A Newsletter About Matcha & Cut-Creases

Sorry for being MIA

May 09, 2025

Happy Friday ⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚

Hello my 11 Substack subscribers! If you are receiving this email, that means you are reading the eighth Cute, Kind Of Weekly Newsletter! Today, I am dedicating this newsletter to N O T H I N G, which just means I will say anything that comes to mind. Also, I will be updating you guys on my writing schedule for the next month, after I abandoned y’all for two weeks.

I hope you enjoy - Laila

Cute, Kind Of Publishing Schedule

Friends, I am scaling back my substack posts for the next month 😔💔

I originally had the plan to start posting three times per week starting last month, however, it seems as though I will only be able to publish once a week on Friday.

There are two reasons:

A lot of my drafted stories are on the longer side so I want make sure I have the time to throughly write, edit, design each story
I have some work projects I need to focus on for the time being

So what it looks like is that I will publish my weekly newsletter every week, and if a separate story is ready, I will publish that during the week.

Nothing <3

I did update the Best Glee Performances Of ALL TIME, According To Me post with another performance. I am not going to spoil it, but scroll to the bottom to see it.

Best Glee Performances Of ALL TIME, According To Me

Laila Riaz

Mar 19

Best Glee Performances Of ALL TIME, According To Me

We are back with another fun post for the silly, goofy girls gleeks <3

Read full story

Nothing really. I started using the Vichy Mineral 89 Hyaluronic Acid Face Serum and it was nice at first, but now I think it is clogging my pores. I use it primarily after shaving my fave so that might be why, but I will try using it in the morning or on nights I don’t shave my face.

But in random news — we are entering a makeup renaissance! The girls are tired of soft girl makeup, clean girl aesthetics, and skin-first, makeup-second approach* (sorry Glossier).

*what I mean by this is that “skin-first, makeup-second” often gets interpreted as your makeup “looks bad” because your skin “looks bad.” However, I believe you can have a fantastic beat regardless of skin condition. It is all about technique and working with your skin.

There have been TikTok’s popping up on my feed of beauty connoisseurs reminicing over makeup from the 2010s. One I saw — can’t remember the creator — talked about how girls in 2016 were clocking into their 9-5s with a full-beat that included a cut-crease, eye-blinding highlight, and carved out cheekbones. I also have been seeing TikToks labeled “doing my makeup like it’s 2015.”

I think I mentioned in a previous newsletter that in 2025 I was hoping for a mainstream YouTube drag makeup revival with the popularity of Chappell Roan. This heavier makeup style is adorned by multiple celebrities like Chappell Roan, Doechii, Megan Thee Stallion, and more. Since 2020, the girls have been treating highlight as an afterthought. Breaks my heart.

If you are wondering why I haven’t been writing, it is because I have been having this weird brain fog in the morning, which has been making me kind of nauseous and harder to focus. I am pretty sure it is because of my seasonal allergies that have been messing me up since March.

Another thing is that I am out of matcha…which seems like a non-issue but ever since I got diagnosed with my gluten allergy, coffee has been hard to drink for me on a daily basis. I can drink it once every few days but not every day. I am drinking chai but it doesn’t hit the same to be very honest.

I have been trying to get my hands on the Ipoddo Ummon (I didn’t really like Sayaka) but it has been out of stock for months. I am thinking of trying something else - but a lot of these mainstream, trendy matchas have the same taste as Sayaka.

The reason why Ipoddo is out of stock is because it can’t keep up with demand and it 100% not it’s fault. Matcha is only harvested 1x per year and to grind into the fine powder is a slow process.

I am open to any suggestions. I don’t like Sayaka because once you add milk and sweetener, the taste of the matcha fades away. I like stronger taste that is balanced with the taste of almond milk and maple syrup.

I also learned the other day, people have been using TWO teaspoons of matcha, rather than the traditional one teaspoon, which would explain why it doesn’t get watered down by milk and sweetener. Also why it is so green.

I actually just spent 30 minutes looking up matchas and found one on Amazon called Naoki Matcha Organic Ceremonial First Spring Blend and bought it. I was looking at the reviews and it seemed to be what I am looking for. But now that I think about it, I should have bought it from the actual website.

Honestly, nothing much. I watched two movies recently — actually, I watched a couple. One being Sean Baker's Anora (2024) and the other being The Daniels’s Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).

I was watching Summer Walker’s Over It Radio with Apple Music and Mariah The Scientist was the guest. Mariah The Scientist’s Burning Blue has gone triple-platinum in my bedroom. I am thinking about doing a blue makeup look.

Summer Walker also released a song called Spend It. The song is smooth and love the instrumentals. Most importantly, I LOVE all the white, silver, and muted baby blue tones in the music video. I loved her HD silver and gray sparking eye look and up-do. There was also a Topicals Slick Salve Lip Balm spotting in the music video.

Summer also launched a website called whereisthealbum.com. It has been over 1200 days since her last album- I AM SICK! However, I will be patient and worry about the tariffs instead but I do have an update to my reasons to live leaderboard.