Business Desk: What Gen Z is Actually Buying with the Selleb Sisters

Summary

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Fat Mascara Episode Summary

Episode: Business Desk: What Gen Z is Actually Buying with the Selleb Sisters

Host: Jessica Matlin
Guests: Chloe and Claire Lee (The Selleb Sisters, co-founders of Selleb)
Date: June 24, 2026

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Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Chloe and Claire Lee, the sister duo behind Selleb, a receipt-sharing app and newsletter that provides unique insight into what people—especially Gen Z—are actually spending money on across beauty, fashion, and lifestyle. Host Jessica Matlin dives into how Selleb’s community, especially Gen Z, navigates the social media landscape, the surge of influencer marketing, and the reality behind viral product trends. The conversation blends data-driven insights, social commentary, and playful profile building of today's beauty and style consumers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is Selleb? (03:30 – 05:30)

• Selleb's Purpose:
  • Selleb began as a newsletter where taste-makers share real receipts of purchases, evolving into a receipt-sharing app—like a combination of Venmo’s voyeurism and Pinterest’s inspiration.
  • Its mission is to be the "source of truth" for what people are actually purchasing, standing in contrast to the ubiquity of sponsored posts and unverified influencer recommendations.
• Quote:
  • “The receipt thing, it's not a gimmick. You want to see what people are really doing… a source of truth for what people are actually buying.” — Jessica Matlin (05:30)

2. Transparency and the Influencer Economy (05:49 – 07:26)

• Industry Critique:
  • The sisters and Jessica discuss how much of influencers’ lifestyles are brand-sponsored, obscuring what’s genuinely bought versus gifted.
  • Selleb corrects for this by focusing solely on real purchases.
• Quote:
  • "A lot of what you see is not paid for with hard-earned dollars. So your celeb style is about showing what people are actually putting their hard-earned money for.” — Jessica Matlin (07:26)

3. Social Commentary & Early Days (07:32 – 09:43)

• Roots in TikTok Satire:
  • Claire and Chloe’s initial content was satirical, using archetypes (“what your perfume says about you”) to poke fun at consumer behaviors.
  • Over time, their data collected through Selleb began confirming certain aesthetic and behavioral overlaps—moving from playful patterns to empirical insights.

4. The Academic & Personal Backstory (09:43 – 11:00)

• Backgrounds:
  • Chloe has a finance-focused business background (though didn’t finish her degree), and Claire studied engineering.
  • The pandemic pushed them to launch Selleb, combining lifelong collaborative interests in music, blogging, and style.

5. Identity Linking and Differentiated Data (11:07 – 12:25)

• What Sets Selleb Apart:
  • By aggregating individual purchase histories and review contexts (beyond just aggregate spending), Selleb creates nuanced, identity-linked recommendations.
• Quote:
  • “Knowing this person, like the context around the reviews they’re writing…having this holistic, bird's-eye view.” — Claire Lee (11:53)

6. The Typical Selleb User (12:25 – 14:00)

• Core Reader:
  • Product-obsessed, niche-curious consumers who value transparency and want both glowing and critical reviews.
• Quote:
  • “People who come onto Selleb, they want to see the real purchases. They want to see the bad reviews.” — Chloe Lee (12:27)

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What Gen Z is Actually Buying (15:44 – 26:44)

Beauty Brand Trends & Profiles (16:02 – 20:26)

• Repeat Beauty Buys Among Gen Z:

  • Top brands: Farah Hamidi, Westman Atelier, Medicube (K-beauty), Victoria Beckham Beauty, Dew, Rhode.
  • Hair and fragrance trend below these, with skincare and color dominating.

• Quote:

  • “Rhode's number one for beauty.” — Claire Lee (16:59)

• Niche Patterns & Consumer Links:

  • Overlap between brands, fashion, and lifestyle:
    • Merit buyers overlap with Lisette Carpenter pants and Touchland hand sanitizer.
    • Glow Recipe aligns with Aritzia, Sol de Janeiro, and lifestyle purchases like Uber Eats.
  • These purchases reflect pragmatic, “basics-focused” style choices rather than loud, avant-garde fashion.

• Quote:

  • “Pragmatic. Even the clothes you're talking about, pragmatic. We're not talking about like a Dries van Noten…No, yeah…” — Jessica Matlin (19:16)

• Services:

  • Russian manicures, brow services, and lash lifts are popular beauty services submitted as real receipts.
  • Notable NYC Places Mentioned: J7, Aida Bakage, Karine Kazarian.

Affordability, Small Delights & “Little Treats” (21:49 – 23:31)

• Buyers Don’t Need Big Budgets:
  • Participation can be as simple as a matcha latte or movie ticket, reflecting Gen Z's interest in small joys even when funds are tight.
• Popular Small Categories:
  • Lip balms, fiber supplements, teas, books, nail polishes (with Essie as a classic drugstore buy).
• Quote:
  • "People are always going to find little delights in even the smallest purchases." — Claire Lee (21:49)

New & Niche Beauty & Fashion Brands (24:24 – 26:44)

• Trending Fashion:
  • D2C brands: Deji Studios, Cuckoo Intimates, Dairy Boy (“mixed reviews” but growing visibility).
• Gen Z-Driven Beauty Moves:
  • Dead Cool (fragrance) surging with Gen Z.
  • Xinu/XEnu (niche fragrance from Mexico) popular in winter/early spring.
  • Fern, Régime des Fleurs, Lis — high interest in nicher fragrance houses.
  • Grand Cosmetics (lash/brow serums), Hakuhodo (Japanese brushes), Chrom (new makeup brush brand) are seeing notable growth.

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The Algorithm & “Recommendation Slop” (26:44 – 31:18)

• Algorithmic Tastes & Identity:
  • Jessica and The Selleb Sisters discuss how social algorithms push trends, flattening individuality and feeding recursive “starter pack” micro-trends—creating aesthetic monocultures.
  • There's concern that popularity is now equated with quality, making it hard to discern genuinely good products from sponsored buzz.
• Quotes:
  • “A lot of ideas like popularity and quality are getting conflated… Ragebait does work online, unfortunately.” — Chloe Lee (29:13)
  • “On Substack and TikTok…you're met with a lot of the same recursive feedback loops…a lot of people complaining that they're seeing the salamence, like a sickening number of times a day.” — Chloe Lee (30:06)
• ‘Recommendation Slop’:
  • The term refers to oversaturation of the same recommendations, often driven by affiliate links and PR, clouding genuine discovery.
  • Quote:
    • “There are good recommendations within the slop, but you can't separate wheat from chaff.” — Claire Lee (31:23)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the voyeurism of shopping:
  • “It's the voyeurism aspect of shopping that the celeb audience really likes. Especially for the Gen Z audience…” — Jessica Matlin (36:03)
• Selleb user openness:
  • People openly share receipts with their names, embracing community validation and transparency.
• Personal Faves of the Sisters:
  • Chloe: "Chanel lip pencil 192… I'm very, very spartan with my makeup routine." (33:27)
  • Claire: "Violette Clear Balm." (33:45)
  • Fave services: “Russian Manicure” (Chloe), “Haircut” (Claire).
• Entrepreneurship advice:
  • “Act before fear can kick in… collapse the distance between idea and execution.” — Chloe Lee (34:17)
• The most memorable receipt:
  • Submitted by a plastic surgeon—they can't recall the name, but it stood out as unusual and memorable (34:08).

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• What is Selleb? (Intro): 03:30–05:30
• Transparency vs. Influencer Marketing: 05:49–07:26
• Sociological Satire & Data Overlap: 07:32–09:43
• Founders' Backstories: 09:43–11:00
• How Selleb Differentiates: 11:07–12:25
• Profile of the Selleb User: 12:25–14:00
• Gen Z Brand Trends: 15:44–20:26
• Little Luxuries & Accessibility: 21:49–23:31
• New/Niche Brands: 24:24–26:44
• Algorithm & "Recommendation Slop": 26:44–31:18
• Personal Picks & Lightning Round: 33:23–35:45
• On Receipt Sharing & Voyeurism: 36:03

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Tone & Style

• The conversation is data-driven but playful, with self-aware humor about modern consumerism and skepticism toward influencer culture.
• The Selleb sisters blend their “data nerd” perspectives with deep immersion in fashion and beauty trends.
• Jessica Matlin’s probing is both journalistic and conversational, inviting both insight and candid personal takes.

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a fresh, insightful take on how Gen Z shops for beauty and lifestyle, how micro-trends are created (and recirculated) online, and the ongoing tension between authenticity and aspirational content. The Selleb sisters advocate for radical transparency and community-driven discovery in an era of sponsored “slop,” encouraging listeners to find joy in authenticity—whether that’s a $40 serum or a CVS lip balm.

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For more, follow Selleb’s newsletter, try the app (waitlist only!), or keep up with Fat Mascara for the latest in beauty culture and business.

Transcript

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[Claire Lee]

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[Fat Mascara Host]

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Fat Mascara. Okay, today we are doing the business desk with the Celeb sisters. All right, the Celeb sisters are Chloe and Claire Lee. They're best friends and they're sisters and they founded Celeb. What is Celeb? All right, guys. It's a receipt sharing app, but also a newsletter. I did the newsletter. I participated in their newsletter years ago. It is a newsletter where people share their receipts so you can see what people are actually buying. And they ask a lot of, like, tastemaker types what they're actually buying. And it's kind of discovery. So if you're looking for fashion inspiration, beauty inspiration, home food, anything, it gives you a little bit of style Inspo. And the app is newer for them. I think it's really cool because in a world of Spawncom where you see people and I talk about this a bit in the interview, you see people lounging about in their cool apartments or out on the scene with this handbag holding this lip gloss. Like, did the brand send that to them? Are they on the PR list for bippitybop.com it all feels very lifestyle, very Aspirational, and we don't really know what's true and what's not. And these girls, they come at it from two different points of view. One, they're kind of data nerds, which, you know, I love a data nerd. But they're also like fashion girlies and beauty girlies, and they love product, they love style, and they want to bring those two things together. So if this appeals to you, which I. If you're listening to this show, I want to think it probably does have a listen. And let's talk about what people are actually buying. And they have a huge Gen Z cohort that surprise, surprise is really tapped into this kind of thing. And they're going to tell us what people are buying, what they're actually paying for, and what brands are really resonating with this audience. So welcome Chloe and Claire. Hi, Claire. Hi, Chloe.

[Claire Lee]

Hey.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Thank you so much for coming on Fat Mascara. I want to let our listeners know how I discovered the celeb sisters. All right. I discovered it because I found your newsletter, but I was kind of like, what is this? This is so different. We're talking about style. We're talking about shopping. And I tried to explain it to people because it's kind of. I just think it's great. I hate this word content, but it's a lot of, like, I like to know what people are buying and shopping. But surely you have a better way of describing brand than I. I am. What is celeb, Sister?

[Claire Lee]

The way that we describe celeb, the app portion is the receipt sharing app for the girlies.

[Fat Mascara Host]

It's like, where you see there's an app now there is an app because I discovered it a while ago.

[Claire Lee]

Yeah, we started with the newsletter. We didn't even have an app. It wasn't really on our radar. We were like, should we do the app? Should we not? And then when we actually built out the app, it was really this place for receipt sharing where you could see what your friends are actually buying. And that word actually is very critical to everything that we put out.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay, so you're doing well. First of all, you were doing newsletters before. A lot of people were doing newsletters, so that's kind of cool. But the. The receipt thing, it's not a gimmick. It's like, you want to see what people are really doing. Right? Like. Like, why? What's the receipt thing about?

[Chloe Lee]

I think so. Claire speaking. The way that I would describe. It's so funny, though, because we respond to both names and our voices I don't think sound very similar, but I think our voices do skew deeper. And so people can't really tell who's talking half the time. But Claire speaking.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay, Claire speaking.

[Claire Lee]

When I describe it for the person

[Chloe Lee]

who's never heard of it before, it's kind of a hard, hard launch to be like, we are a receipt sharing app. They're like, okay, first of all, what is that? What is a receipt? Like, I don't understand. So I basically just take two comps. I say, this is like the Venmo feed. Combines the voyeurism of what people are actually buying with the aspiration of Pinterest. And then I say, I go into the whole, like, okay, in this. We obviously live in a world where there's so much sponsored, you know, left, right and center. You always feel like you're being sold something, but this is the source of truth for what people are actually buying.

[Fat Mascara Host]

A source of truth for what people are actually buying. Yes, Because I read newsletters all the time. I love newsletters. I'm very into it. Obviously, I'm following people on Instagram, but half the time you don't know where they. And I'm including, first of all, people wanna send me clothes and stuff. Bring it, okay?

[Claire Lee]

I don't care.

[Fat Mascara Host]

This is not a deterrent for people sending me free stuff. But if people are posing in great clothes, wearing cute jewelry, lounging about, I can think of. There's a few names. If you want to ask me offline, I'll tell you. People lounging around their apartments on Italian sofas. Gifted, discount, friend of a friend. The lifestyle that they're pushing is. It's not paid for and they're not that whole like, FTC thing. I want to know who's adhering to that.

[Chloe Lee]

It's funny because when you talk to any influencer, they're like, yeah, I mean, my whole lifestyle is paid for, except for rent. That does kind of encapsulate the whole industry at large. And the point that it's gotten to, because, I mean, that is where a lot of the marking dollars flowed over the last few decades. It became very deinstitutionalized away from legacy media and influencers and then micro, or not even micro influencers, but there were like tiers in between each that created this industry. You see now with just rampant.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Right. And yes. And I'm not saying that I have not benefited from that. So I want to be really transparent about that. Nobody has sent me a couch yet. Nobody has, you know, outfitted my whole Family in, you know, head to toe designer gear. But what I'm saying is that a lot of what you see is not paid for with hard earned dollars. So your celeb style is about showing what people are actually putting their hard earned money for.

[Chloe Lee]

Exactly.

[Fat Mascara Host]

You wanted to put transparency on that. So this is what people are really buying.

[Cami]

Yeah.

[Claire Lee]

And the initial, I guess the initial content that we were putting out was around this idea of things that you buy say a lot about how you shop, what you value and who you are as a person. And so the initial TikToks that we were putting out that went viral in the earlier days around what your XYZ about you was like, oh, what does your perfume say about you? What does your first date outfit say about you? And these kind of seemingly small things that we buy in our day to day.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Were you guys doing that together?

[Claire Lee]

We were doing it together. Claire was the one actually putting everything together and she, her TikToks just go more viral than me. I don't know if it's my delivery, but she always would go viral and mine were doing way worse. And so now she definitely does all the filming. But there's just a lot of social commentary that we were kind of trying to pin down or pinpoint around certain price ranges of what people were shopping in or certain categories of items and how they say a lot about who you are as a person.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Now, are you guys just interested in that from a marketing perspective, a consumer perspective, or is it satirical? Like, oh, if you buy this fragrance, you're the kind of person who's buying Margiela flats? Or was it like just genuinely, I am super interested in this from a sociological beauty fashion point of view?

[Chloe Lee]

It definitely started from the sociological point of view and we would just see these patterns of like, oh, oh, these guys who wear this cologne are more likely to be plant ads with an ad subscription. And women who have Summer Friday's lip balms like to buy workout clothes but not actually work out. So it was like crafting these archetypes that were very satirical in nature around just high level observations of what we'd noticed in our personal experience firsthand. But then what was interesting was that once we launched the app and then we started to see everyone's purchases, we built out this huge graph of every single person's taste mapped out as told through their purchases, and then began to actually see these very clear, data driven overlaps. And so the analyses definitely got sharper, albeit you can't really delineate between, or rather you can't extract direct personality observations from that. And it did feel a lot more. If you buy this brand, you're more likely to buy this brand and go to this restaurant. But it definitely added some more gravitas and empiricism to what we were already doing all along.

[Fat Mascara Host]

What is your background? Are you guys in marketing, or did you go to school for data analysis? Like, what?

[Chloe Lee]

It's funny. So I went to school for. I was in an undergrad business program. I'm like, rusty thinking about it because I never finished school. I had a semester left. Dropped out twice. But yeah, the undergrad was supposed to be a business degree in finance.

[Claire Lee]

And then I did engineering, and I was like, oh, I think maybe I'll work at a big tech company. I did. I really didn't know what I was going to do. And honestly, I feel like for a lot of people, it's kind of COVID that you were like, oh, I'm rethinking all my life decisions. I'm trying to figure out who I am. What do I even do? I'm in my senior year of college. And then the two of us kind of just went back to the drawing board. I mean, we've just been doing things our whole lives together. It started with a chamber classical, chamber music group when we were, I don't know, in middle school, and our parents forced us to play these instruments, and it kind of evolved over the years. And, like, we, you know, dabbled in being bloggers back in the day. Like, we were.

[Chloe Lee]

We.

[Claire Lee]

We did photo shoots for each other in high school. We were taking each other's photos in our garage when our parents were gone.

[Fat Mascara Host]

I love that.

[Claire Lee]

And so we've just always been doing things. And I think during COVID when we were combining these different interests of ours, it kind of led us down this more startup, experimental path.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Yeah. Yeah. Where did you grow up?

[Chloe Lee]

Chicago.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay. And where do you guys live now?

[Claire Lee]

We live together in New York. We always say we're best friends, sisters, co founders, roommates too.

[Fat Mascara Host]

What a blessing. That's so cool that you guys are doing this together. All right, so I know that you're not the first people, the first company to look at consumer insights like credit card companies can do this as well. Okay. If you're shopping, this is a less glamorous example. But if you're shopping at Home Depot, you might also be shopping at, I don't know, why can't I think of a single other company right now? But, you know, might be shopping at Kohl's or is. Is this just a different way of reformatting this for a different type of audience, or are you providing some other insight? Like, what is the. I mean, when I say, what's the goal? That's not totally how I think. I think this is highly entertaining and really has a lot of value. But what are you doing differently with data that other, maybe larger companies are not?

[Claire Lee]

Our entire thing at celeb is about identity linking. And so knowing this person, like the context around the reviews that they're writing and being able to have this holistic, bird's eye view of, okay, this person feels this way about these types of brands, only spends within these certain price ranges, and is like a very repeat, loyal buyer. XYZ brands. And so having this entire picture for each person and then being able to link them all together is something that we're working on because we want to be able to provide the best possible recommendations rooted in what you're actually purchasing day to day.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Who is the celeb reader?

[Chloe Lee]

The celeb reader? Oh, it's. I want to say celeb was really built out of a personal inclination to go deep on. It's the word community, it's the word content, but now it's the word niche. And sometimes we cringe a little bit at ourselves for the overuse of the word, but it is really like this niche underground intel of your mom's best friend who's telling you about the best peanut butter that she just. That she found because she's tried over 40 different types. It's almost, I want to say, like people who are immune to the algorithm or at least resistant to it and have awareness around what it's doing. Because people who come onto celeb, they want to see the real purchases. They want to see. They want to see the bad reviews. They want to see people who are not afraid to speak their minds in truth about what they really think about certain things. We get our fair share of glowing reviews around niche products, but also truthful reviews around products that are viral, that are popular. And so really adding this magnifying lens to products at large and basically making it very clear as to what is trending. But what is worth buying is our core reader. They're very product obsessed with product obsessed.

[Fat Mascara Host]

And from what I'm. What I'm hearing, I think there is a level of skepticism, like, I see a lot of products, like, we'll talk about the products that are viral and that what your readers are buying, and it's a lot of likely suspects But I'm seeing that there's also like. Yeah, they're unafraid of criticism about some of the big products too.

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[Cami]

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[Fat Mascara Host]

So you have a very big Gen Z cohort. That doesn't surprise me because you guys are you are Gen Z and you also are doing something that's really new and novel. Can we talk about them? I'd love to understand what from a beauty perspective, what really trending on Salem.

[Claire Lee]

I would say that there's different kinds of I guess Gen Z shoppers, especially when it comes to beauty. I would say there are the repeat buyers like the people who really hold onto certain brands. For example the Farahidi girls and the Westman atelier girls. They are repeat purchasers. Like they will go and when it runs out they want to get the refill. Like they're pretty loyal within those maybe five brands and well if you could pick five.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Let's go back. What five would you say keep coming up as repeat brands? You said Farah Hamidi, which is a. Which is a makeup brand.

[Claire Lee]

Yes. Westman Atelier. Makeup brand. Medicube. For, like, K Beauty.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay.

[Claire Lee]

I would say Victoria Beckham Beauty.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay. Makeup.

[Claire Lee]

Yes. And then the Du A.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Do, do, do, do. Yeah, Sorry. Sorry. That was so obnoxious. Thank you.

[Chloe Lee]

Every time someone's like, I love Dew, I'm always thinking, oh, I got to look this up. D E W. I'm like, what is.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chloe Lee]

But, yeah, that is.

[Claire Lee]

And of course, Rhode Rhodes, number one for beauty.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Interesting. Okay, so notice there's no hair, no fragrance, and not that they are not going to pop up in this conversation with no hair, no fragrance, no body. So skincare color. Okay.

[Claire Lee]

And then I would say hair after that.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay.

[Claire Lee]

Definitely growing.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay, so what about, like, is there anything about those five brands that feels like has a thread?

[Claire Lee]

I think it's interesting because I've noticed, for example, like, the Dubuyers, they are more experimental. Like, they dabble in more brands. They're not as. As much repeat purchasers as, like, I'm gonna buy from a bunch of different, you know, kinds of brands, and they're the ones who probably dabble the most in, like, K Beauty, which I found very fascinating.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay.

[Claire Lee]

And then if you look at, like, a Merit girl, it's definitely a lot of. Okay, this is a really random skew that I recently found was a lot of people who buy Merit Beauty also buy Lisette carpenter pants. So it's like, okay, this is a very interesting overlap. Like, a lot of Lisette Ex Merit, and they're very, like, kind of more about the basics. Like, it's like, Totem keeps coming up. Cezanne keeps coming up, Reformation still comes up. And I would say, like, they kind of skew more in, like, the basic, you know, types of fashion, silhouettes.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay.

[Claire Lee]

And then something that came up for Merit that I was also laughing about was a lot of people who buy Merit also buy Touchland hand sanitizer.

[Fat Mascara Host]

I want to say weird, but I don't want to say weird, because I'm like, what is the connection?

[Claire Lee]

Maybe it's like, they see it also on Sephora. Like, they're buying Merit. A lot of people buy Merit on Sephora, and so I wonder if it's they, like. So I'm sure Touchland's a very popular Sephora.

[Fat Mascara Host]

I have a suggestion or hypothesis. Merit is. So the women who I know who love Merit. They are not makeup obsessive. They're like, let's. I mean, this is the whole premise of merit. It's like, let's get in, let's get out. Right? It's efficiency. It's five minute phase snow frills. The price point is not exorbitant. Right. It's like quick and dirty. Well, it's not dirty. Like, their whole thing is like clean. Right. Clean beauty, whatever that means now. So. And then Touchlin is.

[Chloe Lee]

Yeah, that's true.

[Fat Mascara Host]

It's about like. It's the people. It's for that person that always has hand sanitizer. I'm not that person.

[Claire Lee]

I'm not.

[Fat Mascara Host]

My daughter has a Touchlin. She's sick. She's got a Touchland in her. It's a prized possession. It's with a. It's the one with the Crocs case. You ever see that thing? Yes. Yeah, yeah. So it's for like. There's something really pragmatic about it. It's a pragmatic. And even the clothes you're talking about, pragmatic. We're not talking about like a Dries Van note in like. No, yeah, like the, you know, capelet.

[Claire Lee]

Like, anything printed is a no. Like, I don't see any prints.

[Chloe Lee]

Oh, that was really good.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Exactly. And Cezanne, I heard somebody call it the other day the French J. Crew. I was like, that's brilliant.

[Claire Lee]

Yes.

[Fat Mascara Host]

And I love Cezanne. Okay, what else do you have? I love these profiles that you're building.

[Claire Lee]

The Glow recipe, that actually has been a brand that's on the up and up for sure. And I would say it's very like a lot of Aritzia Sol de Janeiro, a lot of aloe yoga sets in different colors. Not even aloe yoga in black or brown. It's like aloe yoga. The pink and the green and the blues. And weirdly, a lot of Uber delivery, like doordash receipts. And I think they do buy their Sol de Janeiro and maybe even like Glow recipe on the doordash.

[Fat Mascara Host]

This makes sense. Yeah, it's like, it's like healthy life. Well, I don't know what they're ordering from Uber, but it's like healthy, juicy. It's like a lifestyle kind of thing.

[Claire Lee]

It's definitely a lifestyle thing.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Do you think these people are really working out in their aloe yoga sets?

[Claire Lee]

I feel like more so than the merit girls, Maybe the merit girls are working. Yeah, exactly.

[Fat Mascara Host]

They're working for a living.

[Chloe Lee]

They don't have time for the hour long pilates. Sessions in the morning, plus a shower to follow.

[Fat Mascara Host]

No, they're. They're out the door. I tease a kid. Okay, what's. What's another one? This is fascinating.

[Claire Lee]

Farahomedi. I think that one was probably the one where I was like, oh, that makes total sense. It's like the Still Here jeans, the Click Pants. I think that, like, what is it called? The Tommy Pants. I remember they're always buying Farah Meedi. Like, that is like a very clear overlap and a lot of Victoria Beckham beauty overlap. And I would say the Farah Midi, girls, I think probably spend a lot more on hair than other repeat purchasers of other brands. Like, I definitely see the Raws and the Crown Affair come up more for people who repeat purchase for a Hamidi than maybe say, like a.

[Chloe Lee]

Do they also pay for a lot of fashion substacks?

[Fat Mascara Host]

What sort of substacks do these people subscribe to?

[Claire Lee]

We're seeing a lot of subscriptions from Found New York and Link in Bio and then the Stanza.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Very cool. All right, so you've kind of answered this a little bit by sharing some of the brands, but do people have a lot of money to spend?

[Claire Lee]

I think in any situation where it's like maybe you're trying to save more money or like you're really not trying to go out and splurge, people are always going to find little delights in even the smallest purchases. I think the beauty of celeb is like, you don't need to be a high roller or a high spender to participate. It can really just be like a matcha latte, a movie ticket. And so even when we were tracking right after the holidays, I feel like people go into spending freezes and they tried to watch their pocketbooks and maybe tone it down a little bit less just because holiday spending maybe was a lot more. And I would say even from that specific time period, it was a lot of maybe coffee receipts and a lot of lip products. Like, it was a lot of Summer Fridays and Road and Edam le Chouchou and, you know, just smaller purchases that won't necessarily break the bank but are kind of fun and still allow you to participate in some of consumer culture and some of the trends that maybe other people are posting about.

[Fat Mascara Host]

What are some of those categories we've talked about on the show? Face wash, lip balm? These are products that are very replenishment based and they're very low barrier to entry. What are some of those products that people like? Are those cute things that people buy? You mentioned lip balm already.

[Claire Lee]

Fiber supplements. A lot more.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay.

[Claire Lee]

I would say recently there's been a lot of tea submissions. People buying interesting tea or like wanting to infuse, use their water cool. And then of course people will do books. Like, I think books and movie tickets are kind of its own category where it's like there's a lot of those types of submissions, especially if they're not looking to splurge a lot in other categories. And always the maybe quick restaurants where it's like you're going to grab a bite. It's not too expensive, but it's, you know, a nice experience to share with someone else. And nail polish?

[Fat Mascara Host]

Nail polish. What brands are you seeing or what? What types?

[Claire Lee]

I think the OG ones, like a lot of CVS receipts with Essie nail polish. I feel like on Instagram I've seen a lot of the nicher, like newer brands come out, but I wouldn't say that I've necessarily seen those in the form of people purchasing and like submitting them to celeb.

[Fat Mascara Host]

What about beauty services? Do people ever submit beauty service receipts?

[Claire Lee]

A lot of Russian manicures, interestingly, and brow waxing and threading and I think more often lash lifts.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay.

[Claire Lee]

Some acupuncture.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Any places that you remember that come up?

[Claire Lee]

There was this one place, I think it's called J7. Yeah, that one for sure.

[Chloe Lee]

Aida Bisage.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Oh, Aida Bakage.

[Claire Lee]

Bakage, yeah.

[Chloe Lee]

And Karine Kazarian as well in Greenwich Village.

[Fat Mascara Host]

And are there any new brands that are trending on celeb right now?

[Claire Lee]

I think there's definitely the more like D2C fashion brands that I've been seeing come up a lot more that have been circulating sub stack a lot. But I was like, oh, my God, I remember seeing that on celebs so long ago. I know Deji Studios has been really popular on celeb as of late and Cuckoo Intimates has been, I feel like, popular on the Internet for a while, but we're just seeing a lot of volume from those types of girlies as well as Dairy Boy. I think they recently did a launch with, with Dairyboy Sport and there's been mixed reviews, albeit, like on the quality and people have varying opinions on it. But I would say for the fit and maybe the price range, people do seem to really like that brand.

[Fat Mascara Host]

What about from a beauty perspective?

[Chloe Lee]

Dead Cool's not new, but so much Dead Cool, like more than we've ever seen. Yes. With Gen Z.

[Fat Mascara Host]

This is with Gen Z. You mean with Gen Z. I feel

[Chloe Lee]

like the pronunciation is just beyond me. Xenu. She knew like xinu.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Oh, X, I, n, U. Yeah. So this is a fragrance brand? Yeah, this is a, this is a fragrance brand. It's not based in the US I think it's based in Mexico. Yeah, yeah. No, there's a lot of buzz about that brand.

[Claire Lee]

I wonder, I don't know their, what their, I guess whole collection is like, but it was definitely more popular like winter slash early spring. So I don't know if their notes are darker, woodier, more winter coated, but I would say that was definitely like in the beginning of the year, more of a surge there. And then since then, I would say specifically for perfume, I feel like the nicher brands have been in the category of perfumes, specifically in fragrances, whether that's for like hand soaps or laundry detergent or candles or perfumes themselves. But brands like Fern, we've been seeing more. And Regime des Fleurs I feel like has had popularity over the last maybe two years or so. But people do consistently buy from that brand as well as Lis L I I. Yeah, yeah.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Regime de Fleur is one of. At Moda, it's one of the most popular brands. So yeah, it's consistently popular.

[Chloe Lee]

And then I'm just pulling some others. Grand cosmetics, the lash and brow serums, they're going really strong. People love those. And in terms of makeup, brushes, Hakuhodo, the Japanese brand, and Chrome as well are both taking off Chrom.

[Fat Mascara Host]

So yeah, that's Annie Cribram's brand. That just came out like nine months ago. So interesting. That's gaining traction. Wow. Okay, good for Annie. Okay, cool, cool, cool. All right, so I have to ask you, like pulling back a little bit, you are aggregating what people are searching for. What you know, you're building these. You know, you started out doing kind of these slightly satirical videos about if I buy this chair and I have this Birado fragrance and you know, I'm the man with the performative tote bag or book. Like people are curating their taste from the algorithm. Right. And this is not a new topic. People used to find things that they liked because they had to seek them out, Right. And they had to have a friend that liked something that said, turn them onto this book or this movie or this whatever. Now it's being pushed to them through the algorithm. They like this. It's just being spoon fed to them or force fed to them, and suddenly they can have a new identity tomorrow with the shoes to Match. This is a totally new phenomenon. How do you feel about that?

[Chloe Lee]

It's bad.

[Fat Mascara Host]

I mean, it's bad, but it's been able to. It's kind of the premise of what you're writing about and what you're. It's what kind of the newsletter is about. But you're also making it easy for people to shop. So what do you know? What's your take on this?

[Chloe Lee]

I think it starts to get tough when the inputs are dirty. So we think of our data a lot like water. So it's like if everyone, if all these other LLMs are getting a lot of, I don't know, Dasani quality water, we try and we hope to aspire to get, I guess, like, I don't want to. I don't even know what the latest water brands are. There's a new one every day. But Lunin, Lunin Holstein Aquapana Level Water. Right. So I think a lot of the problem at large is that the chain itself is problematic and flawed in many other different ways, which I can go into.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Wait, can I interrupt you for a second? I say this as somebody who has a pair of those fishnetty ballet flats that I got from H and M, like this year, okay? So I'm not above it all. I'm not like, oh, my taste is super avant garde and refined and I've polished it all after years of refining who I am. Like, I'm just saying it's flattened it out, you know what I mean? It's like everything is kind of mush now where before it felt more. And this is my perspective, authentic, if I can use that 2 cent word.

[Chloe Lee]

I think the problem is that a lot of ideas like popularity and quality are getting conflated. I think that's where the problem lies. And so a lot of the what you see come up to the front of the feeds is going to be. Because you have to think about it. Like a lot of these social media platforms, their whole job is to basically bring you anything with the most engagement, the most likes, saves and comments. And so when you're basing content off of that KPI, everything that you see gets surfaced is going to be like anything that provokes a very strong reaction. And that's why Ragebait does work online, unfortunately. It's because people have a very strong visceral reaction. Therefore Dalgo's like, okay, this type of content is going to keep people on. I got to keep circulating this. So, yeah, I think that's what's happening a lot with products. Hence A lot of the recommendation slop, hence a lot of people complaining that they're seeing the salamence, like a sickening number of times a day.

[Fat Mascara Host]

What is recommendation slop?

[Chloe Lee]

It takes a lot of different forms, and I think people interpret it different ways. How I understand it to be is that on substack and TikTok, any sort of platform where you are looking to get a recommendation from someone, you're met with a lot of the same recursive feedback loops. And everyone is kind of saying the same thing and shouting from the rooftops that. That this beauty brand and that shoe brand. And, like, it becomes like this stable of substack brands. And people meme about this all the time, like, oh, the Substack girl starter pack. It's like, maybe, maybe the curl makeup brushes are in there. I don't know. But it's like if you're within a certain community, you start seeing the same things over and over. And I think that could be due to a lot of different factors, one of them being affiliates and pr. It's kind of like whoever has the highest take rate. Whoever or not even take rate. What is it like the highest commission, Whichever company has the biggest gifting suite this quarter. And therefore you start seeing, oh, wow, like, everyone's talking about this and everyone's loving it. So therefore I think I want to get it, and therefore I think I'm going to love it. And therefore maybe I will love it more and then talk about it within my circles. So then you're just kind of. The loop feeds itself. The monster is feeding itself. And I think that's where a lot of the slop comes from.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay. Recommendation slop. Be aware. Yes, Jay.

[Claire Lee]

And the problem is there are good recommendations within the slop, but you don't actually. You can't separate wheat from chaff. It's just. Just all looks the same. And then maybe like, all five of the lip balms are good, but then you don't actually know.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Yeah, that. That is really well explained. I think you guys are doing a great job because you actually are providing, no pun intended, receipts for what people are buying. And you're building these really cool profiles. And I think what you're doing is very cool.

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[Chloe Lee]

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[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay, Claire and Clay, what is your go to beauty product?

[Chloe Lee]

Chanel lip pencil 192. I don't even. I saw it on one of our celebs, but she was like, this is my holy grail. I think I'm actually wearing right now. And it's just the best everyday kind of rosy mauve lip pencil. And I have. I'm very, very spartan with my makeup routine. So this is like one of my five makeup products.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Claire Lee]

I'm gonna say the Violette Clear Balm.

[Fat Mascara Host]

What is your favorite beauty service?

[Chloe Lee]

Russian Manicure

[Claire Lee]

Haircut. I don't do any beauty services, like any manicures or anything.

[Fat Mascara Host]

What was the most memorable receipt on Celeb Sisters? Do you remember who it was with?

[Chloe Lee]

It was. I can't remember the. The plastic surgeon's name.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Okay, that's hysterical advice for entrepreneurs.

[Chloe Lee]

Act before fear can kick in. Okay, that wasn't, that wasn't beautifully said. But I do think there's something to be said about like, as soon as I. As soon as we have an idea, it's like, how do we basically collapse the distance between idea and execution? It's just gotta happen. Like, take the first step.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Last note on your iPhone. No lies.

[Chloe Lee]

Oh, books 2026. Because I've been trying to read more and this is like the hardest thing for me to do in the world for some reason. But I Just finished another book this morning and I added it to my finished section. Or no, I started it a week a few weeks ago, but I did finish it this morning.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Oh, okay.

[Chloe Lee]

The book is the sense of an ending and the author, I think Julian Barnes fiction very Remains of the Day Coded. Yeah, it was all about memory and I guess lack thereof as humans. It was really dark and really deep this morning, but you know.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Yeah, to finish a book in the morning, I can't even imagine. Okay.

[Claire Lee]

Mine is our mom's credit card because she gave it to me a week ago because she's paying for my birthday present. She's buying me Italian classes because I'm taking Italian. And so it was to buy the class.

[Fat Mascara Host]

What's up with Italian? You just always wanted to know Italian or you.

[Claire Lee]

So we grew up speaking French and I was like, I really want to learn a new language, but I didn't really want to learn Spanish. I was like, I want to do something kind of random. And I was like, oh, Italian sounds beautiful. So I'll just do that cuz it's similar to French. And there's a really awesome school uptown.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Good for you.

[Chloe Lee]

Happy birthday.

[Claire Lee]

Six months later six months ago it's very late present.

[Fat Mascara Host]

Thank you so much guys. This was really fun. Very informative.

[Claire Lee]

Thanks for having us.

[Fat Mascara Host]

All right, super interesting. I was just talking to my producer about this concept, what celeb is, and he raised a good point. Listen, he thought it was really interesting, but there was like a blind spot for him. There was like something I needed to close the loop on. He was like, wait, so when you submitted your pics, by the way, my pics, this is years ago, I submitted a Proenza dress from Moda Operanda and a Lisa Frank phone case. He said, did you like put your name. Are people putting their names on the receipts? I think I was trying to picture what he's picturing. Are people just like blindly uploading receipts? I said, no, no, no. People upload their receipts and put their names. And he was surprised by that, that people are comfortable doing that. Obviously the credit card data and everything is going to be marked out, but like, why would they do that? And it's the voyeurism aspect of, of shopping that the celeb audience really likes. And I think especially for the Gen Z audience that loves this newsletter and loves this app, which P.S. does a waiting list for. I think that is really a new phenomenon that exists today that just did not exist before. I think if I tried to explain this concept to. By the way. My producer is generations younger than my parents, but if I were to try to explain this concept to my parents, I'd need to like we'd be there for months. So this is a new phenomenon. I think the girls are really onto something and people like to see what other people are buying. So that's the scoop. Let me tell you something that I'm buying. I am raising a wand to this is so good. This is not a new product. The color wow Money Mask. I remember when Chris Appleton was at. We had like a lunch, like a PR lunch for this years ago and they gave a little sample and I tried the sample and I think it wasn't enough for me to be. No pun intended. Second pun. This episode. Wowed by this product. It is phenomenal. I think you're supposed to use it once a week or something. This is something that I would like to use more often. You will see if you have drier hair, color treated hair, chemically treated hair, it makes a big difference. So really love this product. Beautiful texture, not too heavy at all. Not like gloppy and yucky. Really light and just a visible difference. That's all I gotta say. So let me know what you thought of the episode and I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Fat Mascara. If you like the show, consider giving us a rating and review on itunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. This helps other people find the show. Follow us on Social at FatMascara and email me at Infoatt Mascara. I would love to to hear from you and to shop the products heard on the episode. Check out Fat Mascara on Shop My Shelf. This show is produced by Red Rock Music. I'll see you next time.

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[Fat Mascara Host]

Here's proof.

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[Chloe Lee]

Hey everybody.

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So open your hearts, loosen your butts because we got a lot of laughs

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