The Digest 42

Rocket Popaganda and soap on a rope

Jul 01, 2026

Welcome Back!

Let’s just get into it, shall we? See you soon 😌

If you’re here for a new perspective on fashion, beauty, and culture, you’re in the right place. Pull up a chair. The table is wide.

Aperitif

A little taste of what’s to come

Trending Tidbits:

These trends are tracked not for following, but for what they reveal. Not necessarily an endorsement, but a thought starter

🍆 Eggplant Purple

🌟 Glowing Down

🔴 Having Acne

🐟 Seafood Buffet Nails

🐓 But also… Chicken Wine Nails

⚽️ Clear Bags

The Main Course:

A selection curated to keep you fed

Turns out tiny watches, luddites, and “app purging, phone bricking, physical books, flip phones, and plain old journaling” have something in common

I grew up eating a lot of diet culture fads - rice cakes, Lean Cuisines, and of course cottage cheese, which is once again facing a shortage (bad news for me because I still, against my will, love it)

🧀 Cottage cheese is in, chips are out — and Ozempic is just one reason (WaPo)

I personally think it’s more of a representation of rising conservatism, similar to what we’re seeing with major food companies adopting beef tallow as a key ingredient. Whole Foods even dubbed tallow as their #1 prediction for rising food trends

“Bible-Inspired Eating” is having a moment… Snaxshot compiled a truly insane carousel of posts and actual, real Bible-branded protein bars and CPG products

People are finding a compromise between restaurants and food delivery, opting instead for ready-to-eat meals from the grocery store

I’m sure you’ve heard that Bath and Body Works products will now be available in Ulta. They’re also bringing back Juniper Breeze, an OG scent - and, weirdly, I read that news about 30 minutes after the book I was reading referenced that exact scent

🐮 Moozy Put Milk In A Can (Dieline)

In July of last year I wrote that I saw cereal moving into the spotlight. Not only did Snif recently drop a cereal milk fragrance trio, it also looks like cereal x coffee is currently having a moment

To celebrate this trio, Snif featured Rob Rausch as The Milkman at a recent NYC meet & greet - “here to quench your thirst”

The young people are romanticizing being single, or “solomaxxing” (of course). Similarly, “loneliness influencers” are having a moment, creators defined by their lack of friends and penchant for alone time. This creator is one I’ve noticed have extreme success in this category

👯 America’s Friendship Recession Is Becoming a Startup Opportunity (Bloomberg)

“Girl Grip” is trending, aka the impressive amount of things a woman can hold at the same time. I started saying that brands should be collaborating with @girlscarryingshit back in August of last year

I did see brands getting into this territory a few months ago, with posts like this from Beis - but not in collaboration with @girlscarryingshit!

On that note, really loved this from Paloma Elsesser and pinky magazine , the mag by girlscarryingshit, about “carrying compassion” and featuring Paloma holding Naloxone among other things

🍉 Why Does Everything Look Touchable Now? The Rise of Sensory Branding (Picky Clubhouse)

Related and incredibly interesting: The Polly Pocket-ification of Luxury Fashion. Brands are increasingly using plastic materials in unnatural and playful silhouettes. There’s a lot here - maybe I’ll write something longer about this soon

The dark side of jelly: these materials are extremely bad for the planet. And as one commenter said, “Wearing the sweatiest shoes of all time in rising temps and heatwaves?? No thanks!”. Global warming → jelly shoe death loop

Is whimsy water the next big thing?

Because, as we know, “whimsymaxxing” is running rampant across categories. Zara Larsson’s recent stardom feels tangential to this as well, and it’s no surprise that rumors are swirling about her starting her own makeup line

Spiritually similar, Tree Hut is releasing products in collaboration with Lisa Frank, which, upon first sight, I thought were in fact a Zara Larsson collab. Also, this just in

BTW, Zara & I both say it’s a Crab Girl Summer

🧜‍♀️ This Summer, The Perfume World Is Hearing the Mermaids’ Call (Byrdie)

Aquamarine is coming back to our screens! Emma Roberts is returning for a TV series 20 years after the hit mermaid movie of our childhoods

And lastly on this note, a similarly bright Miami-inspired color palette is popping off

I cannot for the life of me find an article that came out recently about how Americans have deserted bar soap - it was similar to this but not this (I think) - and that’s going to drive me nuts, because I think bar soap is making a comeback

I loved Etsy’s 5,000 Jeffs campaign, celebrating the other Jeffs in retail during Amazon Prime Day

Digestif:

An after dinner course on the topic top of my mind

Rocket Popaganda

With America’s 250th approaching this weekend, I decided to write about an interesting little tidbit that’s been on my mind: the propagandafication of CPG.

Last month, The Cakewalk wrote about the “Rocket Pop-Off”, listing out just some of the product launches featuring the red, white, and blue flavor combo that is Rocket Pop. After reading, I started seeing this flavor everywhere. And the one thing that I cannot get out of my mind is how, one day, people will look back on this and simply be like… something sinister was happening here.

Don’t get me wrong, *I know* it’s lighthearted and a way for brands to make money by capitalizing on a mega-holiday, nothing new to see here - but the themes here are emblematic of larger overall regressive shifts in culture.

Of course the Rocket Pop flavor, while dominant, is not the only way that brands are celebrating the anniversary. Star-shaped foods, red white and blueberry, and apple pie are among other homages seen in the grocery store aisles right now.

Outside of the grocery store, chains like Dunkin’ are really leaning in. Allll the way in. They just dropped an eagle-shaped cup today that has people scrambling to snag one before it’s sold out. Some people, anyway.

Beyond these very blatantly patriotic displays, there are a couple other flavors that have been growing in popularity over the last year or so that also, to me, have undercurrents of propagandafication.

S’mores is one that has been on my radar since I started this newsletter and has only continued to gain traction. Starbucks is bringing back their S’mores menu this week, and we’ve seen recent campfire treat-inspired drops from, among others, Chobani, Oreo, Nothing Bundt Cake x Hershey’s, Pillsbury, and Little Bites.

Additionally, PB&J (together or its separate elements) is another flavor that has been making the rounds. To name a few, M&M, Nature Valley, Reese’s, and Barebells have launched PB&J flavored products as of late. Dunkin’s 4th of July menu even includes a peanut butter latte.

Something that PB&J and S’mores have in common, besides being quintessentially American? Nostalgia. These are flavors that bring you back to childhood, to a “simpler” time - which, as we know, can get dicey. It’s a proven fact that nostalgia is a powerful tool to spread propaganda. We’ve talked about this before - nostalgia as a form of rose-colored glasses through which hindsight is not 20/20. As this Redditor said, “nostalgia is a sneaky trap that makes us live in a past that honestly never existed.”

So, am I saying that s’mores flavored Oreos and Rocket Pop Liquid IV are morally bad? Irresponsible? Intentionally devious? Deserve to be taken out back and shot? No. Eat your Rocket Pop Bush’s Baked Beans! (yes, they’re real). But I also can’t help but look at the proliferation of these flavors overall as less of a coincidence and more as a microcosm of the times we are living in, moving (and looking) ever backwards.

Bonus related reading rec: I’m about to dive into The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz. I’ll let you know how it goes, but thinking this is a very Composite-coded read.

Dessert:

A book rec as the cherry on top

The Unseen World

If you’re a reader and on the internet, surely you’re familiar with Liz Moore, author of God of the Woods and Long Bright River. While I enjoyed both of those books as well as Heft, The Unseen World is, by far, my favorite Moore novel.

Published in 2017, the book follows Ada, daughter of single father David who heads up a computer science lab at a 1980s Boston university. Despite being almost a decade old, this book has tender and striking insights about artificial intelligence and what it means to be human, as well as what it means to be a family. What starts as a compelling coming of age story morphs into a mystery as Ada is forced to unravel the truth of David’s past after he is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and it becomes clear that he is not who he has pretended to be.

As a bonus: I recently read (and really enjoyed) What Kind Of Paradise by Janelle Brown, and it felt like a sister book to The Unseen World - in a completely opposite way. They would make for a very interesting back-to-back reading experience!

Late Night Snack:

Is it okay if I say I told you so <3

A new section dedicated to past predictions that have come true. Don’t forget you heard it on The Composite first.

🍋 A Floating Convenience Store Appears in Toronto, Attracting the Curious (NYT)

🍋 Bodega brand bonanza continues with the newly dropped Bodega Collection from Arizona Teas, featuring merch and bodega cat plushies

✨ We’re in a Golden Era of Fancy Jell-O Shots (Eater)

✨ Beauty’s ‘jelly’ trend is bouncing into packaging too (Cosmetics Business)

✨ Jiggly Jell-oat shot from Oatly’s yearly look book

✨ How kohakutou candy hit the sweet spot (Financial Times)

✨ Chloé dropped jelly heels and Madewell x Melissa partnered with Composite favorite Eat Nunchi on some incredible jiggly content promoting their new jelly sandals. See also: Jimmy Choo Jelly Candies in celebration of their jelly shoes

✨ Bella Hadid’s fragrance brand Orabella got jelly with it, too

🍌 Something bananas is coming from Glow Recipe this week

🍌 Banana Girl Summer Is Here (Who What Wear)

🍌 The Banana Boom: Beauty’s Next Tasty Ingredient (BeautyMatter)

From my scroll: things that caught my eye or match the themes of this week’s letter, formats I think will catch on - you get the vibe