☕ Good morning from the cringe trenches, how are you doing on this glorious Thursday?

I am probably wide awake and mildly anxious while this newsletter lands in your inbox. Sending emails to thousands of people is technically not new to me. As a former beauty blogger and later digital marketer, I spent years writing campaigns, newsletters, captions, product launches, and strategy decks for other people and other brands.

But this feels different.

This newsletter is about me — my opinions, my work, my internet observations, experiments, hobbies, and occasionally, my emotional dependence on beauty products and social media validation. But only occasionally.

Even making the thumbnail for this issue felt strangely vulnerable. It contains only photos of me and beauty products I reviewed on my old blog. I posted them partly because I needed evidence for an argument I was having with myself last year.

At some point, self-sabotage and self-doubt just become deeply annoying, you know?

Last year, completely out of nowhere, Anua invited me to join their European Instagram campaign. At the time, my blog was dead, my social accounts were basically inactive, and I was in the middle of a startup accelerator trying to build what I considered a groundbreaking app idea. I had already moved back to Poland and left most of my photography equipment behind in the Netherlands.

So when the email arrived, I genuinely hesitated. Because accepting free skincare products felt weirdly connected to a version of myself I thought I had already outgrown.

Like… started blogging → spent money on marketing courses → became a marketer → worked at a local municipality helping startups → now suddenly feels she is “too serious” to make cute Instagram beauty content? Girl, what?

Meanwhile, some of the women I used to follow online had grown their accounts into full-time businesses while I was busy sitting on my serious job horse thinking I had evolved beyond beauty blogging. Never again.

I said yes to the Anua x YesStyle collaboration 🥳

And somehow, that tiny PR package restarted my creativity. Now the beauty stash is slowly growing again, and instead of reviving my old blog exactly as it was, I decided to reinvent the format a little. As a marketer, I already knew about newsletter platforms, and frankly, I did not feel like paying another $20 monthly for website hosting.

So here we are on BeeHive.

Every second Thursday, AM hours, I’ll be sharing behind-the-scenes thoughts on content creation, beauty culture, creator burnout, influencer marketing, female entrepreneurship, startups, and whatever else currently occupies my browser tabs and internal monologue.

Welcome, you :)

It took me some time to get my creative muscles back into their old shape, but I’m slowly getting there. So far, it has involved a lot of marinating, testing, and occasionally burning my dermis due to overzealous product use — but honestly, I’ve loved every package I’ve received. With the start of this newsletter, I am entering a new phase of content creation: I am committing.

A few weeks ago, I finished a 30-day Instagram challenge with Stan Store on one of my IG accounts. They refused to pay me because apparently they “couldn’t verify” that I used their app before the challenge started. I remain deeply bitter about this experience, so I will mention it in my new newsletter. So they know I will be pushing Linktrees and Beacons and whatever else until my butt pain resides. And that is a rather rare occurrence, I have to admit.

I’ve already experienced professional burnout once in my life, and unfortunately that experience tends to reorganize your relationship with ambition forever. Especially when you are the kind of person who keeps turning hobbies into unpaid second jobs.

As many of you probably know, content creation on top of a full-time job, studies, simply adulting, is not exactly a relaxing little side quest. There is a reason so many people dream about doing it, they and never actually begin.

And that's fine.

A few years ago, I would have approached this newsletter very differently. Maximum output. Maximum optimization. Posting schedules. Growth pressure. Probably some unnecessary suffering for character development.

Not this time.

This project is supposed to fit into my life — not consume it.

So these are the rules:

Bi-weekly newsletter for at least 3 months. After that, I will evaluate whether I have enough interesting material, but also enough time, energy, and money to move into a weekly format.

I say no to collaborations that do not fit my preferences. For now, I am trusting pure gut feeling. Brand missions and value alignment for the TMS brand can arrive after this initial experimental phase.

My other, paid work comes first. Unfortunately, my bills still have to be paid in actual currency rather than artistic fulfillment and a moisturized complexion. Eh, they should already get along with the program, TBH...

You know how little kids are about to cry and they do the lip thing and make that horseshoe face? That’s how I look when I talk to the camera because I’m scared and I want to cry and run away, but I stay and talk through this reverse smile. It’s very weird, IMO.

I made a deal with myself:

If I got invited to a Mixsoon collaboration, I would finally start speaking on camera. The parcel is apparently on its way, so unfortunately for me, this means the era of hearing my own voice online is approaching rapidly.

Do I sound vaguely like Dracula? A bit. Will intrusive thoughts stop me this time? Hopefully not. Honestly, I think part of becoming an adult creator is accepting that embarrassment is unavoidable. At some point, you either post the video or spend another five years overthinking your ring light placement. The wisdom is 100% borrowed from some bro podcast.