Salmon jizz in my face

yes I hit send on that subject line

Wanna sponsor this thing? Have a spicy tip? Hit reply. For everything else, find me here.

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In today’s issue:

• AI-assisted seed-strapping

• What’s a “ChatGPT hyphen”?

• The first things brands should do to navigate the tariffs

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Notes from a messy desk

I am a work of art

Last week, I let a nice woman in Notting Hill inject my face with salmon sperm.

No, this is not clickbait.

I did it in the name of skincare, and the slow, gravitational betrayal that is aging.

The treatment is called a “Polynucleotide Cocktail,” and yes, it’s derived from salmon DNA—specifically their seminal fluid. Turns out fish jizz is the new fountain of youth.

Injectual (a place that looks more like an Aesop concept store than a medspa) offers a proprietary blend of polynucleotides, amino acids, and hyaluronic acid—a cocktail designed to stimulate cell regeneration, improve elasticity, and hydrate the skin from within. It’s like PRP, but instead of your own blood, they’re using the essence of a cold-water king.

Does it work? Too soon to say. It’s accretive, not immediate. You need a few rounds. But I can tell you the recovery was easy, the bruising minimal, and the science is legit enough that I didn’t feel completely unhinged for trying it.

And now, a brief PSA to the anti-anti-aging crowd: I hear you. The beauty industry has sold us a million lies. They told us we were ugly so they could turn around and sell us shit. But self-expression is not the same as self-erasure. Feeling good in your skin—even if that skin aligns with conventional ideals—is still personal. It’s still a choice. And when you know the difference between blindly following convention and consciously opting in? That’s where the power is. I’m not trying to reverse time—I’m just trying to enjoy the face I’m living in a little longer.

So, is this the beginning of me chasing eternal hotness? Perhaps, just not to the extent I end up looking like a freak.

Wheels up,

Sophia

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*New!* Tea with GPT

Last week’s newsletter detailing how I used Chat GPT to recruit my assistant was a real hit. In future issues, when I feel like it, I’ll drop in a few bullets on ways I’m using GPT – some strategic, some dumb. Last week, Chat GPT helped me…

• Negotiate a brand partnership to over double what I was initially offered by screenshotting the email from the client and asking what market rates were

• Mock up copy for a dummy asset I needed to screen record as part of a software tutorial for said brand partnership

• Think of different ways to name a new section of this newsletter – “Tea with GPT” was the winner. GPTee Hee Hee was another

• Figure out where I can buy a “zip & link bed” in London (a larger bed won’t fit through my front door)

• Make a case for investing cash from my money market fund vs staying liquid

• Think through whether it’s the right time to sell my home in LA

What're your hacks? Fringe use cases? What AI software can you not live without right now?

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This issue is sponsored by Hatch

I’m on a real sleep device kick these days. Show me a gorgeous gadget that cuts into my late night internet rabbit holes on sperm facials and lulls me to sleep with nature sounds and I’m locked in.

Hatch’s Restore 3 is a screenless sleep buddy for your nightstand with features like phone-free sleep content, a dimmable light, and sunrise alarm.

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Collabs on my radar

Bandit and ASICS partnered on a sick running collection that’s giving Space Odyssey vibes. The kate spade new york collection for Target drops tomorrow, and it’s springtime incarnate. The Marni x Hoka sneakers finally dropped. Dolly Parton partnered with Good American on a country glam denim collection aptly called Joleans. Tarte and Tru Tru partnered on a limited-edition box inspired by the “cherry girl aesthetic” trend – it drops today, but there are only 100 available. It includes chocolate covered cherries and cherry crush lip gloss. Mmm. Razor brand Flamingo and woman-founded brewery Talea partnered on a beer and a shower beer holder. Genius. FIT students designed upcycled coats exclusively for TheRealReal. The second part of Bella Hadid’s collection with Frankie’s Bikinis is here, and it continues to rock. This farm eyelet mini dress, underwire bikini top, prairie midi dress and matching head scarf are essentials for the first sweaty, sunny spring days. Speaking of spring, Crocs and Simone Rocha dropped their third collab, injecting the edgy femininity of the fashion label into the hyper-functional slip-ons. Holding my breath for the limited-edition butter knife from Allday x Kerrygold Butter. A treasure.

Collab report: Last week, subscribers were most into the London knit dress and ballet flats from the Reformation x Devon Lee Carlson collab, and the solid wood floor mirror from the Aimee Song x Lulu and Georgia collab.

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What I’d marry if it had a pulse

Lately, I've been crawling into my HigherDOSE Infrared Sauna Blanket like a burrito of stress and reemerging as a slightly more glowing human. It’s basically a portable infrared cocoon that helps me sweat out anxiety, inflammation, and the general existential malaise of getting up too late, skipping yoga, and berating myself for not becoming a well-rounded person by the age of 40.

Unlike traditional saunas, infrared heats you from the inside out, so it’s gentler but somehow more effective. It does cool things like increase circulation, reduce inflammation, chill you out, and support muscle recovery.

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Links to make you smarter and more interesting

The Skinny Confidential’s Lauryn Bosstick used to respond to every DM, tweet, and email. Bosstick, who now has 1.9 million followers on Instagram, says tapping into the community is what informs her products. And drives her success. “I could draw you a poster board of her name, and what nail polish color she [wears], and what she listens to,” she told Inc, referring to her intimate knowledge of her customers.

Lululemon’s shares dropped over 10 percent last week. That’s because Trump’s tariffs are highest in countries where the fashion industries’ major manufacturing hubs are.

So, what are the first things brands should do to navigate the tariffs? Contact manufacturing partners and product developers. Glossy spoke with beauty and wellness experts on what fashion, beauty, and wellness execs should do to prepare for Trump’s tariffs. A snapshot:

• Negotiate: ask manufacturers and suppliers if they can help shoulder the cost

• Get ahead of supply chain delays: Look at each and every single raw material and be prepared to find alternatives for ones that may now have longer lead times

• Stockpile: you can also write a letter of intent (LOI) to your manufacturers to pay for materials in advance, stocking things weeks to months ahead of your need

• Audit your offerings: look at what your consumers are actually buying consistently and consider scaling down to your best-selling products

• Raise prices as a last resort: once you’ve looked at strategic moves you can make across the manufacturing process

Finance influencers are here to help us navigate the stock market crash: "No level of income is above budgeting to some degree.” If you have any disposable income coming in, you should start or add to your “rainy day” fund. I use SoFi Vaults feature to bucket my savings goals, and that’s not just because I’m friends with the CEO.

Instagram’s testing a new “locked post” feature that hides content behind a secret code. Like a digital speakeasy for your followers. It’s a smart way to create exclusivity: reward loyal fans, offer hidden deals, or share targeted updates without broadcasting to your entire audience. For brands and creators, it’s a chance to turn lurkers into loyalists with a VIP vibe. It’s still in testing, but could be an intriguing new way to cultivate tighter, more intentional communities.

Facebook’s algorithm in 2025 is less chaos, more calculated. This breaks it all down: how to actually get seen (hint: reels are your besties), why comments matter more than clicks, and what kind of content gets you ghosted by the feed (clickbait, low-effort promos, and anything too spammy). It's not about hacks, it’s about showing up smart.

Rachel Karten just curated a list of 2025 brand social trends, and it’s really good. Brands are starting to ditch the "post more, post often" mentality and focusing on “fewer, better” posts. No more flooding the feed with filler. Influencers? They're over it. So, brands are switching up their gifting game and finding new ways to partner. And on top of that, they're actually figuring out how to keep in-house creators around and happy.

YouTube would be worth up to $550 billion as a standalone business. It was the second-largest media company last year behind Disney, but is projected to sit pretty in the number one spot in 2025.

This “30 under 30” entrepreneur convicted of defrauding JP Morgan Chase of $175 million doesn’t want to wear an ankle monitor – it interferes with Pilates. Charlie Javice, the founder of fintech startup Frank, has been ordered to wear an ankle monitor ahead of her sentencing. Her attorney said that hinders her ability to teach Pilates classes while she’s out on bail.

The em dash has been rebranded as the “ChatGPT hyphen” in the chatbot era. If you’ve noodled around with ChatGPT enough, you know the chatbot loves to throw in big ol’ em dashes. While plenty of people (over 30) write with em dashes, you might want to reconsider injecting them into your marketing materials if you want to appear cool and hip – Gen Z has deemed them generative AI crumbs.

The hottest job in sports is a clothing executive that can style VIPs and lock in brand partners. It’s cool to see a new job title come to life based on fractional needs: cool people want to wear cool shit and rep them, so they want a stylist who is also an expert in brand partnerships.

OpenAI closed the biggest private tech funding round on record: $40 billion. The company plans to use the money toward research and to scale infrastructure, with $18 billion reportedly going toward Stargate.

A school in Switzerland known for its MBA program just launched specialized business degrees in AI and sustainable business transformation. And it’s hot right now. The amount of “open” exec education courses at the school, IMD, has grown from 44 in 2019 to 79 today. IMD’s president David Bach said that post-Covid, “a lot of companies realized that in an environment with a lot of change, they needed to make sure they created opportunities for their senior leaders to learn and to imagine what the future of the business might look like.”

There’s a new trend in startup town: seed-strapping. Small and mighty teams are now using AI to stay small and mighty, meaning they can scale for cheaper. That means more founders are raising smaller rounds with smaller teams – and they want to maintain that efficiency so that they can just raise one round and reach profitability. Or, seed-strapping.

Link report: Last week, subscribers were most into a visual tour of the Coach Play store in Singapore and how brands are ditching influencer trips in favor of customer ones (and even picking them up from the airport).

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