Pisces season 💦 & survey results [Like You Know Whatever]

Hello sweet friends!

How are you?? I hope you’re doing well! Well, we made it to March, and we’re now well into Pisces season. Are you feeling all the feels? I am often asked to write more about astrology, so let’s talk about Pisces a little. Pisces are creative, thoughtful, introspective, empathetic, secretive, daydreamers, and above all, sensitive. They feel things deeply, and tend to live in their own worlds. I have a Pisces moon, and your moon is supposed to represent your emotional state and inner world. I’m also a Cancer rising and have Venus in Scorpio, so, you know, lots of water signs with big feelings in my chart! (You can do your own birth chart here.)

We had a new moon just as we slipped into Pisces season on February 19, and man, I felt that shit. My emotions have kind of been all over the place since then, often in the areas that we would consider “negative” emotions like anxiety, sadness, fear, frustration, but I’ve been dealing with them, which I think is important. I had a session with my therapist a few weeks ago where we were talking about a big fear I have of nuclear war (you know, just light-hearted girly things), and when we were wrapping up I said thanks, I feel like I have more coping methods now, and not to be all Glinda the Good Witch about it, but she said I think you’ve had them all along. That, to me, is what Pisces season is all about: diving deep within yourself and finding the pearls.

It’s also funny to me that ever since we had that new moon in a water sign, Los Angeles has been getting a lot of rain, and even some snow up in the mountains. It’s been cold (40s/50s) and often windy, and just generally not feeling much like Los Angeles at all. I like the colder months here, but by March, it’s like, enough already, I’m ready to have my sunny and 70 degree days back, baby! But just like dealing with the “negative” emotions, I guess I have to deal with the “bad” weather, too, in order to get to the other side of it.

This newsletter is going to be pretty long, so I’ll wrap up this intro now. Let’s get into something I bet a lot of you are curious about…

The 2023 Like You Know Whatever Survey Results

Thank you so much to everyone who took this year’s survey! In total, about 5% of you responded, which is definitely down from last year’s 10%, but I understand. This survey was quite a bit longer than last year’s, and I asked for a lot of personal demographic information that some of you might be uncomfortable sharing. I really, really appreciate those of you who did respond! But just please keep in mind as we take a look at these results that this is data from a very small, self-selected group of subscribers and obviously does not represent every single subscriber.

Okay, on with it!

Welp, the thirty- and forty-somethings definitely have it! This was not surprising to me–I’m 36, so it makes sense that people close to my age would vibe with my personal experiences and tastes. I think it’s very cool that I’m also reaching some people outside of my generation, too!

It was important to me that the gender question be a textbox so that people could self-identify how they wanted. Some people included in their answers that they were cis or transgender, but since not everyone did, I decided not to break down the data that way. I am not surprised that my audience is mostly women, although I maybe didn’t expect the percentage to be quite that high. You have to understand, I already have a picture in my head of what my readership looks like based on the people in my life who I know subscribe, but this just goes to show how important it was for me to do this poll and find out for sure.

The sexual orientation question was also a textbox, so the options above represent open-ended responses. It makes me very happy to know that I am not just reaching other straight people! Very cool!

Oof. That’s a lot of white people, Mary! It was a hard pill to swallow that my readership is so ethnically homogenous. Again, I know people personally who subscribe who are not represented in this data, but I do think it’s an important piece of information to reckon with. Why am I mostly reaching other white people? Hmmmmm!

Location was an open-ended question, so I decided to break down your answers based on the United States Census regions–you can see how that shakes out here. The West is definitely leading, but it’s a pretty even split overall! That is cool! And I’m happy to see I have some international readers, as well! ‘Ello there! (I don’t know why I’m going British. How imperialist of me!)

I included this question because I talk about my husband all. The. Time. And I wanted to see if that was totally annoying all of you, or if you could relate. It also puts the household income question into perspective. It was really important to me to include an “Engaged” option–you never see that on surveys, and sometimes people are engaged for years! Anyway, it looks like most of you are partnered, I hope happily! And for those of you who are single, I hope that’s happily as well!

This question was a very imperfect way of assessing if, on average, my product recommendations are way off base for most of your budgets. Now, of course I do not know the particular financial demands you’re all under, but this for sure gives me more information than I had. Based on some of your comments later on in the survey, it’s clear that affordability is a priority for many of you when it comes to products like clothing and makeup. I hear you! I have actually been testing out a lot of drugstore makeup lately–I did a big e.l.f. order in January that I review later on in this very newsletter! Clothing is tougher, because there are other factors to consider besides price like size inclusivity, sustainability, and ethical manufacturing practices. It is basically impossible for me to find a piece of clothing that fulfills all four. But I’m keeping that in mind!

Next, I asked what you do for work. This was so interesting! There were no real recurrent themes–a good chunk of you work in arts and entertainment, but certainly not the majority. Not all of you are librarians, like I thought. Some of you merely work in libraries. No, but seriously, without sharing individual responses, I can say that there were a wide variety of industries represented! Very cool!

So interesting! So, if we combine the data to form an imperfect picture here, most of you are married, in your 30s and 40s, and don’t have children. Do people give you a hard time about that, I wonder? We know from the recent backlash against “childless” Chelsea Handler that it can be an unpopular life choice. Most people in my life are cool about it, except for my one aunt who asked me if I was pregnant at a funeral because I had gained some weight. Fun times!

Your answers to this question were so delightful! I loved hearing all of your pets’ names. It turns out that most of you are dog owners, some of you, to multiple dogs! In the second graph, I chose to present the data this way because some of you, of course, own both dogs and cats. Among the dog owners, it seems like there are a lot of chihuahuas and chihuahua mixes. I was never a big chihuahua person until I moved to L.A. and made friends with people who have them, and now I love those little weirdos! Yay for pets! They’re the best.

Next, I asked what you like best about LYKW and what you’d like to see more of. A lot of you pointed to recipes and travel recommendations, citing my recent Mexico recs as a highlight. I’m so glad you enjoyed that! At the moment, I don’t have a ton of travel plans yet for this year, but you never know. My husband and I have been kicking around the idea of going to Thailand or maybe Japan, which would obviously be amazing. I’ve been meaning to get back up to the Bay Area and visit some friends up there, too. We’ll see!

I then asked you if you’d write a recommendation of Like You Know Whatever. I am so touched by your generosity here! Probably the most common theme was that this newsletter feels like hearing from a friend, which makes me very happy to hear, as that’s always been my goal. Someone even called me the “voice of a generation!” How very Hannah Horvath of me! Here are a few of my favorites:

“Like a thoughtful update from a long-distance bestie.”

“I miss LiveJournal. Reading Like You Know Whatever is sort of like what reading LiveJournal was like in my memory—fun, funny, bright. (Actual experience of LiveJournal may vary.)”

“It's like catching up with a friend over a drink and they tell you all their favorite new things.”

“Liz is, as Wendy Williams would say, ‘my feminist friend in my head.’ Reading LYKW is like chatting with a best pal about where to get lunch but also our fears, joys, and favourite snacks & TV. She's funny and thoughtful and leads a cool LA/NY lifestyle that inspires me and is aspirational without talking down to her readers.”

“I look forward to the delivery of this hilarious newsletter every week, and am always delighted by Liz's point of view. It's like getting a passed note from a bff, and she just happens to be mine.”

Finally, I asked you for any other feedback you cared to share. I so appreciated anyone who shared more info here, but I have to say, it cracked me up to see how so many people’s opinions canceled each other out. I heard from readers who love the makeup recs and readers who couldn’t care less, readers who want more TV and film recs and readers who don’t watch TV at all, readers who want more recipes and readers who don’t cook, etc., etc. All I can really do is try to offer a balance of things from week to week and know that not all newsletters are going to be up everyone’s alley. (Well, except for me, I guess. Because I wrote them.) I also heard from one person who said, “Give that handsome husband of yours a kiss for me!!!” who I am just going to take a wild guess is my mother-in-law (hi! Hope things are great on Long Island!).

Some questions I specifically did not include were:

• Education level – I find this question to be VERY problematic. Like, what are we doing here? I would hope that we all know many brilliant, awesome people who didn’t go to college, and unfortunately, have come across some doctors who are idiots. People say that formal education is an indicator of earning potential, and um, no offense, but do you know how little PhD students make?? Plus, why not just ask about household income? I find it all very elitist.

• Political leaning – There are a lot of reasons why I didn’t ask this. The biggest one is that it’s fairly clear that most of my American readers are pretty liberal/progressive if they put up with my occasional political rants, or at least are tolerant of that point of view. But there are other reasons, too, like: not all of my readers are based in the U.S. or able to vote here, and honestly, I don’t plan to change the way I write about political issues based on my audience’s leanings anyway, so why would I even need that info?

• Religion – I actually am pretty curious about this one, but I didn’t want the survey to get too long, and there were other factors I thought were more important from a “seeking to diversify” perspective. If I had to guess, I would bet that most of you are Jewish atheists or lapsed Catholics… right??

And that’s it for this year’s survey! Once again, thank you so much to everyone who took the time to fill it out. And to everyone else, I hope you enjoyed reading these results!

An e.l.f. Cosmetics Haul

I’ll ride or die for my e.l.f. H20 Proof liquid liner pen ($7), so recently, I wondered what else from the affordable, drugstore brand I’m missing out on, and I made a huge order at the official e.l.f. website. This was even before Jennifer Coolidge partnered with them on that weird Super Bowl ad! And when I say a huge order, by the way, I mean it was still altogether under $60, and it came with two free full-sized items and two sample-sized items, which was rad.

Here are my thoughts on what I got:

- Power Grip Primer Mini ($5) - I got a free mini size of this primer, but I will probably purchase the full size ($10) when it’s up. I liked its makeup-gripping, hydrating qualities a lot! I think it’s best for long days when you don’t want to have to touch up your face makeup, like a wedding (I tend to do a lot of dancing at weddings). They also recently put out a version that has niacinamide in it that a lot of people seem to love, but I personally don’t feel like I need another niacinamide product in my life right now.

- Poreless Putty Primer ($10) - I also got a free mini sample of this primer, which unfortunately, they only sell in the regular size. I know it has a lot of fans, but I will not be repurchasing it. It feels similar to Benefit’s POREfessional, which I love, but as a balm, it’s much more waxy and less mattifying. It just simply didn’t work for me because my skin is too oily, and by mid-day, I was a whole oil slick. But if your skin leans dry, it may work well for you!

- 16HR Camo Concealer ($7) - Okay, first of all, I bought this in way too light of a shade for me, even for a concealer, where you usually want brightness, so that’s my bad. I got it in “Fair Warm,” and it’s basically white. Pros: this concealer has amazing coverage. I used it to cover up some pretty gnarly hormonal acne, and it was incredible once I put some foundation over it to even out the color. The coverage lasted all day! Cons: I hate this as an under eye brightener. It dries down way too fast, way too matte, and I can’t blend it out at all with a beauty blender. Fine line city! I will probably keep this around as a spot cover-up option, because it really was amazing in that department, but use something else under my eyes.

- Camo CC Cream ($15) - This was the most expensive product I purchased from e.l.f., but as a foundation, it’s still very affordable. I’ll be honest, I never really understood the difference between BB cream and CC cream, but I’ve always understood them to offer relatively light coverage, like a tinted moisturizer. This product is definitely full coverage. Like just about all full coverage foundations I’ve tried, it can look a bit heavy on the skin, but sometimes you’re willing to make that trade off for coverage. I will probably continue to use this. A little bit goes a long way.

- Camo Powder Foundation ($11) - Powder foundation is having somewhat of a renaissance right now, so I thought this would be a relatively low investment way to try one out. I just don’t knowwww, y’all. It felt awkward to apply it with the little circular sponge thingy they give you, it looked horrible and blotchy with my beauty blender, and with a brush, it felt more like a setting powder. I can’t make heads or tails of this product. And then, if you’re using a powder foundation, that pretty much limits you to using powder products for the rest of your face, and I like a lot of cream and balm blushes. I may give this another shot, it just has more limitations than I’d hoped.

- Putty Bronzer ($7) - I don’t usually use bronzer, but I am trying to get better about that, and this one is very popular, so I decided to try it out. I was nervous about using a cream/balm bronzer, that it would be hard to gently build it the way I wanted to, but the color I used (“Tan Lines”) was very lightly pigmented and not scary at all. This putty formula seemed like more of a cream-to-powder than the primer. I will have to keep playing around with it, but it’s a great beginner bronzer for sure.

- Bite-Size Face Duo ($4) - Four dollars. FOUR DOLLARS for this super cute little blush and highlighter duo!! I got mine in the shade “Guava” and it is LOVELY. I would totally buy more shades–and at four frickin’ dollars, why wouldn’t I?

- Good Vibes Only Eyeshadow Palette ($4) - Here’s another four dollar gem. They got me with the branding–that little heart and peace sign imprinted in the shadows? SO cute, plays right into my “would’ve been a hippie in a past life” fantasy. Did you know that when I was about eleven years old, I always signed my name Elizabeth Galvao with a peace sign at the end? One time I did that on a standardized test and my teacher got SO mad at me. “You’ve got to be kidding me!!” he said, multiple times. Middle school teachers were so high strung all the time, like they could snap at a moment’s notice. What was up with that? Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of these shadows, and totally want to buy more of these little bite size palettes! They’d be so great for travel!

- Lash Beats Mascara & Lash Serum Bundle ($12) - I got this as a free gift with purchase, otherwise I never would have gone for it. There are many better drugstore mascaras out there, in my opinion–pretty much any mascara from Maybelline blows this out of the water. This formula was very thin and did not hold a curl. I liked how the brush kept my lashes separated, I guess, but not enough to keep using it. And the serum was meh. Did I need a lash and brow serum? I think that I did not.

- Lip Lacquer ($3) - I got a free, clear lip gloss with my order, which I can always use, plus I got to try out the Lip Lacquer formula. It is really nice! It glides on and is more buttery than sticky. A lovely little product!

All in all, I’d say that e.l.f. has a lot of great products at an affordable price point! Maybe I’ll do a haul of another drugstore brand next? What brand should I try?

That’s about all I have for you this week!

Don’t forget to like, comment, and share this newsletter if you’d care to–you can use the buttons at the bottom or the top. You can also upgrade to a paid subscription if you want extra content–there’s a special button for you at the bottom of this email!

Until next time—dig into those Pisces feels.

Love,

Liz

XOXO