June 3, 2022

Weekly Cucumber Salad #3 🥒

Contents

a) Personal updates: week in review

b) Finally, some good f*cking Skincare content!

c) Everything Everywhere All at Once –the power of movies with purpose

Clarification: I won’t be able to publish the Part II of my essay “A Deeper Dive: A Critique of Centralised Social Media Platforms” in this edition for several reasons. I plan to publish it next week.

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a) Personal updates: week in review

• Still having the time of my life reading “The Clean Body” (TCB). Some parts of the text really make me think of Parasite:

• More on TCB: currently obsessed with the Parisian river bath house culture from the 1800s and anxiously waiting for a revival.

• Even more on TCB: had a good laugh with this quote from a German man completely pissed off about bathroom design choices (but I kinda agree with him tho).

• Feeling completely invincible working with the iPad. It’s very (and I really mean it, very) easy to export files from Adobe software and work on them from either the computer or the iPad. On Adobe Fresco, for example, I can export a single layer into a .png and airdrop it directly to my computer. Don’t get me wrong, I love some good complaining about Adobe AND Apple, but this experience has been very pleasant.

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b) Finally, some good f*cking skincare content!

During winter I was able to master a moisturising routine that kept me with a blindingly shiny glow during the season, but now the heat and humidity are here, so I have to be smart and restructure my whole routine without going bankrupt.

I’ve also gone through two distinct experiences that were equally damaging to my skin: travelling to England and thriving through COVID19. My glow completely disappeared and my texture went to shit with the combo of not being able to use Cosrx’s acid toner for a week during the trip, the effect of the weirdly cold and humid British weather, and being hit by an illness right after.

Now I’m overwhelmed trying to regain my glow and texture while accommodating for the lighter moisturising routine that summer requires (yes, SUMMER! Because of global warming we skipped through spring, apparently).

Firstly, I had to retire Cosrx’s Snail Mucin serum and Caudalie’s Vinosource Moisturising Sorbet. They were too heavy on my skin and giving me acne. I replaced the snail serum with Purito’s Deep Sea Water GEL-ish moisturiser and kept the Vinosource Hydra serum (one of the best skincare products I have EVER used in my life by the way).

Secondly, I started to apply from 2 to 3 times a week A’pieu’s Glyclolic Acid gel cream. This is obviously making my skin more reactive, but I’m desperate to regain my texture asap, so I’m compensating by applying Khiel’s Calendula Calming Mask, which is a treat of a product.

Now, I know this isn’t dermatologically wise, please don’t reproduce any of the acid experiments I do on my face without talking to a dermatologist first! I am responsible for MY OWN skin damage only.

b.1) But, Ana, I live in Brazil and now it’s cold and dry here!

I prepared plenty of advice for people who are in the Southern Hemisphere. Your skin is going to need more moisture:

• Try a heavier moisturiser. For example, Instead of gel try a cream or sorbet;

• If your skin is very oily and you can’t handle a cream moisturiser, try adding a moisturising serum or toner (or both!) to your routine (toner tip: I personally recommend Dear Klair’s Supple Preparation Unscented Toner);

• DO NOT stop using SPF just because the sun isn’t shinning directly on your face! This is an order!

• If you apply a lot of acids: I would reduce the frequency, especially if you use retinoids;

• It is time to invest in a nice thick body moisturiser and use it after every shower. It is likely that you’re going to be taking long hot showers and those are very damaging to your skin. (Normally I would recommend the Cerave body lotion, but I just checked the price and It’s R$80,00! I think Droga Raia’s Needs line is a cheaper and reliable option, theirurea foot cream is one of my Holy Grails and I even brought one with me to Switzerland).

b.2) Product Review

During winter I turned SPF into an essential part of my skincare routine. I now believe it's a fundamental step to get the most of any treatment you’re currently doing with acids, especially if you are investing  to get rid of dark spots.

During that period I became very loyal to Cetaphil’s moisturiser with SPF. I applied it on top of my sorbet moisturiser and that gave me an amazing glow that lasted the whole day and kept my skin soft.

But as the seasons changed my current SPF became too heavy on my skin, so I decided to invest in Caudalie's new SPF: Vinosun Ocean Protect. Here’s the review:

I don’t really like the packaging from a practical perspective. While it's small and easy to carry - because the formula is so fluid - it’s very hard to measure a good amount of sunscreen to apply. Also it gets messy because the product leaks a little bit inside the lid.

This sunscreen has a foul smell. I was afraid that my sample was damaged, because it really smells like oxidised ingredients, but I remembered Caudalie’s Vitamin C serum has a similar (awful) smell. The scent goes away quickly, but the application is always a bit of an aggressive experience for me because the smell is just so bad.

As I was relying heavily on my SPF for The Glow™ I was a bit upset to find out that with this product, the glowing effect doesn’t last more than a few minutes. But I understand that since it’s not a moisturiser I can’t rely on this product for that goal.

That being said, this SPF has virtually no white casting, it’s very easy and pleasing to spread, and feels weightless on the skin.

It cost me almost 30 CHF, and taking the high prince into consideration, I don’t think I will make that purchase again when I’m done with this product.

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c) Everything Everywhere All at Once –the power of movies with purpose

Content warning: suicidal ideation, depression, and mental illness.
This essay doesn't contain spoilers.

I must say the biggest challenge of making a newsletter is converting comments that would otherwise be posted as a series of terribly articulated Instagram Stories into a concise text AND be aware of the fact that said text will only be published in a week.

It forces me to sit down with my opinions and my feelings for a couple days, elaborate my comments, do some research into the topics, and really curate what is relevant enough to be worthy of being documented in this newsletter.

Even though I had a very positive experience watching The Batman last week, I only have space for one movie review, and, obviously, that space belongs to Everything Everywhere All at Once.

There is just too much. Too much to think about, too much to hold on to, too much to fight against. Too many people to talk to, too many restaurants to eat at, and definitely, definitely too many movies to watch.

At the end of 2016, when we started to write Everything Everywhere All at Once, we were already feeling the too-much-ness of it all. We asked ourselves, why add to the noise? In a world where everything and everyone is clawing for our attention, where billion dollar corporations see every single minute of our lives as potential real estate to be bought up and sold off for profit, asking anyone for two hours of their time to watch one of our films felt like asking for, well... too much. We realised if we were going to make a film and ask an audience to give us that precious time, the only responsible thing to do in return was to blow their minds and change their lives forever. Or, at the very least, we were going to attempt that.

This quote is the beginning of an open letter written by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (the directors of the film), published at the A24 Blog. It made me understand why EEOAA is such a powerful film, because it has a clear and strong sense of purpose.

I was immediately reminded of other films I’ve seen that have a strong and urgent message to communicate: The Great Dictator, Blackkklansman, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Berberian Sound Studio… those are films that can change someone’s life. Some will achieve that by articulating an argument towards a cause like the dangers of gentrification, fascism, and racism - and others by helping people make sense of an important aspect of existence.

The last four years of my life were haunted by severe depression. I was extremely vulnerable and, eventually, I became nihilistic. To see the world through the lens of Nihilism is a state someone comes to when the fight against the chaotic nature of existence is lost.

I was actively understanding the world through the Nihilistic logic: Chaos was the inevitable destination of everything on the planet. Cleaning your house, taking showers, making plans, trying to make sense of life is a useless effort against entropy. I had fantasies of being reunited with the Chaos, the nothingness by laying down on the ground, in a forest, and letting my body naturally decompose. During that period of deep depression, MGMT’s “When You Die” was my anthem:

You die
And words don't do anything
It's permanently night
And I won't feel anything
We'll all be laughing with you when you die

EEAAO explores, with extreme precision, the nature of the Nihilistic perspective, and puts it in the context of a hyperconnected world. When there’s so much content, so much information to process, how can any of those things matter? If everything is important, nothing is.

Eventually, I was able to overcome my deep depression by investing in my interests through research. I was invited to work with one of my teachers from college by helping her and her husband organise their personal research and portfolio archives. Working with them was a deeply healing experience where I learned about the value of connections, friendship, and commitment.

When I think about my “deep depression experience” and how reconnecting with my interests was essential to help me overcome it, I understand the message of the movie on a visceral level: by finding love in my interests of life, I was able to comprehend the flip side of Chaos.

At some point in 2020, I started to do some research on the subject of Chaos and Balance, and eventually, wrote a little (unfinished) essay called “On the Importance of Chaos”:

“Black windows rhythmically repeating through the tall building walls, columns, bricks, lights blinking. Piet Mondrian understood the musicality involved in visual rhythm of everyday life and tried to capture its essence: Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43) is undeniably, a slice of life piece set in New York City.

Seeing NYC, ubiquitously known for its chaotic qualities, captured in such a clean, orderly, rational representation drawn me to understand, from a practical perspective that balance and chaos are the two faces of the same coin.

If the strongest force in nature, entropy, represents matter slowly converging to its natural state, which is the absolute Chaos, then natural balance of matter is, of course, chaos. I believe we as humans are not able to truly understand chaos, we can try to describe it, but trying to define something that lacks any type of order, in its essence, using such a complex tool as the human language is already diminishing the power of Chaos.


Chaos is more than mess, it represents how nature, and reality itself for that matter, do not follow any of the logic our brains can make sense of. The knowledge the human race has developed over centuries actually represents its infinite struggle to grasp the world that surrounds it.”

In retrospect, I understand this essay as a manifestation of my change of perspective. While still understanding the presence of Chaos, I was also experiencing it as a source of creativity, insights, and inspiration. Chaos was not a reason for me to give up on living anymore, but something that inspired me to search new experiences:

“But Chaos can be experienced. A brief moment of being in touch with absolute confusion or uselessness. Listening to a language you do not understand. Feeling a texture for the first time. Feeling afraid. Not knowing what is about to happen next when walking down a dark hallway. Chaos presents itself as an invitation to the unknown, which will never be familiar.”

EEAAO is a film that talks about many things, but for me the strongest message was to show love as the cure for nihilism, because it relates so deeply to one of the most traumatic experiences I’ve lived through my life. Watching this movie felt like a (free) cathartic therapy session that helped me, finally, make sense of what I went through and filled me with hope to know there are people who will invest in making movies with such powerful and important messages.

Have you seen EEAAO? What were your thoughts? What aspect of the movie was the most poignant for you? Let me know

With love 🐝 ,
Ana Luisa