certain we’ll see this color emerge in various ways over the next year or two”. Looks like Pinterest caught up! “Aura Indigo” appears on their 2025 palette predictions alongside Butter Yellow, Cherry Red, Dill Green, and Alpine Oat. Food, food, and more food

You can now smell the Pantone color of the year, Mocha Mousse, through a Pura fragrance collaboration. I do think choosing a food-related color was smart for marketing purposes like this and relevant for the general zeitgeist

“Bibliotherapy: Can reading help treat your depression?”

“Cutesy” makeup brands are having a moment. International brands like Flower Knows and Romand are popular for their playful packaging. Flower Knows just released a cake-themed Strawberry Cupid collection, for example

Meanwhile, Monday Haircare’s founder launched Daise: A “Gen Alpha body care brand that matches every mood”. I think this has potential to be very successful. Very vibrant, young packaging. They’re capitalizing on the fragrance-as-emotion trend which is only just getting started. A mood ring for the new age!

Continuing the craze of gourmand body care collabs (Dunkin x Native, Crumbl x Dove), Bath & Body Works teamed up with Sweethearts Candy on a Vday collection (cutesy strikes again). Van Leeuwen dropped 5 “love languages” Vday flavors

Soup you can suck on. Yep, it’s real, and it plays right into the chaos packaging of it all

I have this theory that cruise ships are about to have a moment. I’m not talking Carnival or your grandma’s cousin’s favorite kind of vacay. I’m talking surrealist cruise ship motifs/plots in media, the middle of the ocean as the terrestrial version of space, the last frontier for escapism. I think it’s coming

Argyle is set to be a top print this year. I rented this Eloquii sweater from Nuuly recently and it’s really soft and apparently on trend (but classic). Argyle is adjacent to lots of “old money” type activities, so I’m unsurprised to see this as we transition into a sneakier era of coveting wealth aesthetically

Architectural Digest featured plus size supermodel Paloma Elsesser’s Brooklyn brownstone and it’s unbelievably gorgeous. Also in my neighborhood, so this gives me something to aspire to

I love this New Yorker podcast and really enjoyed their episode on “The New Western Gold Rush”. There’s a lot of good stuff in here

Jacob Elordi will star in Ridley Scott’s forthcoming post-apocalyptic film adaptation of The Dog Stars, and Parasite director Bong Joon Ho’s new sci fi movie starring Robert Pattinson hits theaters next week

I, too, devoured Silo (and Fallout, and currently The 100) - “One of the perverse pleasures of a dystopia is that we identify with its truth-seeking inhabitants as they try to find out who ruined their world—and, at the same time, we sense that we probably did”

All that to say: I wrote about science fiction aesthetics, the Space Age fashion era, and the resurgence of retro-futurism. I’d love if you’d give it a read <3

Lots of coverage about AI in the skincare industry this week - '“SkinGPT” and “AI Skin Analysis” "simulate photorealistic renderings of finished product results and skin-care ingredient effects based on clinical claims”

Here to sing Wray’s praises as always. Gorgeous, unique but versatile clothes in sizes XXS-6XL. One of the only brands consistently getting inclusivity (AND style) right

“The paradox is particularly cruel: women are valued for their beauty and physical attractiveness but often penalised and judged for putting effort into enhancing their appearance”

One of those times where we may have taken the trend naming too far

And on that note: “Not that the #Frenchmanicure ever went out of style, but is 2025 is the year of french manicure?”

“Body-image insecurities and skin self-consciousness are stopping young girls and women from playing sports. A new project from Venus and Lotte Wubben-Moy is working to address these pressures”²

There’s an ongoing conversation about older women and aging happening as many of the recent top films (rightfully) feature women over 50

You’ve heard of the recently coined “undetectable” cosmetic surgery era. Now we have “unreconizable makeup”

The fisherman aesthetic is coming for us all

So is the snoafer, a hybrid sneaker-loafer that makes me feel uncomfortable

The fate of the dating app has been widely debated. Breeze is taking a fresh approach, pairing up couples + planning their first date without any pre-meet chats between the two

“A Palestinian-American Sex and the City: Betty Shamieh’s new novel is a rebellious rom com”

Sephora and Hulu are creating “Faces of Music”, a docuseries that highlights the connection between music and beauty. It will feature Chappell Roan, Becky G, and Victoria Monét. I can’t get over how bad the poster is, but hopefully the series will be better

“Full bush in a bikini”. I support this fully

The only New Year’s resolution I want to see, especially regarding bodies, is this. “Just do it fat”, the advice I needed when I was younger and that so many still need now. This mindset changes lives

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I’d love to know what resonated most with you this week so I can continue honing this newsletter into being the best version of itself. Thanks for reading!

1. Famous here on The Composite for their Hellmann’s Mayo collab, also mentioned in that Vogue food trends for fashion article

2. “research by Venus found: in a survey done last year, over a third of women (38 per cent) said they did not want to participate in sport because they worry about the way their skin looks, whether that’s cellulite, scars and stretch marks, or worries about weight”