Into The Gloss was built on conversation and connection through beauty. So naturally, a prolonged period of silence from us felt eerie and raised eyebrows. Things have been quiet on the ITG front these past few months because in that time, I had my first child, took parental leave, and have been navigating both the highs and lows of new motherhood (more on that right below!). Hindsight is always 20/20, and in retrospect, we should’ve said something earlier, but we are here to assure you that ITG is here to stay! We’re sorry for leaving you in the dark, and we’re eager to bring you back into the fold.

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Earlier this year I gave birth to my little girl. And then a few hazy days after delivery, as directed by my doctor, I sat down to take my blood pressure. Everything after that happened at warp speed. I was at the hospital again, hooked up to IVs, monitors, and heart machines. I wanted to leave to be with my 5-day old daughter, but my wonderfully frank ob-gyn wouldn’t have it, telling me: “Your blood pressure is sky high, your organs are showing signs of damage, and if you leave the hospital you’ll have a stroke.”

Postpartum pre-eclampsia is a deadly and very confusing pregnancy complication. Its chief action is that it gives you uncontrollable high blood pressure. As I lay in my hospital room for days, the nurses would flurry in and out with a singular mantra: relax. I watched a lot of TV, I pumped so I could return home with a bounty of breastmilk, I scrolled to the end of TikTok. I thought about beauty and how, when I had nothing but time and a mandate to “just take care of myself,” that I felt uninspired to do that. I set my sights for beauty magic—something, anything that would trigger my mind to just feel good.

I carried that feeling with me when I returned home, where my maternity leave experience was part raising a child, and part navigating a new health landscape for myself. Taking it easy was crucial for my well-being and I threw myself into Beauty Internet for a lot of that. To be honest, I tried not to think about work per se, because that is exactly what you are not supposed to do on leave, but I did think about beauty and how the way we experience beauty has evolved.

When I recently returned to ITG, I knew that it also had to evolve. So much has changed in its decade-plus existence. We’re all so much more informed about skincare, and we’re better at putting on a face. Overall, we’re a hell of a lot more opinionated on what works and what doesn’t; how we express ourselves; the beauty stakeholders who speak to us; and the implications of the industry at large. We also just don’t read about beauty anymore, we watch it in action at touchpoints all over the internet.

In the next few weeks, this is where ITG is headed. We’re expanding the number of platforms in which we can reach you, and broadening our beauty coverage overall. We’re introducing new franchises and new faces. We’re storytelling our asses off. It’s taken us a minute to get here, but as they say, pardon our dust. A new ITG is getting baked.

-Ashley Weatherford

Photo via ITG