👩🔬 055 - Midweek Mini-Byte: Tuesday, June 9th.
Evident is the consumer reports of CPG, Pore Favor tackles acne, Bread is searching for answers, Joyvié Health for incontinence, the AI medical advocates, Contrary Research's anti-aging deep dive.
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⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
☄️ Quick Hits
Meta quietly embedded face-recognition code into its smart glasses app, WIRED found it, now it’s gone.
Bread Beauty Supply's first launch, post acquisition, flopped. Olamide Olowe, founder of Topicals, acquired Bread and went public about it…I have thoughts on what they should.
A single psilocybin dose reportedly helped an 80-something woman with late-stage Alzheimer’s regain speech and self-care.
Evident Health is building the Consumer Reports of wellness…and it is not another YUKA app.
HANS makes anti-aging chews for dogs, and the branding is genuinely stunning.
🆕 Brands Spotted:
🧴 Skin / Personal Care = 9
👱♀️ Haircare = 3
👃 Fragrance = 1
😅 Deodoran = 1
💊 Supplements = 2
🐕 Pet Care = 1
👩🔬 Femtech = 1
🩺 Digital Health = 2
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
Wired: Meta deletes face-recognition system from its smart glasses app after WIRED report. The code WIRED identified is gone from the latest version of Meta AI, the companion app for the company’s smart glasses. Meta won’t say why or whether it’s coming back.
The Independent: How Americans are adjusting their spending habits as cost of living soars. The U.S. Commerce Department reported last week that the growth in Americans’ spending in April was primarily driven by higher prices, not an increase in purchases
Just for fun:
The astronauts have some fancy Prada underwear.
Everday extinct objects.
👩🎤 Celebrity Brands:
Apparently Molly Sims changed the name of her skincare brand from YSE to YISE…seems like a logistical nightmare.
🧴 Skin / Personal Care:
🇹🇷 It Girl - like Sundae Body but in Turkey, offering fragrance mist, foamed body wash, and body lotion [Instagram].
Pore Favor - products for acne - moisturizer, cleanser, patches, supplements, and powder [Instagram].
ZIYÈ - body care with facial care standards, starting with a body serum that will brighten and help with even skin tone [Instagram].
🇨🇭 tāep - a skincare focused water filter attachment for sinks. Like Jolie, and others it does not filter out hard water (calcium & magnesium) [Instagram].
Bēm Skincare - barrier focused skincare [Instagram].
Lètap Beauty - a new makeup brand that is meant to simplify beauty routines. Starting with color correctors and a balm/setting compact [Instagram].
Vogue Business: SPF is finally getting its time in the sun. What’s next?
👩🦱 Haircare:
Tawil Beauty - a haircare system to support the appearance of thicker hair, starting with a prepping mist & oil [Instagram].
Beauty Independent recently reported that Topicals founder Olamide Olowe is navigating a public struggle regarding the future of Bread Beauty Supply, which she acquired in 2025 under her holding company, Cost of Doing Business. Following the brand’s May 15th launch of a new slick-back styling gel, which reportedly failed to gain traction, Olamide has been open about the challenges of balancing the brand’s original ethos with a new direction.
While I’m not aware of the strategic intent behind the acquisition, I have some observations on the brand’s evolution. Fundamentally, Bread originally succeeded by carving out a unique space in the market: it was modern, playful, and undeniably “cool-girl,” with an aesthetic rarely seen in Black-focused haircare. Even products that weren’t strictly “functional,” like the cult-favorite hair oil, drove massive interest because they delivered a sensory, lifestyle-driven experience in beautiful, distinctive packaging.
Much of the newer output feels more conventional. Aside from the scalp brush and the clarifying shampoo, the current packaging has drifted toward a standard “millennial pink” that lacks the original “it-factor.” Bread’s early success relied on design-forward choices, like using imagery on refill-style packs, that felt disruptive. The new gel, for example, felt like a missed opportunity to leverage that heritage; it could have been housed in a vibrant aluminum tube, with a cool round cap and a branded squeeze key to match the brand’s previous edginess. There are plenty of successful brands that don’t lead with clinical science, but they win by pulling on emotional or aesthetic levers, something Bread mastered early on. My vote would be to go all in on the aesthetic, launching products that work and smell amazing.
👃 Fragrance:
LOOM - solid refillable fragrance balm [Instagram].
😅 Deodorant:
💊 Supplements:
Macra - supplements for mood and curbing cravings for carbs [Instagram].
🇳🇴 WHYSHIFT. energy strips [Instagram].
🐕 Pet Care:
The Hustle: Pet acupuncture: promising remedy or dubious pseudoscience?…so will I being seeing WTHN for pets soon?
HANS - anti-aging chews for dogs [Instagram]. The branding is stunning.
👩🔬 Femtech:
🇮🇳 YourStory: From an idea to market launch - The journey of Anabio Tech’s flushable pad. Anabio Tech, a deep tech startup founded by Mithun Shah, is all set to launch a flushable sanitary pad made from plant-based, biodegradable materials.
BoF: The wellness industry finds its next target - new Mums. From daily vitamins to luxury recovery retreats, brands are racing to meet the needs of women navigating the transition into motherhood.
🛍 Retail: DTC, Brick + Mortar, Social Commerce, and more...
Retail Brew: More retailers and brands are evaluating the benefits of price cuts. Kroger and E.l.f. Cosmetics are among many reconsidering their pricing strategies to attract and secure consumers.
CNBC: Harry’s and Coterie owner Mammoth Brands has ambitions to be the next CPG giant.
Retail Brew: Prime Day timing has shifted, but consumers remain excited. According to Tinuiti, 88% of Prime members plan on shopping this year.
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and more...
⭐️ Evident Health - independent lab testing, efficacy studies, and product trials on leading wellness products (in an unregulated industry) to help understand which brands truly perform [Instagram].
🇬🇧 Joyvié Health - better designed products for incontinence [Instagram].
Gizmodo: Big tech still has no clue what to do with AI gadgets. Microsoft wants you to wear an AI badge and the rest of the field doesn’t seem to be faring much better.
Stat: After hospitals, patients get a turn to bring AI into the doctor’s office. Developers pitch their patient apps as diligent note-takers to keep track of encounters across the health system.
Greta is one of these apps, designed for women. If you might be interested in connecting with the founder, reach out.
Axios: Medical innovation’s big moment.
Wired. Meta silently added face-recognition code for its smart glasses to millions of phones. Code reviewed by WIRED uncovered an unreleased face-recognition system embedded in Meta’s smart glasses platform. It’s designed to identify people via biometric data stored on users’ phones.
The New York Times: In a first, scientists precisely edit human embryo genes. Researchers relied on a newer gene-editing technique that may make it possible to engineer embryos, a prospect that has long alarmed bioethicists.
🗣 Social Media: News about TikTok, Meta, BeReal, Snapchat, X...
🔬RESEARCH
Nature: Why are so many young people getting cancer? What researchers do and don’t know. Candidates for the trend are emerging, but are likely to vary from one type of tumor to another.
🍄 A woman in her 80s with severe, decade-long Alzheimer's, largely nonverbal and dependent for basic care, reportedly regained the ability to speak, dress herself, and hold conversations after a single dose of psilocybin mushrooms. Researchers aren't calling it a cure, but the case suggests the brain may retain hidden capacity even in late-stage disease that psychedelics could temporarily surface [Frontiers in Neuroscience].
🧐 REPORTS
Spate X Thorne: Rewriting Women’s Wellness - The Trends Driving the New Era.
⭐️ Contrary Research: The Anti-Aging Therapeutics Boom.
🇨🇳 Daxue Consulting: Convenience stores in China: What’s becoming more important beyond convenience.
🇨🇳 Daxue Consulting: Beyond discounts - The real beauty device market drivers in China
💡 Enjoy,
-Anne