Welcome, friends, to the first Mirror Mirror Newsletter!
I am THRILLED to be back to long-form content. My soul has been missing the written word, the long-pauses of a deep conversation and the growth of new synapses. While I love short-form videos, my mind has been feeling stagnant. It’s been five years since I left my beauty blog (BOND EN AVANT for those of you who remember it ;) ) behind and entered the world of 15-30sec videos. But now I’M BACK to writing and deep conversations on the podcast and couldn’t be happier!
You’ll find in this weekly newsletter what’s catching my eye in beauty marketing, trends, business — I don’t hold back in #TWDT — noteworthy beauty innovations, and podcast updates! The Mirror Mirror podcast dropped a few weeks ago and I’m so grateful for all your reviews, ratings, listens and shares! The launch of the first theme “Can I Afford To Be Beautiful?” was bigger and better than I had expected (thank you!) and hopefully set the stage for you to see where I’m going with this podcast — exploring the tough conversations, the unsaids, the things you say to your girlfriends, but perhaps hold back from saying online — I want to go there. And will continue to do so as the season unfolds!
Tomorrow’s episode is one I’m especially excited for. My conversation with Catt Sadler is fun, raw, and very human (I love Catt). We talk about her facelift, the hard conversations she had before and after surgery with the people closest to her, and some of the less-talked-about side effects — including temporarily losing control of her ability to chew food (!). I can’t wait for you to hear it.
Before listening, make sure to catch up on the Expert Deep Dive with Dr. Truesdale, a Beverly Hills board certified facial plastic surgeon, trained at the University of Pennsylvania — it’ll give you great context going into the Catt episode!
- Amy
Listen to last week’s episode of Mirror Mirror with Amy Chang →
Mood Board: This Week Visually
#TWDT — what made me do a double take.
Cocokind Olipop Collab: Cocokind nailed it with their Olipop Ceramide Lip Blur Balm collab. Love the flavors and the hydrating, deeply nourishing formulas. Best drugstore lip balm in town. There I said it. For more…
Apple Mac Launches Ring Light: Apple launched Edge Light and it’s changed my life (or at least my zoom calls). I now look less Tim Burton character in the mornings and more bright-eyed and bushy with their latest built-in video effect that creates a virtual ring light on your screen! This is the best thing to come out of the latest macOS Tahoe 26.2 software update! Read more at Forbes…
Olive Young at Sephora: When I heard the rumors over the summer that Olive Young was coming to the US, I quietly wondered if they’d eat Sephora’s lunch… Sephora must have been thinking the same thing because it’s extremely savvy of them to instead of competing with Olive Young, bring them into their fold and roll out shop-in-shops of Olive Young inside of 650 US/Canada Sephoras. Why compete with them when you can profit from them. Win, win for both companies imo. Read more at Forbes…
Will Retailers Drop Peter Thomas Roth? Why are we even debating this? Peter Thomas Roth’s brand needs to be pulled from retailers. After seeing Peter Thomas Roth’s name pop up in the Epstein files, there has been calls from social media influencers, Reddit threads, consumers in the discourse for PTR to be pulled from retailers. Whether it happens or not is to be seen. If retailers decide to stick with the skincare founder whose emails to Epstein indicate a close friendship, it will only be a matter of time before the sales drop so low that they’re forced to pull the brand from shelves, so whether they do it now and earn the respect of their consumers for doing the right thing OR wait for money to dictate their morals — I predict it will happen either way. Because there is no one in the beauty industry who will promote this brand ever again. I for one, will never touch a PTR product for as long as I live. Read more at Beauty Independent…
Do We Even Need Glossier To Reset? Do we even want Glossier to come back? Glossier is in full reset mode having just brought in a new CEO, Colin Walsh, and cleaned house with a hefty round of layoffs. But it seems clear to me that Rhode has filled their seat at the table as the minimal, easy, cool-girl brand and unless they can evolve to meet the desires of the millennial girl who once coveted the brand but now finds them ill suited for a 40s+ life —- they serve no purpose and its an inevitable march towards brand death. Read more at Puck News…
Erewhon Is Getting Into Botox? This whole collab reads Costco optical and I’m shocked Erewhon doesn’t see it. Erewhon just partnered with LA medspa chain Ject to offer 20% off aesthetic treatments, in-store skincare gifting, and onsite collab events. And while on paper, it’s smart distribution: capture a young, wellness-curious consumer at the exact moment they’re primed to spend, in practice, it MAJORLY muddies the brand signal. Aesthetics isn’t an impulse add-on — it’s medical, high-trust, and credibility-dependent. For educated aesthetic consumers, this doesn’t read elevated wellness. It reads convenient, transactional, and odd. Read more at WWD…
UltaBeauty, CeraVe and Nutrafol Get In On Sports: Everyone is talking about the Winter Olympics, but the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles will be here before you know it and it seems that beauty brands, like Ulta Beauty among others, are making smart moves to position themselves now with athletes who will be playing in the summer games. Ulta Beauty launched an Ulta Beauty Roster made up of six female athletes across games, CeraVe announced their partnership with basketball star Kevin Durant, and Nutrafol signed on last fall sponsors in NBA and MLB. Seems like everyone is getting sports fever and preparing for the games. Read more…
Drunk Elephant Wiped Their Insta: Being 'for the kids' has its backlash. We’ve watched Drunk Elephant rise to meteoritic highs (being acquired by Shiseido for nearly $850 million in 2019), but then drastically shift from a high-growth, top-selling brand to one Millenials (myself included) and GenX won’t touch with a ten-foot pole because of its association with “Sephora kids”. This tarnished reputation among the older crowd was reflected in a Q1 2025 sales plunge of 65%. Yah, it’s a brand that needs resuscitating and their first smart move was to wipe their instagram page clean at the start of 2026 shifting towards a more elevated, minimal, sophisticated narrative. But will consumers buy (literally) into the new shift? To be seen. Read more at JingDaily…
Power girl walks: “You have to cut the fat, Amy. That’s the only way to survive as a working mom.” My ambitious, hard-working, entrepreneurial, mom of two girls said this to me years ago when I was pregnant with my first born daughter and it’s as true then as it is today. Finding ways to multi-task and eliminate wasted time is the only way to survive as a mom. Which is why morning Power Girl Walks have become the regular du jour. I drop the kids off at school at 8:30am and meet my first meeting at 8:45am, we pick up a matcha latte at LuxxeCaffe and speed walk for 45min while we strategize, organize and plan my business. I feel energized, lifted and accomplished by the end of the meeting and ready for the day. Highly recommend power girl walks.
Beyond the mirror…
To close things out I want to leave you with a quote I’ve been thinking a lot about, “Change before you have to change.” To me it means adopting new innovations, staying nimble, learning, growing every day and being OK in uncomfortable situations — because eventually we all have to change; it’s just a question as to whether we do it on our own terms or not.
Thanks for looking a little closer with me. Until next time.
Amy Chang, Host of Mirror Mirror