#25 Keeping things interesting.

It’s been a minute. Two months’ worth of minutes since my last update, to be exact.

I’ve decided to change the format of this newsletter. I’ll still discuss the overlap of business and personal life, with more insight into what I’m spending my time looking at: industry articles, trends I’m seeing on social media, products I’d actually buy, and campaigns that are a lie. It will talk about what we’re working on at Fluff, struggling with, and succeeding at. My next update will go into detail about our learnings from our recent move to a ‘drop’ model for sales.

But first, what’s been happening?

Celebrities are continuing to make skincare brands, and men are continuing to make beauty brands specifically targeted at women. Entrepreneurs are continually trying to solve our waste problem with “refillable packaging” and dissolvable products that are only creating water problems. Copywriters are still writing: “made for real people and real life.” Young people are wearing speed dealer sunglasses out in broad daylight. And perfume is being marketed as mood lifters in the form of “energy shifters”. Investors are scared to invest. And the costs to acquire a customer are increasing; return on ad spend is decreasing.

It’s a hard time for D2C, and given the choice, I would not start a brand today. Amongst the good times there are plenty of moments where I don’t want to do this, and where I’ve considered not doing this — but I have a brand, four years in, doing some great things… so we persist.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I spend my day. I’m having a lot of conversations with people also experiencing a weird energy: our relationship to (or understanding of) time and its value has certainly changed. Are things moving fast? Or do we simply have no escape from the pace and perpetual daylight of the internet?

Whether it is my friends’ social feeds, other brands, emails, etc — the feeling of so many tabs open and half read articles correlates to so many half formed thoughts, feelings, and discussions in my head. These often turn into half formed thoughts, feelings and discussions said aloud. I’m noticing that in conversation, I just don’t make sense. It’s frustrating, but interesting: all of these time sucking pieces of content were (and are) slowly forming my opinions and deeper feelings about the world around me. About myself. About my work. About my relationships. Sometimes I share them with people. Sometimes they looks like this article, sometimes they look like the brand that is Fluff.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to use my time ‘better’ — to be present at work, at each task, in my relationships, and in turn asking the same of others. I’ve been making time to sit and properly read content, including the newsletters I’ve paid and subscribed to. It’s been equally exhausting and inspiring getting through them.

It’s made me think about the way people deliver and present content, and if that’s tied to how I mentally receive it. Despite this being a long format newsletter, there’s not many long format newsletters I read. Has my attention span shrunk? Or simply my priorities (why read one article when I could consume 10 Tik Toks)? Can I not remember details because I’m trying to fit in too much at once, or is my brain just not, and never was, wired for this kind of consumption?

All this has led to another question: how I can share the things I’m consuming, when I don’t even have time to consume them properly myself? Am I too focused on having a perfect opinion? Could I summarise my learnings in a paragraph instead? Is that irresponsible? Some of my favourite newsletters are ones where there is a subject line that links to more, but the subject line actually tells me everything I need to know.

I like the idea that the best kind of people are both interested and interesting. So here’s my attempt at being that kind of writer. A glimpse at my open tabs: What I’m interested in and what we’re doing at Fluff that’s interesting. They’re definitely connected.

Interested.

• Along my internet scrolls I saw someone mention the idea of “Cool Boredom”. I liked how it sounded, and typed it into google to look up later. I imagine it speaks to our shared experiences over the last few years. “We occupy ourselves with subconscious chatter because we are uncomfortable with any gaps in our conversation with ourselves. The purpose of the practice of meditation is to experience the gaps. We do nothing, essentially, and see what that brings — either discomfort or relief, whatever the case may be. At the beginning, the technique may be somewhat fascinating, but it quickly becomes boring. You get tired of sitting and breathing, doing nothing again and again and again — and again. You may feel like an awkward fool. It is so uninteresting. You might resent having gotten yourself into this situation. You might also resent the people who encouraged you to do this. You may feel completely foolish, as if the cosmos were mocking you. Your thought patterns, subconscious gossip, and all of your mind’s chatter become much less interesting. In fact, you begin to find them all very boring. However, this is slightly different than our normal experience of boredom, because behind the boredom, or even within it, you feel something refreshing: cool boredom. You’re bored to death, bored to tears, but it is no longer claustrophobic.”
• I’ve read some great books, and taken a break from writing my own. I’ve been exploring the topic of forgiveness. I read this book about a man’s dive into vulnerability. It was ok. This book, on how our winner-takes-all culture infiltrates relationships was incredible. I’m now moving between the great words of Anthony Bourdain, a fictional account about a woman’s second home that changes her life, and this book about how art can translate loneliness.
• Jessica Defino’s article on why beauty brand’s shouldn’t do merch — or at least scrutinise and change why and how they do. It’s so good. It will be interesting to see how bigger beauty brands (those who can afford it) are approaching the Metaverse and digital merch. It feels so far away for me. The only interesting and practical thing I’ve seen in beauty (even in AR) is Glossier’s lip filter. But I haven’t been looking closely, either.

Interesting.

• I was on this podcast. We chatted about whether consumers should focus their energy on calling out bigger brands as opposed to smaller ones. I pushed back, and said it all counts. I recently got asked on a seperate podcast “What’s next for Fluff/you”? to which I replied, “I don’t know, and I’m stoked about that.” I’m finally understanding that letting go of control creates possibility.
• Our drop model is still in its infancy, and we’re learning a lot. It was an incredibly strange shift to not having a daily revenue figure to validate our efforts; not having a daily sales story to tell; not having a daily meeting to attend; not having a structured to-do-list to manage. We’re discussing whether to focus on makeup only and whether to go into wholesale next year. We’ve systematised most of our business, and might be in our best position yet, comfortably managing this with our small team, on one condition: we can’t rush this. Not only do I become a useless container of adrenaline, but my increased pace causes me to make mistakes. So while in this new way I often feel a bit bored, I know it’s an investment.
• I’ve been writing for other brands — it’s felt nice. It has a to-do list of its own. It’s made me reflect on how insular my views have been, being so tied to the beauty industry. And on the one hand, while the D2C world is entirely not important — if I didn’t have Instagram I could exist not knowing about the latest toothpaste to go viral — on the other hand, brands can mean so much more. As Harry Styles says: this is a sign of the times — what we value, what we think about, what we prioritise. All of this is grounded in identity and expression, or homogeneity and oppression, however you like to look at it.

Amidst all this, I’m grateful to be in my position. To work with some of my closest friends (and new ones) for Fluff’s current skincare drop, creating visuals that we genuinely connect to, is something I don’t take for granted. We asked ourselves, what does a real life, self care bathroom routine look like? Is it a routine at all? Is it actually quite boring? Is there anything wrong with boring? Why are we all filming content in fake bathrooms, with fake smiles? It doesn’t feel like there’s much imagination any more.

Of course, everything is a trade off, a question of delaying gratification or not. And as I have learnt in the last four years, the choices I have made regarding Fluff’s distribution, marketing model, and content impact scale and growth. Am I making the right decision?

Perhaps there’s not really a right or wrong decision. But there are definitely interesting options. Perhaps the real point is simply making a decision, and standing behind it.

Some choices are reversible and others are not. How lucky we are to get to make them.

You can see our campaign here, and shop Fluff’s current drop until Friday, when we close our website again for a few months.

As always, if you like this update, please share it. And if you’ve got any feedback or questions, say hi.