In April 2025, Vogue Business asked: “Are Tweakments Just Fast Fashion for Your Face?” If you’re asking yourself, what the heck is a tweakment, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Tweakments are usually minimally invasive (though ask anyone who’s gotten a strong laser or peel about the recovery), non-surgical procedures performed in the office. Think neurotoxins, derm fillers, lasers, peels, etc., solution-oriented refreshes rather than dramatic, more invasive options like a facelift. The term itself is a marriage of tweak and treatment, beauty click-bait that’s since gone mainstream. The Vogue Business piece is putting words to a phenomenon that’s been bubbling up: now that plastic surgery practices and medical spas are also borrowing from fashion-thinking, tweakments are bought and marketed the way we build out clothing collections: as routine maintenance, seasonal drops, micro-upgrades, not just a one-time transformation.

According to Allergan Aesthetics’ “The Future of Aesthetics” report, one of the leading providers of Botox, the number of non-surgical aesthetic procedures conducted worldwide grew by nearly two million between 2017 and 2020, and is expected to total 23 million dermal filler procedures and 14.6 million body procedures by the end of 2025. The same report found physicians are seeing more younger patients, a broader range of ethnic backgrounds, and more men than ever, a sign tweakments have moved well past a niche audience.

Non-surgical aesthetic procedures are expected to continue surging in popularity, as life expectancy is rising thanks to discoveries in longevity. The latest wave is skipping the appointment altogether: an eye drop, a topical, a gummy, all packaged as at-home, over-the-counter versions of treatments that used to require a provider. Gingergeist weighs in - with the receipts to add - on recent developments.

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It’s All in the Eyes: Upneeq’s At-Home Eyelid Lift

The eyes may be known as the windows to the soul, but they are also often the first area of the face to show signs of aging. Why? The skin around the eyes is the thinnest skin on the body, making it especially vulnerable to changes over time. With the upper eyelids, extra skin can develop and begin to hang closer to the lash line.

On Jamie’s last visit to her ophthalmologist in February, she inquired about Upneeq, the first FDA-approved eye drops for adults with low-lying Eyelids. The ophthalmologist claimed to have never heard of it, but promised to look into it (never happened). Recently, on Gloss Angeles, Cindy Crawford talked about plastic surgery pressure and staying power. Cindy Crawford discussed turning 60, her pact with a friend not to get a facelift, and embracing a natural approach to aging with her husband Rande Gerber’s support. While Cindy noted she has tried minor non-surgical treatments like neurotoxins, lasers, and PRP, she noticed her eyelids were looking a little heavier in pictures. Her dermatologist recommended Upneeq, and when the Upneeq team reached out to her, she learned an ophthalmologist had developed it for his own mother, who didn’t want to undergo surgery for drooping eyelids. On the updated website, Cindy can be seen quoted as saying, “Connection has always been about presence and confidence for me, and so much of that is communicated through the eyes.” She likes that someone can choose to use Upneeq every day or just for special events.

Ginger Spark: Jamie decided to try the two-vial trial of Upneeq straight from the website, where one can upload a picture and obtain an Rx if qualified, for $30. For those with acquired ptosis, or low-lying eyelids, it offers a non-surgical option, in an easy-to-use once-daily eye drop. While Jamie’s first single-use vial resulted in one eye opening slightly more visibly than the other, the second time resulted in a refreshed, wide awake effect. Average lift in clinical trials was 1 mm, acting in as little as five minutes (although the suggested wait is 15 minutes to apply eye cream or makeup), and can last up to 8 hours. Check out more before-and-afters, along with the Upneeq community. While the website mentioned a one-time trial, Jamie was able to order again for $15 (minus the Rx :)

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Lip Volumizing, On Demand: Dr. Diamond’s LipLift

In The Price Point Playbook, Gingergeist highlighted Dr. Jason Diamond’s $225 EyeLift bioserum. The celebrity facial plastic surgeon is at it again, introducing LipLift this month (teasing “JOIN THE WAITING ROOM”), as a $120 topical treatment, expanding the Contour Collection from Dr. Diamond’s Metacine. Designed to mimic non-surgical clinical results, the product targets lip aging, loss of volume, and fine lines. The announcement in Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) noted the purpose of volumizing lips, improving contours, and addressing signs of perioral aging.

Ginger Spark: With the use of Cindy for Upneeq and WWD to announce LipLift, tweakments are much like Vogue Business speculated, being treated more like a fashion launch. In addition to Dr. Diamond offering advice in a recent blog post on 4 Paths to Luscious Lips, it becomes clear that aesthetics, beauty, and fashion have never been so closely aligned (and blurred). We’re pondering whether this replaces in-office filler or simply complements and extends the appointment calendar. You know we already signed up.

A Lash & Brow Ingestible: IMARAÏS Beauty’s Gummies

In a recent Nutra Ingredients “Beauty From Within 2026” July Webinar, panelist Aaron Hefter discussed how orbital focus has been on eyelash extensions and hair growth beyond the scalp, and hinted at releasing an innovation to target lashes and brows. Other panelists asked, “a topical,” to which Hefter responded, “an ingestible.” Cue almost audible gasps! ( Jamie was once a devoted lash extension wearer; Michelle swears she’ll never leave) IMARAÏS Beauty released their Thrive Lash and Brow Care Gummies on March 10, 2026. Co-founded by Sommer Ray and Aaron Hefter, the plant-based ingestible product was introduced as an alternative to topical lash and brow serums.

IMARAÏS Beauty offers the plant-based, sugar-free ingestible gummy formulated to support and nourish eyelashes and eyebrows from within. Featuring the flavor of natural dragonfruit, with key ingredients including aloe vera, radish root, and rosemary, IMARAÏS Beauty is pinpointing follicle health. Radish root is purported to promote localized blood circulation around the eye area.

Ginger Spark: While IMARAÏS Beauty has had a broader rollout and business milestones (from Amazon to Target and Ulta, and now Nordstrom), along with international expansion, this specificity in solution-oriented beauty is worth watching. As long as lash lifts, nano brows, brow lamination techniques, and extensions are a thing, brands can think about innovations in their categories that can enhance challenging facial features.

Know someone who thinks a tweakment still means a trip to the office? Restack this.

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It’s that time again as we track our callouts and predictions, decoding signal tracking across food, retail, beauty, and wellness. While we’ll often humourously ponder if Vogue or another social entity was listening in on our Gingergeist meetings, we’ve been doing this long enough to confirm, gut-check, and share it with our community.

The following five callouts highlight moments where Gingergeist identified emerging cultural and consumer shifts while they were still forming. Each pairs an early Gingergeist hypothesis with subsequent industry coverage, so it’s less about guessing, more about connecting the dots early.

01 — Raspberry Crosses Categories

A flavor and color unusually portable across industries.

In “Less Filler, More Science, Extra Raspberry,” we flagged raspberry showing up in multiple channels: raspberry syrup at Starbucks, Blue Raspberry toothpaste from Hismile, Rhode’s Raspberry Jelly lip tint, and even raspberry seed oil in haircare products.

Why It Matters: One color and flavor moving through beauty, home, fragrance, and food simultaneously? Sounds like solid proof-point to us.

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Truth be told, Nantucket wasn’t really on our radar. It occupied the same mental filing cabinet as Hyannis Port, Cape Cod, and other expensive New England destinations that felt vaguely interchangeable unless you happened to own a boat or be Kennedy-adjacent.

To us it was all whitewashed shingles, inherited money, and the same tasteful nautical stripe…very Americana, very preppy, insert your chosen Muffy reference here. Was this a place Ralph Lauren made up? Surely his team must scout there.

Admittedly, Michelle also genuinely thought Martha’s Vineyard had something to do with Martha Stewart. Why wouldn’t it? Both names conjure the same white linen, old-money shorthand. But over the last few weeks, this tiny New England island has become the conceptual charming main character in what seems to be one plot point after another. So we decided to do some investigating.

The Hunt for the Nantucket Lightship Basket

At the beginning of summer, leafing through Town & Country Magazine, Michelle found Todd Plummer’s piece, There Once Was a Shop on Nantucket, which examines why thrifting on Nantucket has turned so cutthroat. It was the first of many Nantucket signals this summer. What caught our attention wasn’t the thrifting itself, but what everyone was actually hunting to find. Buried in the stories of collectors “jockeying outside the Hospital Thrift Shop like it’s a contact sport,” extremely Brimfield Market coded, was our introduction to the Nantucket Lightship basket. It’s a handcrafted cane-and-rattan basket, often finished with a carved scrimshaw lid, and it has become one of the island’s most recognized symbols.

Then came the line that really caught us: “A worn Lightship basket elicits more praise than a Birkin.” Hard stop…..what in the Jane Birkin is this basket!? It’s not lost on us that Jane Birkin carried a basket for years before Hermès ever named a bag after her. Naturally, we looked up the price. Ahem, sticker shock!

At Sylvia Antiques, real provenance starts around $750 and climbs past $5,000. The Etsy versions are made by second-career weavers working in the tradition rather than on the island. ShearwaterBasketsCo sells a 6-inch round basket for $325 and a 9-inch purse for $825, while NantucketWeavers offers a 6-inch cherry wood version for $385. Similar techniques and materials, slightly different lineage—hence the gap between prices. Those versions had us daydreaming about swapping our Dragon Diffusion Market Tote for one, before common sense stepped back in. For the record, the 6-inch holds a phone and a lip balm and not much else, so the 9-inch is the only one doing any real work at the farmers market.

@bethennyfrankelA tiny piece of handbag #nantucket #ack #nantucketbasket

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Ginger Spark: We admit it outright, these baskets are absurdly expensive, yet we understand the appeal anyway. Having the perfect one is considered slightly gauche. The dream is really to stumble across one at a Nantucket estate sale or inherit one from a fabulous rich auntie who summered there.

The provenance carries as much weight as the object. Owning one matters less than “getting a nod of approval” from the club of people who can identify one on sight. Which is also the risk. Writer Amy Odell has been asking whether the Birkin has become overexposed, and the Lightship basket may be on the same path, with TikTok doing the work that decades of celebrity sightings did for Hermès.

The Five Star Weekend

Jamie recommended we watch Peacock’s The Five Star Weekend, and it did what a good Nantucket story does: make everyone want to go. Jennifer Garner plays Hollis, a food influencer who invites three friends from different eras of her life to her vacation home, joined by a social media follower who somehow ends up on the guest list. Chloe Sevigny, Regina Hall, D’Arcy Carden, and Gemma Chan round out the cast, though we would argue the real eye candy is Timothy Olyphant. The aesthetic is a Pinterest board given a production budget: quiet luxury interiors, weathered shingle, and Coastal Grandmother filtered through Summer House.

Costume designer Susie DeSanto built the wardrobe from Simkhai, Frame, Ralph Lauren, Reformation, and L.L.Bean, and Lilly Pulitzer followed with a shoppable capsule organized into six themed categories tracking Hollis’s actual itinerary, from the arrival cocktail party to the farmstand run. Lilly has done this before from the other side, dressing Kristen Wiig in an original tangerine shift in Palm Royale, where Alix Friedberg built the whole club palette around Lilly and Pucci prints, then curated a RealReal edit of 600-plus vintage pieces. Believe us, we have put Palm Royale in presentations and on mood boards ourselves.

This isn’t the first time we’ve written this article. Santorini, Miami, Nashville, and Montana have all had their turn, each one arriving as a sociocultural cue, color palette, and a silhouette before it arrived as a plane ticket. The White Lotus runs the same play with a bigger passport, and the Four Seasons Koh Samui reported bookings up 40 percent after season three (watch the French Riviera for Season Four). WWD reports 53 percent of global travelers are interested in screen-inspired getaways, with set-jetting projected to hit $8 billion in the US alone. Nantucket is the domestic version, and the ferry is considerably cheaper than a flight to Koh Samui.

What’s new is the speed to market. Places like this used to be raw material for trend and creative roles, mood boards built around a specific place that took months to reach a consumer through a season of design and production. Now someone can watch the house, screenshot the dress, price the ferry, and order the capsule in one evening.

Nantucket did try to hold the line. In 2006, residents voted overwhelmingly for a Formula Business Exclusion Overlay District to keep chain stores off the island, grandfathering in only a handful, including Ralph Lauren and Lilly Pulitzer.

Ginger Spark: A destination is intellectual property now, licensed in layers from the streaming rights to the capsule collection to the hotel booking. Nantucket wrote a law to keep chains off the island, then watched a show and a resort-wear collection sell the aesthetic to everyone who will never get there. The only question left is which island is next.

No Influencers

There are many shops on the island to note, but the one everyone is talking about this summer is Four Winds Craft Guild, which has been selling handcrafted baskets, purses, artwork, and carvings since 1948. The shop’s actual history stretches back further: John Sylvia’s grandfather founded Sylvia’s Antiques in 1927 (yes, the same one we mentioned up top regarding Lightship bags), which later merged with Four Winds to form the business Sylvia runs today. Earlier this summer, Four Winds posted a photo of a permanent wood sign hanging inside the store reading “No Influencers,” captioned “Came for the friendship baskets, stayed for the shade.” Sylvia insists he made it for people walking past the window rather than for the internet. The internet found it anyway, and the post cleared 10,000 likes before getting reposted across Reddit and by small businesses everywhere.

Influencer Paige Paul, founder of lifestyle brand Dairy Boy, pushed back in the comments almost immediately. She has her own storefront on the island now, Dairy Boy’s flagship and its first-ever retail location, which opened on Federal Street over Memorial Day weekend to a line of teenage and twentysomething shoppers snaking down the brick sidewalk. Paul isn’t there purely for the foot traffic, though. Her grandparents kept a house on Nantucket, and she has been visiting her entire life. She told ELLE Decor the island “shaped my understanding of summer, home, tradition, and East Coast culture,” and called it the most special place in the world. Two businesses, one selling since 1948 and one open since May, both betting everything on the same island, and both agree that it’s worth fighting over.

She may not have been there since 1948. Still, she’s not a total outsider either, and she’s selling the same nostalgic Americana as Four Winds, just through gingham and lily-of-the-valley pajamas (they’re actually quite cute) instead of woven baskets. “If you call yourself a feminist but proudly put up a ‘No Influencers’ sign, it’s worth asking who you are attempting to delegitimize, and why,” she wrote, noting how strange the message reads coming from a store built on a craft with a rich history of women shaping the island and its economy.

As the backlash built, Four Winds posted a follow-up, framing the sign as an invitation to conversation, not a ban: “This is a cultural discussion, one to talk about openly and honestly in your own community.” One verified commenter turned the whole argument around, pointing out that astronomical hotel prices, months-long reservation waits, nonexistent parking, and small businesses steadily converting into chains have done far more damage to the island’s charm than any influencer could possibly instigate.

Four Winds’ Instagram picked up about 8,000 new followers since the sign went up, and per the shop’s own account, the drama also brings in business. Paul’s answer landed Tuesday: a photo from her own Dairy Boy storefront, with a sign of its own. “Everyone Welcome.”

Ginger Spark: Whatever resonates with you—old or new—on an island trading in authenticity, the most honest thing anyone said was “it brings in business,” and that is exactly what happens when an island becomes a brand. There’s really nothing more American than that.

Okay, we are officially all Nantuckered out. What do you want us to look at next?

🔄 Restack if you have ever coveted something purely because someone told you that you could not have it.

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Summer on the island, own a Lightship basket, or have thoughts on the sign? Email us at gingergeisty@gmail.com. We read everything.

Hey Gingergeist readers, thank you for being here and for all the support that keeps this newsletter going. This one goes a little deeper than usual, so part of it sits behind the paywall for paid subscribers. If you've been on the fence about upgrading, this is a good one to jump in for. Either way, we're grateful you're reading.

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The Breakup Nobody Needed

Ulta is leaving Target this August, and the read online has been a “surprising breakup.” The partnership was a pandemic artifact from the start. Ulta’s doors went dark in 2020 while Target stayed open as an essential retailer, and the highly anticipated August 2021 launch solved that moment’s problem, not 2026’s. The buzz was real; over 50 prestige brands rolled into the first 100 stores, and by 2022 both companies had set a public goal of 800 locations. The depth never caught up to the buzz.

Growth landed at 610 stores, nearly 200 short of that original goal, and stayed there through the wind-down announcement. Most of those stores also sit within a few miles of an actual Ulta, so the redundancy was baked in from day one. Five years later, both sides are calling the split mutual because neither wants to say it plainly: this never needed to work long term, and the numbers show it never quite did.

Building Its Own Authority

Target Beauty Studio launches across roughly 600 stores by autumn, pairing 80 existing beauty brands with 60 new to the retailer, on top of the 3,000 products and 60-plus brands (Supergoop, Morphe among them) already added for spring. Over 90 percent of that assortment is under $20, and this is the actual story:

Target’s own framing calls it a prestige beauty destination, not a mass reshuffle, promising “elevated, prestige products and trend-driven innovation across skincare, haircare, fragrance and cosmetics.” That language already had a marketing push behind it: a New York Fashion Week activation at Target Soho, held in February, with Jodie Turner Smith, Rachel Zoe, and Lana Condor among the guests. That is real budget behind a launch, not a quiet shelf reset. The timing tracks with where the category is actually headed: more guests are seeking prestige beauty items, and Circana research found prestige beauty retail dollar sales grew 4 percent year over year to reach $36 billion in 2025. With Beauty Studio, Target is aiming to build authority across both the prestige and mass markets at once, not just backfill the SKUs Ulta is taking.

The rollout copy also promises dedicated, knowledgeable beauty staff and a beauty-specific Circle rewards program, worth side-eye, not face value. Trained staff is the first promise every beauty relaunch makes, and the first to be cut once the labor budget is revisited. Believing it will take more than a press release. The stores are bright, aisles are wide, and the product mix is already showing up on TikTok, proof that someone on Target’s beauty team did their homework instead of just signing off on it. Maybe they read Gingergeist? We flagged this instinct in How Wellness Is Reshaping Retail Strategy in 2026, where Target’s supplement and wellness tech buildout showed the same pattern: infrastructure over spectacle, repeat behavior over discovery theater. Beauty Studio reads like that same playbook applied to the category Ulta is leaving behind.

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Having traveled many a summer holiday to cover the street and retail scenes in St. Tropez, the Hamptons, and elsewhere (those expense accounts are sorely missed), we’re used to the typical pop-ups and summer activations luxury brands use to position themselves. Last Autumn, Gingergeist explored the rise of embedded retail for a post-mall generation. Windowswear recently did a story on Euro Summer 2026, inside fashion’s seasonal pop-up takeover.

We’ve also heard some grumbling this year that activations felt more like a rehash of last season than anything new (a few seemed content to let a stack of branded towels do the talking). We’ll let you draw your own conclusions on which ones. This is how brands build worlds, after all, and world-building is meant to be aspirational. (Hey, we can’t all be Ralph Lauren). But this summer we’re seeing something different, with continuing tariffs and pump prices taking a toll on summer travel budgets.

VB Beauty Brings Portofino to Nolita

Picture Portofino in 1997: Victoria and David Beckham, sun-drenched and in love, on an Italian Riviera getaway that would eventually become a fragrance. (Talking about turning a moment into a scent!) That memory is the whole premise behind Victoria Beckham Beauty’s NYC pop-up, and the resulting Portofino ‘97 fragrance, and a Gingergeist favorite. A limited-time pop-up at Caffè Paradiso from July 16th to 20th celebrated the fragrance and brought the Italian Riviera to Nolita, open to the public at no cost. A special menu featured an exclusive ‘97 Iced Vanilla Bergamot Latte alongside espresso and sweet treats. (Clearly, fashion has an eye on the food and beverage business).

Ginger Spark: Where most luxury brands have gone the obvious route, VB Beauty gave NYC a chance to post OOO with a little piece of Portofino, reimagined for Manhattan. Victoria Beckham’s latest address was where Italian Riviera fantasy met New York polish. Between the citrus-infused Mediterranean decor and a vintage 1972 Fiat 500 display featuring a custom “VB P97” license plate, Posh Spice pulled off something both savvy and budget-friendly for discovery.

At its core, the pop-up bottled a single moment in time, that 1997 getaway, and invited anyone wearing the fragrance to step into it. And what’s more captivating than that? 🩵

Jacquemus: From a Corsican Lighthouse to Terminal 1

After staging the highly anticipated and acclaimed runway presentation Le Bonheur on June 29th in a seemingly impossible location, a path to a 19th-century lighthouse on Île-Rousse, Corsica, Simon Porte Jacquemus did something even more impressive. The very next day, June 30th, the brand opened its first airport boutique at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in Terminal 1. The 45-square-meter shop offers ready-to-wear, leather goods, and accessories.

The French label has been on the vanguard of creative activations from the get-go, popping up in unexpected locations and taking advantage of creative real estate experiences: from opening the lemon-themed Café Citron and Oursin at Galeries Lafayette, to giant bags on wheels in Paris, to an intimate space in Soho with a pop-up truck. This summer, the brand smartly returned to Monte-Carlo Beach (running through September 27th), and to the Jondal Beach Club in Ibiza, offering the Le Bonheur vision of simple summer pleasure, sea breezes, and light.

Ginger Spark: Surprisingly, in a LinkedIn Post, the brand asked, “Where to find us this summer?” and offered a list of seasonal boutiques and destinations. With the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport location, the French label continues to grow its brick-and-mortar network strategically, taking the number of directly operated stores to 21. A huge plus: the comparatively small Terminal 1 location is open from Monday to Sunday, 7 am to 10 pm :) It’s also a savvy read on the traveler herself, who’s just as likely to need a passport as a last-minute swimsuit cover-up. Forgot your beach bag at home, or need something for the flight back that doesn’t scream airport purchase? Jacquemus has you covered, from morning check-in to wherever the night takes you!

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Sol de Janeiro Rides the Brazilcore Wave

“Brazilcore” is a major summer 2026 fashion trend movement, celebrating Brazilian identity (brasilidade) through vibrant color and fueled by international celebrities and sporting momentum. Key style elements include the iconic canary yellow and green national soccer jersey, styled with denim or streetwear. Tropical and handmade-looking textures abound, incorporating crafts like crochet, lace, weaving, and embroidery. Havaianas, tracksuits, and casual crop tops are being embraced, fueled by high-profile artists and models like Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, Tyla, and Hailey Bieber, and brands like Farm Rio are rapidly expanding. Brazil has become big business, so much so that Vogue weighed in!

Interestingly, French L’Occitane Group acquired an 83% majority stake in Sol de Janeiro in November 2021, valuing the skincare brand at $450 million at the time. Sol de Janeiro debuted in the summer of 2015 with a localized, body-positive philosophy inspired by Brazilian beach culture. Its first-ever drop consisted of exactly three items: Brazilian Bum Bum Cream (we love the scent and naming convention), Brazilian Golden Body Veil (later discontinued), and Samba Foot Fetish Care. It quickly grew into one of Sephora’s biggest brands. However, more recently, Sol de Janeiro experienced a bit of a backlash. In early 2026, Sol de Janeiro’s momentum showed clear signs of cooling, marked by ranking slippage at Sephora, a significant drop in online search interest, and executive changes, including the departure of founder Heela Yang. Much of it comes down to competitors like Kayali, Phlur, and Ellis Brooklyn crowding the viral body-mist wave the brand once had to itself.

Cue “Brazilcore” and Sol de Janeiro is back in action!

Launching Body Badalada Lotion, the brand planned global sampling events at Sephora Westfield White City, London, Wembley, and even a Harry Styles Concert, with lotion samples, Cheirosa perfume mist spritzes, and games. Additionally, the brand brought the sampling home, partnering with Sephora for a huge mailer sampling initiative.

Ginger Spark: According to DFNI, Marion Amirouche, Senior Brand Manager, Sol de Janeiro (L’Occitane Global Travel Retail), was quoted as saying: “Travel retail is a natural stage for Sol de Janeiro, where discovery, emotion and unforgettable experiences are at the heart of the journey. These exciting new launches perfectly capture the joyful spirit of the brand, inviting travelers to discover new textures, layer their favorite Cheirosa fragrances and take their Sol de Janeiro rituals with them wherever they go. With innovations such as our first-ever Jelly Perfume Balms and new travel-friendly formats, we continue to bring fresh, sensorial beauty experiences to travelers worldwide while celebrating the confidence and self-expression at the heart of Sol de Janeiro.” As Gingergeist has continued to emphasize, whether at home or away, know where your potential customers may show up, and meet them where they are!

If you know someone who still thinks a pop-up is just a folding table and a QR code, restack this. It's honestly the main way people who haven't found Gingergeist yet actually find us, especially if they've ever watched a brand nail the "meet them where they are" moment and immediately started planning their next trip around it.

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Walk into any Sephora right now, and the shelf tells you everything. Bronzer is gathering dust. Blush is sold out in six shades. The color cosmetic category has quietly staged a coup, and skin-first, low-effort application won. A naturally flushed complexion is no longer the finishing touch on a full face; it’s the whole point of the routine.

We’ve been calling this one since before it had a name. In our BeautyMark Autumn/Winter 2017 forecast, we wrote that draping, applying blush past the cheekbone and up to the temple to sculpt the complexion with peach and rose, was already starting to happen. Years later, the industry finally has a name for the technique we spotlighted back in 2016. Ginger Spark No. 8 flagged it again more recently, calling blush the new makeup darling, heightening the feminine flush across NYFW Fall 2026 collections.

So when Marie Claire UK designated 2026 the definitive Year of Blush, it confirmed something we’d bet on twice already: understanding the formulation and format innovation behind this category is what separates lasting success from a fading fad.

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Red lipstick never really left, but this week it came back loud. Three very different brands staked their claim on the perfect red within days of each other, and none of them are selling the same thing. Sephora crowdsourced a bracket. VIOLETTE_FR sold effortlessness. Ellis Faas sold permission to mess it up. Same shade, three completely different pitches: here's how each one is trying to win you over!

Sephora’s Red Lip Bracket

Sephora didn’t bother easing into it. The subject line cut straight to the point: “QUICK BREAK FROM ⚽ TO TALK ABOUT 💄,” dropping readers into the Chat for hot drops, insider expertise, and one very specific mission: finding the perfect red lip. Social marketer and content creator Natasha took on the search for “the one,” crowning a red lipstick for every category:

• Longest Wearing: Sephora Collection Cream Lip Stain 10 HR Liquid Lipstick in Always Red — $16

• Best Matte: Dior Rouge Dior Forever Liquid Transfer-Proof Lipstick in 999 Forever Dior — $48

• Most Innovative: Haus Labs by Lady Gaga Atomic Shake High-Shine Longwear Lipstick in Maroon-Mulberry Wine — $28

• Best Liner: Hung Vanngo Beauty Accentuating Longwear Lip Liner in New York Red — $24

• Most Comfortable Wear: Maed Signature Lip Pigment Matte Liquid Lipstick in Ritual Red — $36

Land on the product page and you get a full spread of shots plus a video of a woman applying it, declaring “red lips, but make it skincare.”

Maed bills the shade as a universally flattering red balanced with violet undertones, promising bold one-swipe coverage. Cherry coffee seed oil replenishes moisture, jojoba esters smooth things over, and tacuma butter locks in comfort, while a precision applicator sculpts the lip line for wear that holds its shape all day.

Ginger Spark: We're always here for a signature red lip moment, and this one is smart on two fronts. Sephora didn't just simplify the search; it stacked options across budget and niche brands, and the price spread backs it up: $16 for the Sephora Collection stain up to $48 for Dior, with $24 to $36 filling in the middle. That's an actual entry point for everyone, not just a marketing line. And that skincare-first formula language confirms what we've been tracking: lip color keeps absorbing skincare's language and ingredients. Having Natasha front the edit adds a peer-to-peer layer too; this reads less like a retailer pushing product and more like a friend who already did the research for you.

Effortless, But Make It French

The voiceover to VIOLETTE_FR’s Plume Lip ad asks, “Who is this woman? Confident, radiant, and ready to shine,” while text sweeps across the screen: Ultra Blurred Lips, Plume Lip, feather matte lip whip. The backdrop is NYC, but the mood is minimal French: a hotel hallway or apartment building, a trench coat, a straw bag, black oval sunglasses. The model applies the shade using her phone screen as a mirror.

Shade En Feu, which translates to “on fire” (fitting), is described as a warm, fiery red, bright and fresh. VIOLETTE_FR asks shoppers to “forget everything you know about liquid lipstick,” positioning Plume Lip as a feather matte, medium-coverage lip whip with a hydrating, gel-cream texture that cushions the lips and delivers bold color with an ultra-blurred, effortless finish. Built for intuitive, mirrorless application, the formula glides on without tools or precision, staying emollient-rich and comfort-first while nourishing lips through a weightless finish and a 12-hour stain.

Violette’s inspiration:

After launching the Bisou collection, I couldn’t stop thinking about the word Plume, feather, in French. The name lingered in my mind and eventually, a vision took shape: it was something light as a single feather, soft and airy, yet with the strength of powerful wings, color rich with depth. The first expression of that vision is Plume Lip. This formula is such a paradox, it’s bold and tender at once. It gives you a strong color payoff but the feeling and application are totally instinctive. It’s makeup that embraces imperfection, it invites you to play.

Ginger Spark: This lands right alongside Saia’s No Drama Makeup post on Instagram this week, another entry in the “effortless” lip conversation aiming squarely at the cool girl running out the door and still looking chic. Signature color, minimal effort, maximum impact. We’re into the statement feature, but designedbynatalyaponte offers a useful gut check on how the product actually performs: “Bought both reds and they are pretty mid. They are alright but not amazing and probably won’t buy again. Also, within a few weeks, the gold branding and text on the case completely flaked off. They weren’t even handled much or tossed in my bag. Flashy packaging that doesn’t hold up.” There’s always room to read the comments and wear test for life.

Ellis Faas Colors Outside the Lines

One of Gingergeist’s favorite brands, Ellis Faas, keeps inviting its audience to play on another level. This week, an upside-down male model with a smeared red lip anchored a caption that read, “Some people feel safe with instructions. Others prefer coloring outside the lines. If it doesn’t turn out how you wanted, grab the eraser and start over.” The week before, Ellis Faas released a video of children playing with the brand’s signature metal packaging, drawing all over their own and each other’s faces.

Perfectly timed for summer, the brand asked, “Don’t you ever miss that feeling of discovering things for the first time as a kid?” and explained further: “One sunny afternoon in Amsterdam, we propped open the door, stuck a sign outside, and invited passing kids to come in and play with our products.” Ellis Faas herself (1962 to 2020), named one of the most influential makeup artists of her generation by Vogue Paris, put it simply: “Just experiment. If you don’t like the result, simply remove it and try again, because, for crying out loud, it’s only makeup.” Marc Jacobs said something similar during his recent makeup line relaunch.

Ginger Spark: When we covered The Makeup Show NYC, Ellis Faas stood out for living in that rare space between professional-grade and genuinely consumer-friendly. This new marketing plays right into that positioning, mixing newstalgia with a dose of whimsy that sophisticated beauty offerings often skip entirely. We had the privilege of watching Ellis Faas do her lip artistry in person, and she was, without question, a huge fan of the red lip. Every shade she created was derived from humans and nature, and one red became so spectacular the brand nicknamed it Ellis Red. She was also known to laugh about being called “Ellis Fast,” a nod to how quickly she could turn a face around backstage.

The real question is texture:

• Creamy Lips (L101): traditional, full coverage

• Milky Lips (L201): slightly transparent

• Glazed Lips (L301): non-sticky gloss

• Hot Lips: ridiculously pigmented, for anyone who wants maximum payoff

The Ellis Red Set bottles the same blood-red shade across Creamy, Milky, and Glazed, wearable solo or layered together. Why commit to one texture when the set hands you all three?

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Pitti Uomo and Paris Men’s Fashion Week just wrapped during one of the hottest summers Europe has seen in years, and the heat was doing more than making headlines. At the Maison Kitsuné SS27 “Urban Glide” presentation, the first model opened the show by misting his face with thermal water spray, a moment we flagged last week as a signal worth watching. It was a small gesture with a larger implication. Men are moving well past soap-and-water, trading in the bare minimum for something closer to a full skincare ritual. The industry is growing fast enough to confirm this is not a moment. It is only getting started.

Market Boom, Cultural Shift

According to Fortune Business Insights, the global men’s grooming market will surpass $85 billion by 2032. NielsenIQ data show men’s personal care sales in the U.S. grew 4.2 percent in 2025, outpacing total beauty’s 3.3 percent growth. Hair growth, hair spray, and skin exfoliants each grew at 15-plus-percent clips. Circana reports that men’s prestige fragrance sales rose 5 percent over the last twelve months, now accounting for 32 percent of the market.

The cultural story behind those numbers runs deeper. WWD has noted that internet-native young men have driven a surge of grooming interest, while older consumers have approached it from a longevity angle, building more considered routines around prevention and maintenance. Nearly 68 percent of Gen Z men now use facial skincare, a number that would have seemed unthinkable a decade ago.

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Like so many shifts that emerged from the pandemic, our relationship with nostalgia has only grown stronger, and even six years later, the ripple effects are everywhere. Bloomberg reports that food is in a “newstalgia” spiral, with Datassential finding menu appearances of the “Creamsicle” flavor up 37% over the past four years. Wendy’s Orange Dreamsicle Frosty, Sonic’s Orange Cloudsicle Slush Float, and Coca-Cola Orange Cream have all joined the revival, while dirty martinis, ice cream floats, and Baked Alaska are making the rounds once again. We had to laugh at that last one. Baked Alaska seems to stage a comeback every few years, and after years of trend forecasting, we’ve learned that when it shows up, it’s usually not traveling alone.

The most interesting part is that many Gen Z consumers don’t even realize these are throwbacks. In a recent Datassential survey, 68% of Gen Z respondents described twice-baked potatoes as “extremely new & different” or “very new & different.” That’s the magic of newstalgia. If your audience has never seen it before, it’s not retro; it’s a discovery. That’s exactly the lens we’re bringing to this week’s fragrance and lifestyle launches, where familiar ideas are returning with fresh packaging, a new audience, and, inevitably, a TikTok account.

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Meet Lil Softie

Apparently we’re all one bowl of cereal away from emotional support fragrance, and Lore certainly seems to agree. The brand’s latest campaign pairs dreamy cartoons with couches that dissolve into pillow-like clouds and cozy cereal milk daydreams. The LORE World website extends the fantasy, inviting shoppers to become a “Lil Softie.” Available online and exclusively at Sephora, the fragrance, housed in a striking sculptural bottle, is described as “…a cocooning cashmeric musk, with notes of pink pepper, cereal milk, ambroxan, cotton musk and us. Made warm, addictive and soft in all the right places, so you can be a Lil Softie too.”

We wrote about the rise of lactonic fragrances back in February, but the category hasn’t slowed down. If anything, it’s getting even more specific. Snif’s recent 2% Milk + Cereal collection has been generating buzz across social media, with reviewers comparing it to “cereal milk soft serve.” One commenter even joked that the original milk fragrance icons, DedCool Milk Xtra and DedCool Milk, suddenly smelled like nothing by comparison. The milk wars have officially begun!

Ginger Spark: With another sweltering summer, it’s no surprise that fragrance is leaning toward cooling, comforting notes. Milk, ice cream, and cereal all evoke a kind of edible relief, even before you spray them. What’s especially interesting is the increasing specificity. Calling something “2% milk” instead of simply “milk” creates an instant visual, emotional, and sensory cue while giving the fragrance a distinct point of differentiation. Snif describes its 2% base as “a creamy, sweet milk scent with notes of fresh dairy, vanilla, praline, and caramel,” designed to be worn alone or layered with the brand’s three nostalgic cereal-inspired body mists. Turns out, the dairy aisle has become fragrance’s latest mood board.

Cola Addict

Whether it’s called Americana, newstalgia, or the Lana Del Rey effect, cola has become more than a drink. It functions now as a cultural reference point. Between the rise of dirty sodas, functional alternatives like Olipop’s Vintage Cola, and a broader fascination with familiar flavors and symbols, cola has quietly bubbled back to the surface. This week’s launch from Seoul-based niche fragrance house BORNTOSTANDOUT lands at exactly the right moment. It also reinforces a pattern we flagged in 2023: South Korea remains one of the most exciting forces in fragrance, a signal we traced in our Symrise piece on East Asian fragrance innovation.

Launched this week at Sephora under the line “your favorite soda, now a scent,” Cola Addict Eau de Parfum opens with effervescent cola foam, lemon, lime, and cinnamon, then settles into notes of caffeine, dark rum, vanilla, and caramel. BORNTOSTANDOUT built its name on provocative fragrances, unconventional names, and sculptural bottles inspired by traditional Joseon Dynasty white porcelain, a lineage the brand has carried since founder Jun Lim launched the house in 2022. The result reads less like cracking open a can of soda and more like bottling the memory of one on a sweltering summer afternoon.

Ginger Spark: BORNTOSTANDOUT teased the launch on Instagram with the line “COLA ADDICT? GOOD. WE WILL MAKE IT WORSE.” The caption paints carbonation prickling like static on the skin, cold sweetness slowly dissolving into vanilla cream and dark rum, a scene built entirely around sensation rather than ingredients. Sephora frames the fragrance as “stimulation stacked on stimulation,” noting that cola ranks among the world’s most successfully engineered pleasures, built on sugar, caffeine, acid, and bubbles, with every element designed to keep drinkers coming back. Legacy soda brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi keep searching for new growth levers, yet the flavor itself has already escaped the can. It shows up now in functional beverages, beauty, and a broader wave of sensory nostalgia. The craving stopped being about cola. It became about the feeling cola represents, reimagined for a generation that wants its memories delivered with a luxury finish.

Forever Blooms (by Play-Doh?)

This week, Hasbro announced the launch of Blooms by Play-Doh, a line for adults, marking its entry into adult crafting and home decor. According to Brian Baker, Senior Vice President for Play-Doh, the kits are intended to offer “a more elevated, hands-on way to slow down, get lost in the process and create something beautiful you can enjoy long after you’ve made it.” Over half of toy growth between January and April this year came from women, according to a recent report by Circana. Furthermore, overall toy consumption is being led by adults, with consumers aged 18 and over accounting for 35% of the total industry growth. Sensory-focused items are a driver of acceleration within the product category.

For more than 70 years, the Play-Doh brand has been synonymous with hands-on creativity for kids and families. Blooms by Play-Doh builds on that legacy, using the familiar compound to create intentional, lasting pieces. The line also represents a broader step forward for Hasbro as it expands beyond traditional play to engage fans across life stages. Once complete, the floral creations can be preserved and displayed as decorative pieces made entirely by hand. A key innovation is the inclusion of a specially formulated finishing spray that helps maintain the flowers’ structure over time, allowing arrangements to be enjoyed for months.

Starting at $24.99, Blooms by Play-Doh kits in a range of sizes and styles are now available at Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Select items from the line will also be live on TikTok Shop on July 16th, marking the Play-Doh brand’s first product debut on the platform, meeting consumers where they actively discover and engage with creative content. Each kit includes everything needed to complete an arrangement, including Play-Doh compound, tools, molds, a vase, and finishing spray. How-to videos for each kit are available on the Blooms by Play-Doh YouTube channel. For more information, follow the Play-Doh brand on Facebook, Instagram (note Millie Bobby Brown’s endorsement), and TikTok.

Ginger Spark: Kudos to Lego for seeing this movement coming. It introduced its first botanical collection in 2021 as part of its Lego for Adults range. Blooms lands at a moment when adults are rewriting the rules of “play.” Hasbro’s research among 10,000+ adults globally found that roughly one in seven turns to arts and crafts specifically for stress relief, while nearly 80% of Gen Z and Millennials report burnout, fueling demand for creative outlets that feel calming and purposeful. Gingergeist covered the playful, sensorial packaging trend hitting beauty back in May. A Play-Doh collab with the right beauty brand would be an event unto itself.

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Every summer we pull together the books actually circulating among us, the ones getting recommended in group chats and passed across tables with a “you need to read this immediately.” Whether you are on a beach, a plane, or just pretending you have somewhere to be, this year’s stack runs from a sun-soaked Italian escapade to corporate satire set in outer space, with a tradwife thriller, a psychological murder mystery, and a decade inside a Chicago gang in between.

Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer, Jamie’s Pick

An aspiring archivist determined to begin a “serious” life takes up residence as all-purpose assistant to the Baronessa in the Italian countryside, and serious goes out the window almost immediately. Gin-swilling princesses arrive. A married man complicates everything. The crumbling villa has its own agenda entirely. Pulitzer winner Greer has written a bawdy, sun-soaked escapade that somehow doubles as a genuine meditation on identity, the kind of book that reminds you that becoming who you’ve always wanted to be rarely happens on schedule or on your own terms. David Sedaris called it the funniest novel being written in English right now, and Jamie would not argue. Take this one to the beach and plan to stay longer than you intended.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, Michelle’s Pick

A tradwife influencer with millions of followers wakes up in 1855 and discovers that the life she performed online bears no resemblance to the one she is now required to actually live. Burke’s debut is a GMA Book Club pick and a New York Times bestseller, and it is already being adapted as a film starring Anne Hathaway. What makes it genuinely good rather than just timely is Natalie herself. There are moments where you understand her completely, and others where she gives you the ick in the most deliberate, purposeful way. Burke never lets you get comfortable with either feeling. Sharp commentary on modern womanhood and motherhood, dressed up as a propulsive thriller. The grand performance of womanhood has never looked quite this sinister.

His and Hers by Alice Feeney, Gabrielle’s Pick

A woman is found murdered in a small English village. The BBC newsreader assigned to cover the story is the detective's ex-wife, and someone is lying about everything. Feeney structures the novel around the idea that there are at least two sides to every story, which means someone is always wrong about what they think they know. Alice Feeney is a master of the twist, and she knows exactly how to drop a reader's jaw before the halfway mark. Gabrielle came to it through the Netflix series with Tessa Thompson and immediately went back to the book, which tells you something. The twists are genuinely shocking, and you will not see them coming.

Gang Leader for a Day, Sudhir Venkatesh, Aliza’s Pick

A young sociology grad student walks into one of Chicago’s most notorious housing projects armed with a clipboard and a survey, and gets held hostage within the hour. He comes back the next day with better questions and stays for nearly a decade. Venkatesh’s years embedded with the Black Kings reveal something no academic paper could: the crack trade runs like a corporation, complete with interns, lieutenants, a board of directors, and a CEO who also settles disputes, negotiates with police, and keeps the building’s lights on. The pull of the book is watching him walk the line every researcher faces, close enough to understand the world he’s studying but never so close that he stops observing it and starts belonging to it. His friendship with gang leader JT is the beating heart, two ambitious men from different worlds figuring out what they owe each other.

Dungeon Crawler Carl, Brittany’s Pick

A man and his ex-girlfriend’s cat survive an alien corporation’s complete destruction of Earth and must compete in an intergalactic reality show to stay alive. Zany but genuinely heartfelt, the series pulls from all corners of genre fiction and wraps it in sharp corporate satire with a surprising amount of soul. It also asks, seriously, how you would survive a goblin-infested dungeon with your newly sapient cat. Brittany is a self-professed nerd, so the books were always going to find her eventually, but the recommendation actually came from her sister-in-law, who is not nerdy in the slightest. The characters and unbridled creativity were enough to keep her hooked anyway. Brittany has also been listening on audio, where the lively production makes even the most mundane chores feel like an event.

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Something has shifted in what we reach for throughout the day, and it isn’t just the usual coffee pick-me-up. Drinks have become their own wellness ritual, with consumers hunting for options that feel as health-conscious as they are satisfying, without giving up the dopamine hit that soda and alcohol used to deliver. And the beverage brands have noticed. They’re building more functional formulas while nailing the aesthetics that Gen Z and Alpha expect at first glance. Below, we break down three categories of drinks people reach for throughout the day, plus a few entries from our own Daily Sips list.

The Hydration Handoff

For a lot of people, coffee comes before food, not after. The Long Run built hydration into that first cup instead. One of the newer names in the functional coffee space, it blends the electrolytes sodium citrate and potassium gluconate directly into its grounds, a combination it says improves hydration and helps keep energy steady. The amino acid L-Theanine is commonly used to offset caffeine’s jitters, answering one of the oldest complaints about coffee.

Matcha has become the go-to alternative for people looking to skip the caffeine crash altogether. Strawberry Matcha is everywhere on Instagram right now; its pink and green layers are built for the scroll. Matcha carries caffeine too, though it’s often described as releasing more slowly, easing the transition off coffee without losing the lift. Demand now outpaces what Japan can produce: production tripled between 2010 and 2023, and producers still struggle to meet the surge, with new tariffs on Japanese imports pushing prices even higher. The price stings close to home too: $7.25 for the smallest Matcha Coconut Cloud at L’Insolent Cafe in West Nyack, just north of Manhattan in the Lower Hudson Valley. None of that dents the appeal. That cup delivers what feels like a small dopamine hit dressed up as self-care, and the pillowy green swirl turns an ordinary errand into main-character energy.

This summer, coconut water became the go-to mix-in for both matcha and espresso-based drinks. Coconut water contains key electrolytes, namely potassium, which can support hydration during the summer heat. New York City spots like Matchaful, Bake Culture, and Rhythm Zero have their own versions on offer, with flavors ranging from Ube to Strawberry and beyond. The format is traveling well beyond the city too. One creator recently recreated her own coconut water matcha at home after discovering the drink at a cafe called Common Supply in Australia.

Ginger Spark: Hydration is a key part of feeling like your best self, so incorporating it into your morning dopamine routine is becoming increasingly common. In this same vein, whole foods and traditional ingredients, such as matcha powder sourced from Japan, are heavily favored by Gen Z and Alpha as they start their day. These drinks are also built with another audience in mind: the feed. With social media serving as one of the main marketing channels for younger generations, cafes are adding bright pops of color to match the aesthetics of the spaces they occupy, no matter the zip code.

Perks You Can Pour

Somebody in workplace experience got a budget, and the office fridge is the proof. Generic soda and gas station energy drinks didn’t make the cut, pushed out for something with better branding and an actual health halo. In their place: Olipop, Poppi, Wildwonder, local cold brew from names like Rise and La Colombe, and adaptogenic hydration. The $2.49B office coffee service market sells itself on the cost of keeping employees on-site, pitching premium coffee and snacks as a reason to actually show up. Employers are installing high-end machines, and WeWork brought in on-site baristas across 26 of its buildings through the social enterprise Change Please.

The drink selection isn’t random, and neither is the audience. Beverage providers catering to specialty and adaptogenic tastes are well positioned to retain younger workers, at least on paper. Citi’s lead beverages analyst, Filippo Falorni, told Fortune that pre- and probiotic soda now accounts for roughly 2% of the US soft drink market, close to $820M, with growth more than doubling in the last year. It’s moving into workplaces through micro-markets and “breakroom of the future” setups aimed squarely at Gen Z. That’s where the Gen Z selection actually lives, as a retention play rather than a taste profile. With employers pushing remote workers back to their desks, the office fridge doubles as a return-to-office strategy.

Except the numbers say the strategy isn’t landing the way employers hoped. Nearly half of hybrid workers (44%) admit to coffee badging: swiping in, grabbing the free coffee, and leaving before the workday really starts. Three out of four companies say they’re struggling to stop it. The office can buy the coffee run, but it can’t buy the return.

Ginger Spark: Highsnobiety’s recent Status Economy report found that 71% of Cultural Pioneers now see groceries as a form of cultural capital. The office fridge is stocked with groceries and a badge reader, and employees are reading it whether leadership means them to or not. As a fully stocked fridge becomes a baseline perk rather than a bonus, employers are already raising the stakes, adding subsidized meals and fitness centers to buy more than a coffee run’s worth of loyalty. Whether that buys anything more than the fridge did remains to be seen.

The Ritual Without the Buzz

Count the drinks at a table of 25-year-olds tonight, and chances are a few of them won’t have alcohol in them. That doesn’t mean the table’s boring. Some are zebra striping instead, alternating a cocktail with a mocktail throughout the night rather than cutting alcohol entirely. The pullback comes down to two pressures: one about the body, one about the bill. Bars have noticed. Ordering off the mocktail menu now gets the same care as ordering a cocktail.

Brands know the swap is happening, and they’re building for it. Hiyo, De Soi, and Recess Mood load their cans with ashwagandha, lion’s mane, L-Theanine, and magnesium, selling the ritual without the next-morning tax. TRIP built an entire adaptogen sparkling line on the same bet. The functional beverage market is on course to reach $250B globally by 2030. The catch: a Geisinger physician notes the claims about stress and sleep behind these adaptogens still need rigorous research to back them up.

Then there’s the can that’s neither beer nor mocktail. Cannabis drinks read the same in the hand at a backyard party, and the swap is measurable. A 2026 University at Buffalo study found people who picked up cannabis drinks cut their weekly alcohol intake by roughly half. The category is splitting into lanes: seltzer swap, cocktail swap, social spritz.

Functional drinks have also opened up a fourth lane: the sleepy girl mocktail. Calee Shea first posted the combination on TikTok: tart cherry juice and Olipop, and it went viral again after creator Gracie Norton added magnesium powder to the mix. The blend is designed to calm you down and help you sleep, and it’s already become a category of its own, with brands like Vitamin Shop and Moon Juice creating their own versions.

Ginger Spark: What’s really happening here isn’t a rejection of any one substance; it’s a shift toward picking effects on demand. The same person swaps in caffeine for one hour, magnesium for another, and THC for a third, treating each drink as a dial rather than a default. The brands capturing Gen Z’s attention are the ones building for that specificity. Ritual built its own answer to the sleepy girl mocktail, a ready-to-mix magnesium powder designed for the wind-down end of the dial. Woodstock Goods’ THC seltzers sit at the opposite end, built for the social high rather than the quiet one. Functional drinks have stopped being a passing fad and started acting like a toolkit, one where the consumer picks the tool to match the moment.

Gabrielle and Aliza do double duty at Gingergeist, marketing and regulatory reporting on one hand, resident Gen Z experts on the other. So when we promised a Daily Sips list, we handed it straight to them. Here's what's currently living in their heads rent-free, no theory attached, just what they're actually drinking!

Before you close the tab: if something in here felt true, restack it. That is how Gingergeist reaches the Cultural Pioneers who haven’t found us yet.

🔄 Restack if you’ve got a drink in rotation that’s outlasted every trend around it.
❤️ Like it so the algorithm works in our favor for once.
📧 Forward it to the friend who’s been zebra striping before it had a name.
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The Avène Thermal Spring Water spray has lived in our bags for longer than we can remember. It shows up at work, on planes, at the beach, and most recently on a hotel vanity shelf in the Baltics, where it once again earned its place after a week of sun, salt, and cobblestones. It is one of the most in-the-know items you can pull out of a cosmetic case; it’s chic, cheap, and cheerful — a 1.6-ounce can still costs about $10, and it works after cleansing, after sun, on a burn, and, yes, on a cute tushy for a mini.

Interestingly enough, last week Maison Kitsuné opened its Spring/Summer 2027 runway show during Paris Men’s Fashion Week with a model casually misting his face. Presented during a documented heatwave, the collection explored the realities of dressing for a hotter planet, making the gesture feel less like styling and more like a reflection of where culture is headed. We weren’t surprised…we had already started putting this story together back in the spring.

People have been traveling to thermal springs for their skin since long before skincare became an industry. By the early nineteenth century, Napoleon had commissioned a thermal hospital in La Roche-Posay to treat soldiers with skin conditions, although the therapeutic reputation of the region’s mineral-rich water dated back centuries. Eventually, those same waters were bottled at the source, and what was once a destination became something you could carry.

What separates thermal water sprays from everything else on the mist shelf is provenance. Each traces back to a specific spring with a documented history of skin benefit, and that source is, quite literally, the entire product. The French pharmacy versions are where most people start, and for good reason. Avène draws from a single spring in the south of France, backed by over thirty years of clinical research, and is recommended for everything from post-cleansing care to burns and sun exposure, long before the beauty industry invented the facial mist. La Roche-Posay has been drawing from its selenium-rich spring therapeutically since the 18th century, and Vichy’s Mineralizing Thermal Water travels a different path, forming over centuries from the volcanoes of the Auvergne and arriving naturally rich in 15 minerals.

But the category extends well beyond France. Omorovicza’s Queen of Hungary Mist (this is one we love, though at $99 for the full-size and $33 for the mini, it sits in a different tier entirely) draws on Budapest’s historic thermal spring system, where the tradition of balneotherapy stretches back centuries. And Terme di Saturnia’s Mineralizing Thermal Mist comes from volcanic springs in Tuscany, with a mineral profile centered on sulfur and a proprietary thermal plankton extract that sets it apart from anything bottled in France.

Dr. Adeline Kikam of Brown Skin Derm gives us two tips worth keeping. Provenance genuinely matters because the anti-inflammatory properties come from the mineral content itself, which means not all sprays are created equal. Spraying before a hyaluronic acid serum also improves absorption, since hyaluronic acid works better on damp skin, and chilling the can before use adds an extra anti-inflammatory effect by counteracting the vasodilation caused by heat and sun. What she is describing is not marketing language but straight chemistry, and it changes how you use the product.

Why It Matters: The thermal water spray is one of the few beauty categories where the history actually justifies the product. The facial mist market got overcrowded and over-claimed. Thermal water never moved. When a model opens a Paris Men's Fashion Week show by misting his own face, it is not a styling choice. It reads as a signal. Wherever you are headed this July 4th weekend, stay cool and consider this your permission to pack one, we promise you won’t regret it!

Before you close the tab: if something in here felt true, restack it. That is how Gingergeist reaches the Cultural Pioneers who haven’t found us yet.

🔄 Restack if you have a beauty staple that’s outlasted every trend around it.

❤️ Like it so the algorithm works in our favor for once.

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💬 Drop your signal in the comments. The sharpest ones become the next edition.

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This week, three familiar beauty categories made unexpected moves. Lip care reinvented its format, a basic haircare tool became a status object, and a cult shade expanded into a full collection. Packaging, positioning, and color all have something to say right now.

ChapStick Gets a Tube-Over

WWD asked the question we didn’t know we needed answered: “Can Lip Tubes Make ChapStick Sexy?” In a surprising rebrand, the heritage lip balm unveiled a new format as lip care continues to boom. The brand’s original Classic Lip Moisturizer with SPF 15 accounts for roughly a quarter of the business. So why take a solid seller, literally, into a different format in 2026?

ChapStick invented the lip care category in the 1880s and has been expanding its portfolio with innovative ingredients, skincare benefits, and flavors ever since. Today, it is the leader in lip care, synonymous with the product category, #1 by volume for its parent company, Evermark, and has over 80% brand awareness. In 2024, Yellow Wood Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm, acquired ChapStick in its fifth corporate carveout in four years.

The data made the decision. In the Instagram post accompanying the WWD story, Evermark CMO Rachel Behm noted that tubes are up 27% from 2022 to 2024, and that the original stick format “was not serving our customer in the way that we could with a squeeze-tube format.” The goal, she added, was to “honor our heritage of hydration from a functional standpoint” while having more fun with packaging and flavors. HydraBalm delivers 24-hour moisture in cherry, vanilla, and guava, plus a fragrance-free option, and could comprise up to a quarter of ChapStick’s business.

HydraBalm rolls out this summer across ChapStick’s full retail footprint, including Target, Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Amazon, and several dollar-store chains. In tandem, the classic lip balms received a subtle design refresh alongside new bundle themes, including a Mocktails trio, a Vacation Getaway Collection, and an Ice Cream Collection. Between now and then, the brand is building fandom fast: a sponsored post with Knicks point guard Jose Alvarado during the NBA Finals, 24,000-plus products sold through TikTok Shop, and a deepening investment in social.

Ginger Spark: ChapStick isn’t operating in a vacuum. Summer Fridays, EADEM, Ole Henriksen, and rhode have spent the last few years owning the lip care conversation with tube formats and luxury positioning. HydraBalm is clearly a competitive answer. But ChapStick’s differentiator has always been price, and it isn’t abandoning that: HydraBalm retails at $4.29 for a two-pack at Target, undercutting Vaseline’s Lip Therapy tubes at around $5 and e.l.f.’s viral Squeeze Me lip tubes at $5 each.

What makes this move interesting is that ChapStick has something its competitors don’t: over a century of brand recognition and the kind of household-name equity that money can’t manufacture. The squeeze-tube format gives it a chance to modernize without abandoning the heritage, tapping into a growing consumer appetite for more tactile, controlled, and playful application experiences that we tracked in Ginger Sparks No. 19. The question isn’t whether ChapStick can compete. It’s whether a $4.29 tube can carry the same cultural weight as a rhode lip treatment.

Your Hairbrush Is Now a Status Symbol

The hairbrush has evolved from a simple utilitarian tool into a massive luxury status symbol. Driven by the “skinification” of hair, high-end vented and boar-bristle brushes are the newest flex item on the vanity shelf. Dyson Airwraps and luxury skincare make room. On X, Vogue reported on this direction, noting that hairbrushes have transformed from simple grooming tools into modern luxury items as brands innovate to capture market share.

Driven by consumer obsession with scalp health and damage prevention, the hairbrush is officially the latest micro-luxury flex. What used to be a basic $10 drugstore buy is now a high-end investment piece. The OG $225 Mason Pearson Bristle and Nylon Brush remains the ultimate status symbol, known for lasting decades while evenly distributing the hair’s natural oils. Newer entrants like La Bonne Brosse and Crown Affair have turned brushes into bonbon-like vanity accessories. The real innovation lives in flex technology, with flexible bristles that contour directly to the scalp. Manta (around $30) uses patented Flexguard technology to massage the scalp, minimize snagging, and stimulate blood circulation, at a price point that makes the flex genuinely accessible.

The entry point matters more than it looks. McKinsey’s 2024 Global Consumer Sentiment Survey found that 72% of consumers report adjusting their spending, substituting high-cost items for lower-cost alternatives except in categories they deemed “self-care” or “identity-reinforcing.” Millennials and Gen Z, priced out of the traditional markers of adulthood, aren’t foregoing pleasure. They’re redirecting it into things they can actually buy and display. Call it avocado toast for the scalp if you want, but Millennials perfected that logic, and Gen Z inherited it. The behavior is the same, and it isn’t going anywhere.

Ginger Spark: Celebrity hairstylists and beauty editors consistently praise what a quality brush actually does: high-end flexible brushes stimulate the capillaries, promote healthy hair growth over time, and are highly favored for detangling delicate hair types, from fine hair to extensions and tape-ins. Manta goes further with an ergonomic, dexterity-friendly design that photographs as well as it performs. At price points ranging from $30 to $225, the entry point is wide enough to make the flex democratic. Similar to Erewhon hauls, luxury brushes are the newest vanity-bragging-rights item. Next up: bodycare.

When One Shade Becomes a Brand

On June 24th, Clinique launched a limited-edition Black Honey Collection, complete with an eyeshadow palette, mascara, and nail polish. The website reads: “Go all in on Black Honey. Your go-to for lips, now for lids, lashes and nails.” The brand’s SVP of Global Marketing, Christie Sclater, explained how Black Honey has remained culturally relevant for five decades because it felt timeless rather than trend-driven. Clinique co-founder Carol Phillips famously described it as the “black turtleneck” of lip color: effortless, versatile, and universally flattering. “It doesn’t ask consumers to become someone else,” Sclater adds. “It simply brings out their version of the shade.”

Black Honey joins a very short list of beauty shades asked for by name, alongside Chanel Vamp and Linkin Park After Dark. These aren’t products so much as cultural shorthand, the kind of color that gets texted to a friend or screenshot-saved for years before a purchase. This isn’t the first time a major beauty brand has expanded a hero shade into a full collection; consider the NARS Orgasm Collection or the more recent success of RMS Crystal Slipper. But Black Honey earns its expansion because the inclusivity argument holds. As the YSL Beauty lavender blush controversy made clear when TikTok creator Golloria George and others called out the lack of flattering shade ranges for women of color, one color doesn’t suit all. Black Honey, by design, works differently. Sclater told The Cut that the new campaign says it plainly: “Black Honey Everything, Everywhere. The Difference Is You.”

GingerSpark: The nail inclusion is well-timed. According to Circana data for 2025, artificial nails are growing faster than any other nail category, surpassing traditional polish in sales for the first time. Healthy-looking nails are becoming one of the strongest luxury signals right now, and a shade like Black Honey, which enhances rather than masks, translates that same logic directly to the nail. Color is no longer just aesthetic. It is a strategic brand differentiator, and Clinique just proved it.

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We’ve been waiting for the right person to take on the part of beauty no one wants to read and everyone should: the law. The fine print on the label, the reason your favorite ingredient is legal in Seoul, and the reason it’s missing at Sephora.

Meet Aliza. She’s applying to law school, reads the primary filings for fun, and is taking over the law corner of Gingergeist. The Fine Print translates the regulation shaping beauty, fashion, and wellness into something you can use, starting with why your suitcase comes home from Europe heavier than it left.

One ground rule: Aliza isn’t a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice. She reports what a rule says and what got filed, never what you should do, and flags when a question needs a real attorney.

Now, the sunscreen.

Let’s talk about the section of your suitcase stuffed with your Euro pharmacy haul. Two kinds of packers, two kinds of heartbreak. Check a bag and the sunscreen explodes somewhere over the Atlantic, coating every outfit you own in SPF. Fly one carry-on only, like me, and the haul never gets that far: it dies in the security bin, a liquids dump at the gate. Michelle’s one wish for the June girls’ trip to Europe? A pharmacy run. Cue the panic!

Michelle and Jamie have written before about why our cabinets fill with sunscreen we never bought at the local CVS. From Korean hauls to Paris pharmacy sprees, sunscreen is the cult travel buy for those in the know. Nobody really explains why. Short version: the US added no new sunscreen active ingredient after 1999, Congress tried to fix it in 2014, and the ingredient the FDA finally proposed in December 2025 came through a different door.

Worth knowing what sunscreen actually fights, because it’s two rays. UVB burns. The American Cancer Society pins most sunburns and most skin cancers on it. UVA skips the burn: it penetrates deeper, hangs around year-round instead of spiking in summer, and ACS ties it to wrinkles and to some skin cancers. The catch is that the bottle measures SPF, which primarily rates UVB. A high number tells you how well you won’t burn, and nothing about the ray doing slower damage. The label that covers UVA reads “broad spectrum,” and a US sunscreen can skip that test and still sell, as long as the fine print admits it prevents sunburn, not skin cancer or aging. Europe closes that gap. The US shelves mostly leave it open.

Sunscreen: cosmetic, drug, or both? The US and the EU answered differently. The US went the drug route, citing sunscreen’s intended use as disease prevention (skin cancer) and a skin-altering product. Classification by intended reaches further than sunscreen: the same item can count as two things. Massage oil sold as a lubricant or fragrance is a cosmetic. Sold therapeutically, a drug.

Drugs are split into two classes: New Drug Applications (NDA) and Over-The-Counter (OTC). Sunscreen formulations, as OTC products, fall under the FDA’s OTC monograph system, a pharmaceutical cookbook listing pre-approved ingredients and formulations considered generally recognized as safe and effective (GRASE). The 1999 monograph, which never fully took effect, carried a “finalized list” that set SPF 30+ as the maximum labeled SPF value for monograph sunscreens. In 2002, the Time and Extent Application (TEA) process gave companies a path to pitch new ingredients for inclusion on the OTC list. The framework remained in effect, with at least eight TEAs pending by the time Congress noticed. The consequence? The active-ingredient list American formulators worked from dated to 1999.

The Sunscreen Innovation Act (SIA), signed on November 26, 2014, was meant to put the FDA on a clock: bipartisan legislation that set strict statutory deadlines for safety and efficacy review. In 2018, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found all eight applications stuck in the backlog. The FDA wanted more safety and effectiveness data on each one: human clinical studies, efficacy studies, and the robust submissions OTC drugs require. Timelines rotated, but nothing underneath moved. Sunscreens are drugs that require drug-grade data. The freeze held.

Years before any of that, one brand had already found a side door. In 2006, L’Oréal walked La Roche-Posay’s Anthelios SX through the FDA’s new-drug application route, winning approval for ecamsule, a UVA filter Europe and Canada had sold as Mexoryl SX since 1993. The catch: the FDA cleared the finished products, not the ingredient itself, so ecamsule never joined the monograph, and no other US brand could use it. One filter, one company, one very expensive door.

The OTC monograph order request (OMOR) process, created under the 2020 CARES Act, restructured the framework around sponsor fees and direct industry filings. Industry sponsors set the pace instead of the agency. Fifteen months later, on December 12, 2025, the FDA issued a Proposed Administrative Order, the first proposed order it ever issued in response to an industry-initiated OMOR. The proposal: bemotrizinol (BEMT) at concentrations up to 6%, for adults and children six months and older.

“The agency has historically moved too slowly in this area, leaving Americans with fewer options than consumers abroad. We’re continuing to modernize the regulation of sunscreen and other over-the-counter drug products,” said former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, M.D., M.P.H. “Americans deserve timely access to the best safe, effective, and consumer-friendly over-the-counter products available.”

Luckily for us, on June 9, 2026, the FDA issued the final order adding BEMT to the OTC monograph, the first ultraviolet filter added to the US monograph list in two decades. European and other global markets already use BEMT widely, including versions from Eucerin, Avène, La Roche-Posay, and Bioderma.

BEMT is the ingredient that answers that gap. The FDA’s order finds it works across both UVA and UVB and barely sinks into the skin, which is what broad spectrum means. For twenty years, US sunscreen has stayed good at stopping the burn and weak against the rays that age you, and don’t take the winter off. BEMT doesn’t raise the SPF number. It fills half of the spectrum that the US kept skipping.

What does that mean for your shelf and your suitcase? Nothing yet. The final order takes effect August 9, 2026, the day BEMT becomes legal to use in a US sunscreen, not the day a bottle with it lands at your CVS. Manufacturers still need to formulate and test so that the US shelves won’t change overnight. Adding BEMT moves the US one filter closer to the EU’s extensive Annex VI list. Formulators abroad already work from that larger palette.

It also explains the disappearing act on your own shelf. Beauty of Joseon sells a reformulated US version, while its original ships from overseas, and the originals keep moving through resellers like YesStyle, where importing a foreign-filtered sunscreen sits in a legal gray area. The tug-of-war between the formula you want and the one you’re allowed to buy is its own story. More on that, soon.

Why It Matters: BEMT is the first filter added to the US list since the late 1990s. The reason readers like you carry sunscreen home from Paris isn’t that European chemists are better. It’s the classification difference between cosmetics and drugs, and a single 1999 choice that set the pattern. The December 2025 BEMT order is the first evidence that the framework is starting to unclog. Whether it clogs again, on which ingredients, and how fast, decides what the next decade of American SPF shelves looks like. The signal showed up in December, and the confirmation in June. The rest shows up at checkout.

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See you in the fine print. Aliza

Something is shifting in how people decide what deserves their money. Three reports landed in the last few weeks mapping the same instinct from three different angles: aesthetic consumers, beauty-routine trade-offs, and the grocery cart. The conclusion across all of them is the same: spending isn’t disappearing, it’s being reassigned. Trading the luxury bag for Botox isn’t a sacrifice; it’s a preference. The beauty routine gets audited, and the recurring upkeep loses. Store-brand staples fund the collagen smoothie. What reads as austerity from the outside is, in fact, a very deliberate hierarchy, with beauty, wellness, and aesthetics at the top.

You Wear Your Face Every Day

A new Allergan Aesthetics report puts a number to a feeling most of us already have: 53% of consumers say they’d cut luxury spending to afford aesthetic treatments. The bag, the vacation, the designer anything, all negotiable. The Botox appointment, apparently, is not. Among younger adults surveyed, 62% say satisfaction with their appearance shapes their mental well-being, and 53% say the same about their physical well-being.

Sacramento NP Shawna Chrisman, one of the practitioners cited in the report, tells NewBeauty that her patients have crossed a threshold: “Consumers increasingly view aesthetic treatments as an investment in themselves rather than a traditional luxury purchase. Many patients are willing to reallocate discretionary spending toward treatments that deliver lasting personal value and help them feel their best every day.”

The logic underneath that isn’t vanity, it’s math. You wear your face every single day. The handbag stays in the closet. Gen Z and younger Millennials, per the report, aren’t trying to look different anyway. They’re trying to feel like themselves, and they’re willing to fund that over almost anything else.

Ginger Spark: Once a category gets filed under “self” rather than “luxury,” it stops being the first thing people cut. Culturally, this is the moment aesthetics finishes its migration out of the “indulgence” column and into the same mental real estate as therapy, wellness, and the gym: things you justify because they make you functional. For retail, that migration has a direct cost. Luxury goods are no longer competing against one another for discretionary dollars. They’re competing against Botox, and Botox is winning on ROI.

The Glow Down, Itemized

The other side of that same instinct now has a name, courtesy of Bustle: the Gen Z Glow Down. When salaries are flat, and rent isn’t, the beauty routine becomes the most accessible line item to negotiate. What’s interesting is what happens next: the negotiation turns into a full reckoning.

The standing balayage appointment goes. So do the gel sets, the wax, the fake tan, the full-size perfume. What stays is what feels like an investment rather than upkeep. A 29-year-old quits eleven years of blonde after one $400 Manhattan salon visit and redirects the money to skincare and a quarterly spa day. A 26-year-old content creator applies cost-per-use math to everything: the $450 CurrentBody LED mask and the $119 Crown Affair brush make the cut, regular manicures don’t. “I hate when I feel like I need to maintain something,” she says. The goal, in one subject’s own words: “an absolutely lethal face card.”

Ginger Spark: The thing getting cut isn’t beauty, it’s the maintenance economy: the model built on monthly rebookings, standing appointments, and products you run out of and repurchase on autopilot. Gen Z didn’t abandon their routines; they audited them, and the recurring service lost. What survives is anything that makes the appointment unnecessary, the device that replaces the facial, the tool that eliminates the treatment. For brands, the question is no longer whether your customer will spend. It’s whether your product makes you indispensable or replaceable.

Generic Pantry, Premium Ritual

The same trade shows up at checkout. A First Insight study from this spring found that 59% of Gen Z actively trade down in one category to fund a premium in another, pulling back on food, beverages, and household goods to spend on health, wellness, and beauty. Nearly a third buy private-label or store-brand food to save money; 42% have shopped for groceries at Dollar General or Dollar Tree in the past month; and yet, when asked to rank brands by actual purchase preference, Gen Z still puts national brands first in every category.

They know the brand, but they just won’t pay for it when the savings can go somewhere better. Since buying a home is increasingly out of reach, the grocery cart has become the new status symbol, and Business Insider mapped exactly what that looks like: the $19 Erewhon smoothie packed with collagen and sea moss, the $500 haul that “I cannot live without.” Andrea Hernández calls it “gentrified groceries.” Are you a Fishwife-tinned-seafood, biodynamic-wine kind of person, or a cold-pressed-juice, Lemme-gummies girl? “I just have to check your Instagram story,” she says. Store-brand pasta in the pantry, superfoods in the bag. “Everything is content. Everything has to signal something.” Some savvy, sustainably-minded Gen Z go a step further, embracing the perfectly imperfect of Misfits Market and Imperfect Foods. These services prioritize value in “groceries sourced for flavor, not appearance.”

Ginger Spark: This isn’t frugality, it’s allocation. Gen Z knows exactly what it’s doing: commoditize the boring, premiumize the identity. The staples fund the ritual. For food and beverage brands sitting in the middle, the indifferent national brand that’s neither cheap enough to win on price nor meaningful enough to win on identity, this data is a quiet emergency.

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We're handing the mic to our Marketing and Social Media Director, Gabrielle, for a special one this week. As she plans her own wedding in historic St Andrews, Scotland, she makes the case for vintage bridal, the trousseau, and dresses that carry real memories instead of trend-of-the-season polish. A beauty-focused part two is on the way, so stay tuned.

The modern wedding dress has a problem it won’t admit: it’s beautiful, but it’s blank. Clean, low-back, interchangeable, the same three silhouettes on my feed. The brides that I find the most interesting are reaching backwards instead, towards lace with weight and real-craftsmanship behind it, cut-outs that mean something, a small sentiment stitched in where only she knows. That line may be a little biased, as I myself am one of them. I’m getting married in St Andrews, Scotland, the place my fiancé and I met, in a town old enough to make a brand-new dress feel slightly out-of-place.

Today, brides are leaning more towards particular over perfect, with small, intimate details replacing the “traditions” of the past few years. Some of the biggest names in vintage and archival bridal are in New York, and more and more brides are coming to them looking for a dress that doubles as their something old. Wanting that backstory is the same impulse stretched a bit further. A bride choosing a dress that means something isn’t shopping anymore; she is authoring her day and the dress is just the start. Once you’re curating instead of shopping, two things follow without anyone deciding them on purpose. You want a piece with a story that can’t be faked. And you want more than one of them.

The single perfect wedding dress was not always the norm. For most of history a bride had her trousseau, a whole wardrobe assembled for the occasion and beyond. The one-gown wedding is the anomaly throughout history, a 20th-century compression of something that used to have range. What looks like brides wanting more dresses, is really brides remembering they were supposed to have a full wardrobe all along.

Pinterest, most brides first stop after the ring hits their finger, has released their 2026 Wedding Trends Report. Last year people made over 7-billion wedding related searches and saved 16.7-billion pins globally, while calling the cookie-cutter wedding finished. GWI found that couples were increasingly drawn to celebrations that reflect who they are, rather than what is expected of them. And to no surprise, the wardrobe is following. According to Google Trends, search interest for a second look or “reception dress” has increased steadily over the past several years, a moment many trace back to Meghan Markle changing into a second gown after her 2018 ceremony.

So I stopped planning a dress and started planning a wardrobe, with three looks alone for the wedding day.

Along with getting married in Scotland, my Senior and Masters theses revolved around dressing the past and the stories behind garments, so looking at this season’s dresses was never something that crossed my mind.

My ceremony dress is the jaw-dropping one. Think drop waist, a big skirt with heavy draping, ivory tones, and workmanship that deserves to be inspected closely. The hunt for the base of this dress has led me to Happy Isles, SoHo location. Lily Kaizer opened the brand in 2016 in LA and has since expanded to New York, setting the vintage bridal salon standard ever since. As to why she believes that brides are now looking for vintage, Kaizer told ELLE “Vintage bridal is the perfect marriage of smart shopping and sartorial elevation. It also checks a lot of boxes: Something old, something borrowed, and if you go with Madame Grès at Happy Isles, something blue”.

After the base has been chosen, that is when it starts to get turned into mine. The lace and buttons are from my mother’s wedding dress. I’m not a lace person by default, which is exactly why it has to mean something. Inside, where no one will see it, the coordinates of the chapel at St Andrews to go with our wedding date and our initials. It’s a dress that already carries the memories of the past and now has the address of mine. That is the only kind of new I want.

If the ceremony dress is about everything it carries, the reception dress is about what it can drop. I want to pair back and let the lines of the garment do the talking. A silk slip, cut on the bias with an open back and a sleek piece of fabric draping down my spine. An ethereal piece that beckons to the past without truly being able to be pinned down in one decade. Studio Dorothy is the store I am the most drawn to for this piece because of the sentiment behind their business. The studio is named after the founder’s grandmother and is located in their families apartment in the city. The slip dress is one of the most quietly enduring vintage silhouettes there is, and I feel like this setting does the gown justice.

As we move into the look for the afterparty, this is where things start to get fun. I’m still deciding between a jumpsuit or a two-piece but either way it will be beaded and Cha Cha Linda Vintage in Brooklyn is exactly where this piece lives. Following the last two dresses, this is the look that is allowed to misbehave, the one that is allowed to stand out from its settings. A piece that has memories of parties past and is perfect for the bride veering off the traditional route. Cha Cha’s social media accounts are full of beaded, colorful looks, each one more fun than the rest.

Three dresses, three eras, one instinct. None of them are from this season. All of them hold memories, which is the only true quality for which I’m shopping. And, none of this is just me. Vintage is doing to bridal what it already did to everything else; making newness feel like the least interesting option in the room.

Zola’s First Look Report recently came out and it found that 17% of couples are thrifting or sustainably sourcing their wedding looks, up 3% from the year before. The push for vintage has begun to get so big that David’s Bridal, one of the biggest bridal retailers in the country, has begun reaching back into their own archives. “Exclusivity is the number one luxury”, said Lizzie Wheeler, Studio Dorothy’s founder to Who What Wear earlier this year. “And as style becomes more and more referential, people start to think, ‘Why wouldn’t I want the original version.’”

Obviously my fiancé and I chose our venue before I started looking at dresses. That is what truly explains all of this. St Andrews isn’t just where we met and went to Undergrad. It’s a deeply historic town tied to the Scottish Reformation and whose University was founded before our country was technically discovered. This isn’t a rented castle we’re dressing up for images. This is a historic Chapel, in the heart of St Andrews quad, that sits maybe 20 feet from where we first met. It’s our personal history. This is the part that the trend reports tend to miss. A vintage dress isn’t something a bride chooses on a whim. It is what happens when she starts favoring her story and crafting her day around that, rather than this season’s latest style.

The wedding dress lost its memory somewhere along the way. I’m not fixing that with one dress. I’m doing it with three: a return to the Trousseau with sentiment stitched in. And I’ll be honest, newness and polish were never going to survive a town this historic anyway.

This week, beauty couldn't stop borrowing. Brands dressed up as tech giants, moonlighted as TV studios, and time-traveled to Old New York, all to sell a feeling instead of a face cream. Here are three brands renting someone else's playbook to build their own myth.

The Apple of Their Eye

Recently, an Instagram post from COMIS, the Swedish beauty-tech brand (launched in 2021) known for its nanotechnology, misting devices, and self-tanning capsules, caught our attention. With prominent logos for Vogue, Elle, and InStyle, the post read, in all caps, “THE APPLE- PRODUCT OF TANNING.” Hmmmm… Where had we seen something like this before? Michelle quickly recalled the 2014-to-2016 era. In our consulting days, “the Uber for ___” showed up in roughly every other deck that crossed our desks, usually somewhere near the word “disrupt.” Interestingly, back in February 2023, COMIS had launched disposable skincare pods, touted as a “Nespresso for beauty” concept.

And they’re far from alone. Foreo has frequently been dubbed the “Apple of beauty devices,” known for premium pricing and design-focused engineering. APR, the South Korean company behind popular skincare devices like Medicube, made global headlines for its device-led strategy, with the founder openly stating the goal of building the “Apple of beauty tech.” Glossier went a step further and actually built itself like Apple. With minimalist, unboxing-forward packaging and a cult following that grew 600 percent year over year, it turned product drops into keynote-style launches, complete with fans sleuthing trademarks to guess the next release. Founder Emily Weiss even dreamed of "a beauty brand whose sweatshirt you wanted to wear."

Ginger Spark: When beauty brands compare themselves to Apple or Nespresso, it's a strategic branding tactic to shift consumer perception. By aligning with these iconic tech and lifestyle giants, they position themselves as modern, design-driven innovators rather than just makeup and skincare sellers. But there's a difference worth noting: some brands earn the comparison by building devotion (Glossier), while others borrow the name in a caption. The borrowed halo is the point, either way, invoke a brand people already trust, and you inherit a shortcut to credibility, desirability, and often permission to charge more.

Now Streaming: Your Favorite Beauty Brand

We’re still riding the high of the Marc Jacobs Beauty relaunch (covered in last week’s Ginger Sparks No. 24), but another recent Marc Jacobs Instagram post caught our eye for a different reason. It’s leaning into one of beauty’s fastest-growing social trends: serialized and episodic content. Brands are practically auditioning for the entertainment industry now, producing multi-part, narrative-driven content instead of one-off ads. Case in point, just before the Met Gala, Marc Jacobs dropped an episodic social series and campaign called “Question Marc,” written by and starring comedian Rachel Sennott.

And they aren’t the only ones writing a season. Earlier this year, beauty social leaned hard into comedy. Tower 28 brought on an actual TV writer to create a branded sketch series, The Blush Lives of Sensitive Girls, “a Tower 28 Original,” and the self-aware, pop-culture-savvy writing sent its engagement rates climbing.

Ginger Spark: If a brand isn't thinking in episodes yet, it may be leaving a real connection on the table, because storytelling is the hook. The format has even drawn comparisons to Latin American telenovelas and the booming world of micro-dramas, those short, vertical videos built for mobile feeds that run on heavy melodrama, rapid-fire cliffhangers, and the occasional forbidden romance. Creator @camillemoore breaks down this very Marc Jacobs post and explains why brands like CeraVe, Unilever, e.l.f., P&G, and Alexis Bittar are smartly betting on social-tainment. At this point, everything is content, and the lipstick is just product placement in its own ad.

Bottled Nostalgia

Allure recently spotlighted El Morocco Perfumery, a fragrance house inspired by one of New York City’s most legendary nightclubs. Founders Isaac and Lillian set out to bottle the glamour, escapism, and sense of belonging that defined a bygone era, and they’re refreshingly open about how nostalgia, storytelling, and a deep respect for the club’s legacy shaped every choice along the way.

From there, El Morocco Perfumery poured that same feeling straight into its social, carrying a piece of Old New York into the present through both the scents and the way they’re framed. One of their early posts leans all the way in: “Beckons adventure! Hints of intrigue! A daring fragrance collection with all the glamour of the internationally known sophisticates who sip champagne in the zebra-striped setting. Be first to thrill to the spicy excitement of it!”

Ginger Spark: The nostalgia is clearly landing. One devoted fan, @jessiejessup, put it better than any campaign could: “I just received mine yesterday and when i tell you i SCREAMED 😍😍😍 … it instantly reminded me of Proust, who famously wrote that ‘perfume is the last and best reserve of the past.’ … I am but a mere tater tot. Thank you again, profusely. You fill my heart and senses with rapture😍❤️👃”

El Morocco Perfumery had us with the vintage-inspired Travel Discovery Set, but the intersection of Art Deco packaging and duality of American swing/Latin music is simply transformative.

Brain health is deeply personal to both Michelle and me. Our grandmothers were each impacted later in life, and that experience has stayed with us both. As Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month runs through June, we want to bring attention to the intersection of brain health and beauty, because the two are more connected than most wellness conversations acknowledge.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, a woman’s estimated lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer’s at age 65 is 1 in 5, compared to 1 in 10 for men. One in nine people over 45 experiences subjective cognitive decline. More than three in five unpaid Alzheimer’s caregivers are women, and women account for nearly two-thirds of all Americans currently living with the disease. An estimated 7.4 million Americans age 65 and older live with clinical Alzheimer’s dementia today. Without intervention, that number could reach 13.8 million by 2060. The Alzheimer’s Association encourages visitors to take the (re)think your brain™ 6-Step Challenge for a simple guide to better brain health.

“Brain rot” Isn’t Just A Meme For Gen Z

It’s also a medical concern. A 2025 Yale School of Medicine study shows that many young adults have recently reported challenges with memory and thinking. For 18-34-year-olds, the rate of “self-reported cognitive disability” jumped from 5.1% in 2013 to 9.7% in 2023, outpacing the rate among adults overall, which jumped from 5.3% to 7.4% over the same 10-year period. These cognitive issues could reportedly have major societal and economic consequences, such as costing the global economy $1.3T due to potential impacts on workplace productivity. These issues are often attributed to long-term exposure to devices, social media, and short-form content. Young adults are already increasingly craving screen-free moments and taking up offline hobbies, so these stats might continue to push them away from racking up screen time.

Interestingly enough, for older adults, the picture is more nuanced. Researchers who analyzed dozens of studies found that people over 50 had a 58% lower risk of cognitive decline if they regularly used phones, tablets, or computers. The Washington Post points to what researchers call the three C’s: complexity, connection, and compensatory behaviors. That includes digital crossword puzzles, staying in touch with friends, or even using GPS navigation. So do not roll your eyes the next time grandma sends you a reel.

Supplements To The Rescue

To support cognitive function and mitigate issues, brands like Neuriva (which we wrote about in our recent Costco dive) and Prevagen have become common aids. As the topic and the surrounding confusion continue to grow, GoodRx and other media outlets have recently sought to shed light on the best supplements for brain health. With a family history of Alzheimer’s and dementia, I have long looked to supplementation as preventative care. That journey began with krill oil, chosen for its astaxanthin content and high concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA), which work together to combat brain inflammation. More recently, Andrew Lessman’s Ginkgo and Ginseng Capsules have been a consistent part of my routine, offering the highest-quality standardized extracts of two of traditional Eastern medicine’s most treasured botanicals. His Memory & Brain formula has also been well worth noting.

A few years ago, while trying to make sense of her “mommy brain,” Emma Heming Willis, wife and caregiver for actor Bruce Willis, had her doctor introduce her to the concept of brain health, two words that completely changed how she approached her overall wellbeing. She quickly learned that when she prioritized her brain, the rest of her body followed. That shift simplified her wellness journey and inspired the creation of Make Time. In the wake of Bruce’s frontotemporal dementia diagnosis, she found a new purpose. While navigating multiple supplements that were time-consuming and out of reach for many, she and co-founder Helen decided to turn that frustration into a global conversation and product line. Make Time is now available at Target, The Vitamin Shoppe, and Ulta, with a one-and-done daily powder and gummies designed to simplify and democratize access to brain care. Quality sleep is also a critical factor in supporting cognitive health.

The New York Times recently reported on the topic with The Mushroom Gummies That Claim to Stimulate Your Brain. The piece focuses on WonderDay Mushroom Gummies by Plant People, a Unilever-backed startup whose founders say it is already the number-one bestseller at the California cult grocer Erewhon and has since expanded into Target, Sprouts, and Whole Foods. Other recent brain health entries take a broader systems approach, like Cymbiotika. Thorne Brain Factors works with coffee fruit extracts and BDNF, a substance the body produces naturally to support the growth of brain and nerve cells, while also increasing NAD+.

Speaking of coffee, a now-classic option I keep coming back to is Moon Juice Brain Dust, which includes a recipe for Brain Butter Coffee that combines the Dust with 8 oz of hot coffee and 1 tablespoon of ghee or coconut oil. And for a younger audience that is increasingly dealing with cognitive concerns, Codeage’s Teen Brain Focus Vitamins+ is worth knowing about, featuring Cognizin, a patented, well-studied form of citicoline, alongside L-theanine, magnesium, and a B-vitamin complex, formulated specifically for teenagers aged 12 to 18.

The category momentum behind all of this is real. A May 2026 SPATE Wellness and Functional Foods Trend Alert found that functional-focus gummy supplements are among the fastest-growing segments in wellness right now, still early in adoption but gaining momentum quickly. Interest in focus gummies has grown 217% year over year, with TikTok driving 44.5% of the popularity share, itself up nearly 390% year over year. Brain fog is the primary concern consumers associate with the category, indicating that people reaching for these products are frequently seeking support for a very specific issue. Key ingredients gaining traction include acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter linked to memory, learning, attention, motivation, and arousal, and lion’s mane, an adaptogenic mushroom associated with cognitive support. Leading brands include Olly and Lemme Focus, both established wellness names with broad supplement ranges.

Why It Matters

We genuinely hope that women’s cognitive health becomes a standard part of the annual well-woman visit, creating earlier opportunities to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s and related dementias. The beauty and wellness industries are already moving into this space faster than medicine can keep up, and the brands paying attention right now are the ones that will own this conversation for the next decade. Brain health deserves the same serious, beautiful, dare we say playful attention that skin, sleep, and hormones have already received.

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Recent strategies for Low, Mid, and High-End Tiers: from affordable South Korean beauty and the Marc Jacobs relaunch to plastic surgeon-developed clinical care to a beyond-exclusive luxury reformulation.

Olive Young and Marc Jacobs Beauty Embrace Whimsy

South Korean beauty retailer Olive Young recently made its U.S. debut in Pasadena, California (part of a broader U.S. expansion) and drew a weekend crowd of around 6,000 visitors. The 8,647-square-foot flagship devoted to brands like Anua, Torriden, and Mediheal, also offered a free skin analysis service, along with much-loved Korean bagel chips. The playful approach and displays allow customers to explore more than 5,000 products from roughly 400 brands. At the entrance, a “Top Picks” display spotlights three ranked products: Round Lab’s Birch Juice Moisturizing Sun Serum as number one, followed by Rejuran’s Dual Effect Ampoule, and Foodology’s Coleology Cutting Jelly. Olive Young has a strategy of pairing a U.S. or local brand with K-beauty brands, here promoting Southern California’s 1996-born Urban Decay, known for bold colors, extreme glitter, and rebellious, tongue-in-cheek product names. The store also emphasizes discovery and education through product testers and a central “Cleanse Bar,” as well as a Hapa Kristin color contact lens station staffed by an eye care professional and a pink “Charm & Minis” section geared toward younger shoppers.

Similarly, highly anticipated Marc Jacobs Beauty (which had closed abruptly in 2021) is relaunching with a 72-piece collection, spanning from eyeliner to lipstick, all focused on fun and maximalism. Featuring redesigned, playful packaging and naming, and affordably priced between $26 and $42 USD, the line is available directly on the Marc Jacobs site or at Sephora. As Jacobs has been quoted as saying: “ It’s makeup. It has no gender, it has no age. It’s makeup. Enjoy it.”

Ginger Spark: Similar to when Gingergeist covered the Diesel Fall 2026 Collection and reviewed as “giving one-year-old playpen meets South Beach estate sale 🧸,” Olive Young and Marc Jacobs Beauty recognize the need for a toy-adjacent merchandising approach and aesthetic. This is something we also recently explored in our packaging, Ginger Sparks, and is amplified by the why of this @algumbranding Instagram post on The Era of Distorted Packaging. We’ll be curious to see if the designer, famously known for his nails, debuts nail products soon!

The Metacine Effect

Legions of A-list celebrities and beauty enthusiasts follow Beverly Hills facial plastic surgeon Dr. Jason Diamond. Best known as the secret weapon behind Hollywood’s flawless, camera-ready skin, he has a massive, loyal following. Recently, Dr. Diamond expanded his popular Dr. Diamond’s Metacine skincare line with EyeLift. The $225 (automatic refills drop the price to $202.50) bioserum is designed to firm, lift, and contour both the under-eye area and upper eyelids without surgery. Inspired by his signature in-office treatments, this targeted treatment uses advanced technology to tackle multiple signs of aging. The formulation harnesses a “Bioremodeling Peptide Multiplex”, reported to stimulate collagen and hyaluronic acid synthesis, while preventing the breakdown of structural proteins. A Retinoid-Hyaluronic Acid Complex accelerates skin renewal and regeneration while providing a topical plumping effect. Botanical Blends features a targeted blend of ingredients like arnica, daisy, and chestnut seed to actively reduce dark circles, under-eye hollowing, and puffiness. The anticipation was so high that the website started a waitlist for Spring 2026. You can purchase the EyeLift treatment and explore the rest of the Contour Collection directly on Dr. Diamond’s Metacine store or at authorized luxury beauty retailers like Violet Grey or Bluemercury.

Ginger Spark: Eyelift was featured in Forbes as coming from “the brain of a renowned plastic surgeon.” In The Violet Files by Violet Grey Dermatologist, Dr. Dendy Engelman reviewed the product as “magic,” and EyeLift Bioremodeling Peptide Multiplex by Dr. Diamond was officially VIOLET CODE APPROVED. The clinical and professional positioning, combined with a product extension on an already successful line, spell success. The chic, neutral-with-red-pop packaging is reportedly inspired by his renowned in-office procedures. The bottles are designed with striking, multi-angular shapes and textured elements that mimic microneedling, and red-tinted formulations that resemble platelet-rich plasma (PRP). Eyelift is the first treatment in the CONTOUR COLLECTION, inspired by the Doctor’s non-surgical Diamond Facial Contour procedures. We’ll be watching for more entries!

Champagne Prices for Wine Dreams

Leave it to the French to turn grapes into an elusive and exclusive beauty debut. Dior, which has five international scientific centers and 650 medical and academic collaborators, has developed a “Skin Longevity Compass,” based on a study involving 300,000 human cells and 12,000 genes. Dior has doubled down on developing and promoting ingredients that can prolong skin health and optimal function. Dior’s L’Or de Vie, the house’s most luxurious skincare range, managed to extract a fungus that concentrates the sugar in grapes. Dior has isolated compounds that promote skin longevity by eliminating oxidative stress and activating NAD+ production.

Ginger Spark: This isn’t the first French line to harness the power of grapes and “vinotherapy,” however, this new version of La Crème (previous versions were in 2020 and 2024) comes at a hefty price - $1785.00 for 1.7 oz. According to Dior’s website, it’s a “cosmetic masterpiece,” taking over 600 hours of formulation and nearly 100 trials to create this exceptional cream. Inspired by the exceptional powers of longevity of the Yquem Golden Grape, L’Or de Vie La Crème is highly concentrated in Golden Drop™Life Technology. With the Town & Country hyper-exclusivity positioning, combined with the inaccessible price point, we might take issue with - as the transparent ingredient deck begins with water, and don’t get us started on the jar vs. airless packaging :(

Last weekend, we made the pilgrimage to Field + Supply’s Spring Market.

Technically, it was still Spring. But between the brisk air, the Hudson River views, and everyone dressed as though they had stepped out of a Ralph Lauren Autumn campaign circa 1998, it felt October-adjacent in the best possible way (strangely green and golden at the same time).

Held at Hutton Brickyards along the Hudson River in Kingston, the market feels cinematic before you even walk through the gates. Hutton is a Riverfront Hotel and Event Venue built on the grounds of a former industrial brickyard, the kind of place where you can book one of their riverside king cabins, eat at the River Pavilion, and watch people windsurf on the Hudson before noon. Founded by interior designer Brad Ford in 2014, Field + Supply gathers over 250 makers and designers twice a year under the property’s original soaring kiln sheds. The vendor mix runs genuinely wide: furniture and lighting, ceramics and tabletop, apothecary, candles and scent, bath linens, apparel and jewelry, pantry goods, and original artwork, most from the Hudson Valley and Northeast, though a handful traveled from as far as Texas. Making a full weekend of it, with a cabin on the river and live music in the background, is entirely the right call.

Calling it a market doesn’t quite capture it. Field feels more like a physical manifestation of a creative ecosystem that has been forming quietly for years.

We spent the day doing what Jamie and I have spent years doing at trade shows, showrooms, and brand events: talking to founders, asking too many questions, discovering new brands, and quietly documenting the people who caught our eye. A small confession: long before Gingergeist existed, we spent years attending industry events together, secretly taking street-style photos for internal trend presentations. Somewhere in our archives are hundreds of slides labeled things like “look at her shoes” or “who is carrying that bag.” If you spot yourself in our camera roll, know it’s entirely out of admiration. For one afternoon, we felt like Scott Schuman with slightly less patience.

What struck us wasn’t any single booth or category. It was the collective point of view. Field is not commercial in the traditional sense. Nobody seemed particularly interested in what was going to be a best-seller. The aesthetic language felt rooted in something older and more deliberate: heritage, craft, Americana, utility, natural materials, collected interiors, well-worn clothing, and a certain romanticism about how life could be lived. This is exactly the kind of place the Ralph Lauren design team would come to get inspired. Some of them probably did. And more than a few of the people behind these booths once sat in those same design meetings. How referential.

What made it especially compelling was how personal it all felt. Many of the founders we met were former New Yorkers who had relocated upstate in search of space, studios, workshops, and a different pace of life. They haven’t rejected the city. Most still maintain a relationship with it, returning regularly for inspiration, work, community, or a healthy dose of chaos. But they are building something else up here, and you could feel it in every conversation. Upstate Curious has become the community shorthand for exactly this kind of migration, and the energy at Field felt like its physical expression.

Nobody was talking about scale first. They were talking about materials, process, sourcing, craft, technique, and obsession. One founder walked us through the provenance of a reworked vintage garment as if it were a piece of archive. A ceramicist told us how the colors of the trees surrounding her cottage became the palette for her entire collection. Another told us she had been a loyal customer of the business long before she bought it. Michelle’s husband, Dane, inevitably found himself giving unsolicited marketing advice at least once, proving that consultants truly never clock out.

And that's perhaps the most interesting signal. For all the conversation about AI, automation, optimization, and endless digital consumption, there remains a deep appetite for things made by actual people with actual points of view. The brands that stayed with us knew exactly what they were. Turns out that's the hardest thing to copy.

Below are the brands, people, products, and moments that caught our eye.

Note: This post is long. For the full roundup, including all the brands, people, and street-style moments, read it on Substack.

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Field + Supply returns October 9 through 11 at Hutton Brickyards, and we will be there with the same energy and considerably more layers. If you have lost faith in shopping, this is the antidote. The kind of discovery that reminds you why you cared about beautiful things in the first place. Subscribe to Gingergeist, and we will see you there.