THE LAB Is In Session: Prince William Stickers & Y2K Archives
What happened when I gave a group of Gen A students a pile of 2026’s viral beauty products and a stack of 2001 teen magazines...
Yesterday, I walked into the first session of The Beauty Ed® THE LAB at Shorecrest High School in Florida andI brought two things with me:
A bag of the latest, most-hyped beauty launches.
My archive of CosmoGIRL! issues from 2001–2005.
What happened? Insightful chaos lol!
The CosmoGIRL! Archive: 2001 vs. 2026
Watching these Gen Alpha students flick through the pages of CosmoGIRL! was a masterclass in Y2K nostalgia. Back when I was writing these articles in my early twenties, we were educating a generation without iPhones or Tik Tok. So I wasn’t sure how a group raised on 15-second vertical videos would react to long-form quizzes and cut-out guides. But the reaction was pure excitement.
No doubt, it was the “Y2K” aesthetic that they were obsessed with. And the stickers! One of the students even stuck one of them - of Prince William ha ha - on her water bottle. Lol!
I don’t think 25 year old me would have ever imagined that I would be in this situation - watching kids from my son’s American high school - devouring my beauty pages all these years later. But it was a very special moment I can assure you :-)
The Future of Beauty Media!?
Once, we’d got over the excitement and retro-ness of the vintage mags, we spoke about our plans for THE LAB. I gave out a questionnaire that the amazing Gia helped me compile - let’s see if I get any of them back…
In our first official ‘features meeting’ we discussed how THE LAB will come to life. There’s already a huge appetite for hair tutorials and fashion and beauty deep-dives.
I’ve encouraged the "Lab-sters" to leverage my industry contacts too - the room definitely buzzed when I mentioned that Jaime Diaz (the MUA behind Lola Young’s Grammy look) is a follower of The Beauty Ed.® on Insta 🪭
I left the beauty bag reveal until the end…
These squeals of excitement reminded me of my magazine days, when we used to have beauty sales in the office to sell products at discounted prices to raise money for charity.
I noted extra enthusiasm for the Charlotte Tilbury products and there was much amusement over the names of the Soap & Glory Sexy Mother Pucker Lip Glosses too 😁
The Loveliest Thing To Come From It
...was the human-ness and realness of it all.
More of that to come…
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I love this so much!! So glad my questions came into good use xoxo