Years ago, when I enrolled in university while juggling full-time professional employment, I knew this blog’s priority would take a hit. Since then, a lot has happened. The world is different, my career is different, what is important to me is different. I am different.
So in the past few months, I’ve been reflecting on my time writing Beauty Skeptic, and on the future of Beauty Skeptic.
Beauty Skeptic is about a decade old. As my life changed, I made a few attempts to establish a new structure that fit and was sustainable. Upon reflection, they were half-hearted. This is telling because I’m a driven person, but didn’t apply my trademark determination to this project – repeatedly.
I should have reflected on and analyzed this sooner.
What Inspired this Project
…was being annoyed at how completely awful the marketing in the beauty industry is. It is often ridiculous and borderline predatory. I didn’t start using cosmetics in earnest until my early twenties, and was shocked at the bullshit that was completely normalized and too-easily accepted.
I’m not even talking about the macro-level, systemic awfulness, like rampant racism or promoting disordered eating. I’m talking about flat-out lying about a product’s capabilities (yeah, your pores cannot shrink).
It was, is, and will be rampant. I am still annoyed.
I never thought I could fix that. But I hoped that I could inspire some people to think critically when deciding to buy something. I hoped that I could save some folks some effort, money, and frustration by sharing my experiences along the way.
Upon reflection, I succeeded at that.
What about Now?
I’m out of the discovery phase and have a sense for what I like – so I’m not exploration shopping. I’m also less willing to spend money on things I suspect to be a gimmick for the sake of proving them out (and hopefully being wrong, myself). After all, the sale still benefits the company. They look at their sales figures and go, “oh wow, we sure did a good thing with Bullshit Campaign X!” It doesn’t align with my values to reward mediocrity. That doesn’t mean I won’t try things; I just refuse to try obvious bullshit, of which there’s a lot.
It takes time and energy to produce content; I took inventory of what I want to be pouring my limited time and dwindling energy into. In just a decade, I have noticeably less energy than I used to – and far more things I need to take care of with it.
Dedicating a fixed portion of time to build the future of Beauty Skeptic by creating more content to to encourage critical thinking about beauty spending doesn’t make the list.
And even if it DID make the list – if there’s anything the last seven years have shown in is that a lot of people also don’t WANT to be bothered with thinking critically. Not even about Big Things, things that REALLY matter – so why these trivial things? So even I cared the same way I used to, what value would it be?
What Does that Mean for the Future of Beauty Skeptic?
My current web hosting contract ends in September 2023, and I have decided not to renew it. There are three path-forward options:
- Keep beautyskeptic.com, shift the hosting to another server primarily used for another project I’m involved with – for you, the reader, this means an unchanged experience; you’d be able to access the archives just like you can today.
- Shift Beauty Skeptic to a free WordPress site – This would look like something like beautyskeptic dot wordpress dot com. The browsing experience would be similar, and the content would be preserved; you’d be able to access the archives. I’m leaning towards this option because it isn’t just the content creation overhead but maintenance, upgrade, and other webmaster tasks.
- Just let Beauty Skeptic go dark
The first two options enable me to create content if/when I feel like it without the sense of obligation that comes with, “Oh, I’m paying for hosting, I really need to…”
In any event, I’ll reach a decision by early August.
In Any Event
THANK YOU for sticking around, returning, and reading what and when you can. I appreciate your support over the years even if I’ve been evolving away from the project. It has been rewarding to help others in a way that isn’t quite so trend-chasing and ephemeral as more mainstream beauty content and coverage coverage.