Capsule #94 ft. Mat Buckets

Hello!

This week’s newsletter is about the little gremlin that follows sunny weather: ageing fears and wrinkle hyperfixation. Why can’t we just have a good thing!!!

As ever, scroll for a great Hot & Not from Mat Buckets, news from this week, and some recs for the weekend ahead.

Enjoy yourselves, and thank you for reading!

Holly x

It’s been sunny in London for the past week. It’s been really beautiful. The mood lifted, then actually stayed up. I sat on my balcony doing some work one morning, typing notes between spoonfuls of Greek yoghurt and granola, having thoughts like what if everyday was like this and what joy it is to dry my laundry outside. And then my flow stopped. I dropped my spoon and rushed inside, because I realised I wasn’t yet wearing any SPF. 

It sounds dramatic, and it probably is. But over the past few years, both via conversations with friends and through consuming content online, SPF has successfully been cemented in my mind as One Of The Only Things That Matters. It’s praised by those who love beauty products and skincare and also by those who don’t. I’m constantly fed those “3 things I recommend as a dermatologist” videos, and while I can academically tell myself that my face will age and that’s okay, and that most products are designed to keep you buying more products, it’s hard to disregard that niggling fear of losing youth, beauty and value. 

And I’m not alone, of course. Google search interest in anti-ageing products rises every winter, then peaks in the spring. The February 2024 peak was the highest in search history. And here in the UK, we’re prolific: the UK has consistently been in the top 5 nations searching around several anti-ageing topics, including Anti-wrinkle (#2), Anti-ageing products (#4), Botox (#4) and Anti-ageing facial (#5).

The search data matches what we see around us. Over the past year or so, I’ve seen those red light masks everywhere, via big celebs (Kim Kardashian, Jessica Alba, Kourtney Kardashian, Vanessa Hudgens, Julianne Moore, Irina Shayk) and closer to home with micro influencers or regular people on Instagram Stories. The products will change as time passes but the pursuit of youth will remain.

SPF feels different, obviously. We really do need it to protect against sun damage and skin cancer. On genuinely hot days or holidays where the sun feels super strong, this is the pressing thing we think about, and rightly so. But the daily compulsion to not be without SPF, even during overcast seasons in cities like London or New York, is more rooted in ageing fears. It reminds me a bit of the ultra-processed food movement that’s big at the moment. There’s a lot of interest in avoiding UPFs for a whole host of health reasons, and as a means of pushing back against the way the financial aims of “the food industry” have altered the way we eat. It’s totally valid. But the undertones of this new way of eating feel adjacent to food restriction and diets of decades past, but dressed up in a new, more moral light. The reward for cutting out UPFs is losing weight. Likewise with SPF, it’s convenient that a product designed to prevent cancer also keeps us looking more beautiful for longer.

Caring about the way our faces change over time feels like a fundamentally human experience, and it’s not always a bad thing. It is freaky to genuinely observe your outer shell change, an experience enhanced further by time spent watching ourselves on a video call, and by how many photos of ourselves we have access to on our phones everyday. When I get sent a memory from my photo app, my feelings are always similar: that I look younger and more lovely than I ever felt in the present moment, and that I shouldn’t have been so hard on myself during that period. I don’t remember a time I ever felt truly content with how I looked in the past (maybe like twice? On holiday? Age 21?) and even though that sounds sad, I’m sure a lot of people would agree. But there’s a gap between having those realisations with hindsight and actually changing how we feel about our appearance today. Hence running for the SPF after enjoying 15 glorious minutes in the sun.

The other paradox in all of this is having this ingrained worry about ageing while also finding older women to be really beautiful. I have found myself recently being pulled to the beauty of older faces I see on screen, and have started following older women online as a counter to the eerie youthful perfection to which I’ve become accustomed. I love Andie Macdowell’s (66) grey curls, I love that Drew Barrymore (50) has the essence of her younger self but does not look the same, and at 52, Tracee Ellis Ross is one of the coolest people on my feed.

I also think that Marissa Lepps is one of the best dressed people online, and to me her outfits are made even cooler by the fact that she is slightly older. (I think she’s 40, which of course is not very old, but certainly above the general average in this space and aesthetic.) The absence of a porcelain doll baby face makes her style more interesting to me; it feels more thought out, more authentic, and less drag-and-drop by way of following a trend.

I am obviously not suggesting we drop the SPF. But if you feel similarly to me, I’m inviting us to genuinely pay attention to how we see other people (beautiful, worth the world, so much more than their outer shell) and consciously grant ourselves some of that same sentiment. It might not feel natural. You will have days where you feel ugly. But we have enough evidence to counter that, and realise that what we genuinely find attractive in others is signs of life: smile lines, outward displays of taste, facial expressions in response to jokes or gossip. And if you forget the SPF one day this spring, allow some grace, and tune into what’s really happening, which is that being pulled to the outdoors to enjoy a moment allows you to miss a section of your routine. What could be more important?

And finally…

News you may have missed this week:

• Lorde watch returns with a snippet of new music 🥲

• Another great Ayo Edebiri look

• People are trying to decode Charli xcx’s pre-Coachella antics

• Here’s Kacey Musgraves and Finneas sounding great together

• Law Roach confirmed Zendaya will be at the Met Gala

• Anne Hathaway loves football

• Prada has acquired Versace for a huge €1.25 billion, and will relaunch the brand

• There’s another Simone Rocha x Crocs collab 

• A great argument for stepping down from your big job

• This man gets chicer by the week

• And here’s a great Aimee Lou Wood photoshoot. We did predict wonky teeth would be in this year!

This week, Mat Buckets popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Mat is a North West-based content creator, writer and photographer. He’s passionate about pushing creativity, small businesses, and bringing people together.

📺 Watching: Very much waiting for the Lady Gaga Coachella set to drop this weekend! Also watching this joint interview with Lucy Dacus and Katie Gavin, and the new PinkPantheress video for ‘Tonight’. The song samples Panic! At The Disco and the video rocks. Enjoy!!!

📖 Reading: The lovely Clairo profile in Seventeen, which comes with great photos. And this roundup from Ella Emhoff’s Substack of her favourite lighting. So many good lamps!

🎧 Listening to: Pointy Heights, the great Fousheé album, ‘Henry, come on’, the new Lana Del Rey song, ‘Never Enough’, the new Turnstile single, and the new MUNA remix of ‘Aftertaste’ by Katie Gavin.

Ahead of Coachella weekend one, Chewy is here to make some style predictions. Based on the top items of clothing searched with “coachella outfits” over the past month, we’ll likely see butterfly tops, large hole knit tops, sequin sets, crochet sets, and cowboy boots. Now to keep your eyes peeled for how indicative those searches were...

If you’d like to adopt Chewy or one of his friends, click here to learn more.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear how you’re finding Capsule - let me know here. And if you have a friend who might like it, do refer them! 🥺

See you next week 💋

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