In December 2022, Alexis Androulakis was weighing leaving the beauty industry after more than 15 years. That was until her wife, Christina Basias, posted a series of videos she had filmed of Androulakis on TikTok playing her favorite beauty retail game: trying out products and guessing (almost always correctly) where they were manufactured. And millions of people watched.

After that, Androulakis—with Basias behind the camera—became an “accidental influencer” under the name The Lipstick Lesbians, amassing nearly 450K followers and 16.4 million likes on TikTok. Their content has cut through the flurry of GRWMs to offer consumers Androulakis’s beauty-industry insight—like the history of the Urban Decay Naked Palette, the luxury packaging design of YSL’s Candy Glaze Lip Gloss Stick, and the purpose of trimethylsiloxysilicate in the Maybelline 24-Hour Skin Tint.

“It was definitely the world’s way of saying, ‘Do not leave the beauty industry—you are just getting started,’” Androulakis told Retail Brew.

She began her beauty career in 2006 as a Nars makeup artist at Lord & Taylor while studying cosmetics and fragrance marketing at FIT, dreaming of becoming a corporate beauty product developer—the “translator between a chemist and a marketer,” she noted. She then worked on brands like Mac and Benefit at contract manufacturer NuWorld Beauty, and Drew Barrymore’s Flower Beauty at Maesa, before landing her dream gig as product development lead at Shiseido’s Makeup Center of Excellence, focused on its complexion relaunch.

Soon, she had a new dream—starting her own business. But five years of consulting left her burnt out. Now, she’s using her platform and her impressive industry knowledge to bring “beauty literacy” to the masses on TikTok.

Keep reading here.—EC

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Sometimes things are out of your control—whether you’re a giant multinational corporation or an hourly employee. That’s really the theme of this week and, of course, more earnings.

In-store policy: Starting today, In-N-Out is banning employees from five states from wearing masks without a medical note. The company says the new policy is for the “importance of customer service,” according to a company memo.

In artificial intelligence: On Tuesday, China is set to implement a number of regulations on generative AI, particularly apps that use models like ChatGPT. Several applications were already removed from Apple’s China app store ahead of the measures, which include demanding AI apps in China to receive a license.

In earnings: Walmart is scheduled to report its earnings Thursday, and the word on the street is that the company could expect good news. Walmart’s chief competitor Amazon reported a strong Q1 a couple of weeks ago, including a 6.4% climb in physical store sales.

Keep reading here.—KM

For cost-conscious shoppers, retail may offer a refuge from inflation.

The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed prices rose 3.2% YoY in July, up from 3% in June. That marks a slight reversal of the cooling trend of recent months. It was largely driven by a 0.4% jump in the cost of shelter—though many consumer goods prices actually fell.

Run your eyes down the June to July column for month over month inflation, and you’ll notice that most physical goods except food and energy are tagged with minus signs. This has been the general trend for the last three months, but an increasing number of categories are now more affordable.

• Toys fell 2.9%
• Smartphones fell 1.6%
• Video and audio products fell 1.3%
• Footwear prices fell 0.8%
• Tools, hardware, outdoor equipment, and supplies fell 0.7%
• Household furnishings and supplies fell 0.4%
• Pets and pet products fell 0.4%

The data comes amid a heavy promotional environment for retailers looking to pump up demand and keep inventory moving.

Keep reading here.—AV

Today’s top retail reads.

Milk money: Why price increases for groceries are outpacing inflation. (Marketplace)

Quarter pounder with sleeves: The appeal for QSRs like McDonald’s and Domino’s to introduce clothing collections. (PYMNTS)

Custom Vans: How Michael Lorenzen’s love affair with Vans led him to walk away from a Nike endorsement deal, customize a skate-shoe Vans’ model with cleats, and pitch a no-hitter wearing them. (the Wall Street Journal)

At the mall, it’s where band tees are the only tees. In Retail Brew, it’s where we invite readers to weigh in on a trending retail topic.

Shippers diverted an estimated 1 million parcels a day away from UPS to competitors like USPS and FedEx in advance of a possible strike by the Teamsters on August 1. Now that the strike has been averted, the question is when and if that business will return to UPS.

You tell us: How did the potential strike play out concerning your business and personal shipping? Cast your vote here.

Circling back: Last time, we also asked you about a topic related to UPS, namely that its shipping insurance division was introducing a “predictive analytics solution” called DeliveryDefense. It determines how likely a package is to be stolen at a given address, and if it’s likely senders can opt to deliver it somewhere other than the address, like a nearby UPS Store.

So we asked you if you agreed with the basic structure of the tool, namely whether retailers should send products somewhere besides a customer’s home if they determine it’s apt to be stolen there. And 70.9% of you said yes, if the data suggests that the package is more likely to be stolen at a customer’s address, the retailer should ship it somewhere else to be picked up. Another 20% said no, even if the data suggests the package is more likely to be stolen at a customer’s address, the retailer should not inconvenience only some customers by making them pick up packages, while 9.1% of you didn’t know or weren’t sure.