#18: Marisa — Beauty, Style, Campus Novels
Ambition, beauty and the inside story of Marisa Meltzer's Glossier book.
Welcome to Mia’s Queue, a newsletter spotlighting the secret agents of taste among us. In each edition, I chat with an undercover tastemaker infusing creativity and wonder into their (and our!) everyday life. Learn what lights them up, where they find inspiration, and what they think we should all be enjoying right now. Meet Agent 018: Marisa Meltzer, a writer based in New York City and author of the buzzy “Glossy.”
I met Marisa through a mutual friend, Windy Chien. Now, if you know or heard of Windy, you know that if she recommends something or someone, you act — and fast. Marisa was the shopping curator at Flipboard for a while, but more significantly she is a writer whose byline always screams one thing to me: stop what you’re doing and take note.
In addition to covering style, beauty, fashion and wellness for places like The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The Guardian, Marisa is the author of several books, including This Is Big, How Sassy Changed My Life, and most recently the bestseller “Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier.”
I have “Glossy” on my Kindle right now, but after interviewing Marisa, it’s moving to the front of the queue. Stat. It was fun to learn more about her connection to beauty as an interest, why she was drawn to the Glossier story, and what she’s writing about next.
What’s your relationship to beauty products?
I grew up in a beauty household. My mother is very into skincare and makeup. She wears a full face of makeup every day, even to the gym. And she's an esthetician, so she does facials and has lovely skin.
Both of my parents are from the Bay Area and grew up in a pre-sunscreen era. By the time they were in their 30s, they had to get skin cancer spots removed here and there and didn't want the same for me. So I grew up very pale in coastal California, wearing a whole lot of sunscreen.
I am a little more skincare than makeup, I would say, just because I've never been someone to wear a lot of makeup, which is part of why I really love Glossier, because that kind of no-makeup makeup that you could slap on with your hands really appealed to me. Now I have more and more actual makeup, my lipsticks vaguely sorted by intensity and stuff like that. I love nothing more than going to a foreign country and going to a pharmacy in England or France or Italy. I'm dying to go to Australia to Mecca, which is kind of like their answer to Sephora, but even a little more curated and cool.
How did you get into Glossier?
I had followed the brand since the beginning. I first discovered Emily Weiss watching The Hills on MTV. And just thinking like, wow, that's actually what real New York Teen Vogue interns are like, with all these sort of airheady reality TV girlies.
A few years later, I heard that she had started a beauty blog, Into the Gloss. It was really good, and I loved following it. I loved the top shelf feature, where people would give recommendations of their favorite products. I often dreamt of them asking me to do one — they never did!
I had interviewed her a few times in those years. I did a story on bleached hair for the New York Times; she had just bleached her hair. And then, when Glossier was set to launch, they told me about it. I was dying to write the big story about it, and, actually, none of my editors wanted to do it, which shocked me. They were wrong because Glossier ended up being a really big deal. So, yeah, I've followed her career pretty closely since 2010, 2011.
What's the one thing you hope everyone takes away from the book?
I hope they think about the power of money and the strings that come attached to anything that you borrow from someone. It's certainly something that I think a lot about.
I think other people take away broader conversations about women and leadership and likeability. All of those things are extremely important and valid things to consider as well.
What is your writing routine like?
It’s kind of chaotic. I don't have really a desk. I have perches in my apartment, dining room, kitchen stools, and sofa that I'll wander around and write on. I pretty much always write at home. I often divide my day where half of it will be research, interviewing people, or meetings of whatever kind. And then maybe in the afternoon, I’ll be writing something. If I'm really in an intense state, where I'm like finishing up a draft of a book, I will be writing every day. For this book, I think there were three or four months where I didn't have a single day off, and I maybe made one plan a week with someone I was dating at the time. I mostly just wrote in two or three extremely long, sit-down shifts of having nothing to do for weeks on end but just crank out words and pages. Maybe it's like how people talk about labor: that you forget about it so that you can do it again. That must be it because I don't know how I am going to do this again.
Well, what is next for you?
Next is a book about Jane Birkin. One of the background things of the Glossier book is about the girl boss phenomenon: what that meant and how it was created. The background of this biography of Jane Birkin is going to be about the creation and the myth of the perfect French girl.
Do you consider yourself a tastemaker?
Probably in my own fantasies...I think of myself more as a writer, someone who likes to bring my own obsessions to a broader audience. I would love to be a tastemaker. I think of myself as having good taste. But I don't know if that's something, like, thinking of yourself as having a good sense of humor. It's like: Who knows if you're actually that funny? But I love nothing more than recommending things to my friends that I’m into and helping them vet their purchases and all that kind of thing.
On that note, let’s get to your picks!
📚 “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt
I’m reading this the zillionth of time. I'm actually teaching a seminar about it for McNally Jackson, a New York bookstore that does book clubs. It's a campus novel, which is one of my favorite genres, the dark academia genre. It's there's murder, there's Greek myths, there's sex and drugs and violence. It's also weirdly cozy. It takes place in New England. I highly recommend if you've never read it, and I highly recommend it if you have read it rereading it.
🎙 “Once Upon a Time at Bennington College” by Lili Anolik
This is a podcast kind of about [The Secret History]. It’s a really fun one to listen to after you've read the because it kind of goes into the real-life inspirations of the book and the kind of world around it.
🇬🇷 The Greek Islands
I went to Paros in Tinos and a few other ones last summer and saw friends. It was so relaxing. I could eat Greek food every day for the rest of my life and not get tired of it. I find it so delicious. There are mountain goats that just walk by… It's really beautiful. I loved every minute and I want to go back next year.
📕❤️ “The Idea of You” by Robinne Lee
For a romance book, this is probably the sexiest and most fun romance book I've ever read. It's about a woman who's like 40 who's dating basically a Harry Styles kind of character. It's like a vacation in a book.
🥧 Fall Pie Season
I'm not that much of a cook, but I am very excited for fall pie season. Recently I got a selection of slices of pie from a bakery to have in my apartment, and I recommend the same for everyone. So I got a piece of walnut whiskey pie, a piece of sweet potato pie, a piece of pumpkin pie, a piece of apple pie, and some vanilla bean ice cream. I ate it for dessert over the course of a week. I can't think of anything better if I'm being honest.
• You can order Glossy wherever you like to buy your books!
• I like following Marisa on Instagram.
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