My ASSNE does not preclude me from beauty and pleasure!
Sunday journal, 10/19/25
I’ve come cheek to cheek with one of man’s gravest misfortunes: assne. A zit or two I can take; that’s God keeping me humble. But standing naked before the mirror, examining the work of gravity and time and a lifelong SPF aversion, I am scandalized by a full-blown breakout. Which one of you dressed my voodoo doll in Temu leggings?
Rummaging through the bathroom, beneath a stack of Biodance sheet masks that I’ll never use—if anyone knows the trick to keeping those on your face, by the way, please let me know, because they just slide right off of me—I find a tiny red bottle of Tower 28 hypochlorous acid SOS spray. How fitting! The beauty industry never fails to compound the EMERGENCY of being a human in a body. “Hello, 911? Please hurry I have more than a few zits on my ass and if you don’t inject me with RHODE GLAZING MILK stat, I will fucking die!!!”
I’ll keep it 100: I don’t know what Rhode Glazing Milk does. I just like blaming cultural evils on Hailey Bieber. This did inspire my first visit to the Rhode website, though, and I’ve gotta say… quite visually appealing. As interested as I am in how time, ever the sloppy bandit, leaves its fingerprints on my body, I am, too, interested in time as a branding device.
Like Ariana Grande’s r.e.m. beauty, Rhode is set in the future: a caricature of techno-optimism. That lip gloss holder phone case? That’s just the beginning. Soon there will be a phone case with lip gloss built in like an antenna, so all you do is pop the cap and APPLY YOUR LIP GLOSS WITH YOUR PHONE. Admittedly, they almost got me with the silver compact mirror.1
I think brands that lean futuristic + those playing the nostalgia game (hello, Vacation sunscreen) make it especially compelling when someone does the here and now very well. If you can translate this historically abysmal present moment into something truly beautiful and pleasurable that’s not just a simulacrum2 of beauty and pleasure, I don’t hate it. In fact, I encourage it! It’s all escapism but at least some brands aren’t profiting off the ambient yearning for another era. Fara Homidi comes to mind; it’s amazing what the right color palette can do. I want all her stuff for that perfect blue alone. Unfortunately, I already have too much makeup and still use the same four products every day, so I’ll enjoy it from afar (for now).
Anyway. My assne! Crude language helps me find humor in such dreadful, earthly inevitabilities. After cleansing with antibacterial soap, I doused my butt in SOS spray and some good, old-fashioned Thayers witch hazel. It’s made a difference and I’d show you but this isn’t the right forum.3 If you have any tips—and don’t say PanOxyl—do give me a shout.
In other critical beauty news, I have silently broken up with my nail tech. Yes, the one I’ve had a crush on for months. The one who bought my baby an adorable pink gingham dress and a LuLu the Piggy keychain. This was no easy decision.