The post-pandemic cosmetics boom was bound to slow down at some point, but personal care giants didn’t think it would happen so suddenly.

After enjoying a few years of record highs, Ulta Beauty told investors this week that its entire beauty category is seeing a larger- and faster-than-expected drop-off in demand, though the cosmetics chain expects the dip to level out later this year.

• Citing lost ground in luxury makeup and tight competition in hair care, CEO Dave Kimbell warned that Ulta will likely only post low-single-digit growth this quarter if demand stays the same.
• The comments sent Ulta shares tumbling 15% on Wednesday, its steepest single-day loss in more than a year.
• Ulta’s bad news dragged competitors down during intraday trading, too: elf Beauty’s stock recorded its worst day since May 2020, sinking ~12%, while Estée Lauder and Coty each dipped ~5%.

So much for the lipstick index

Ulta and other major beauty companies that thrived during the past few years of economic instability provided good fodder for the “lipstick index”—a duct-tape economic measure that assumes people still buy small indulgences (like lipstick) during tough times, keeping the beauty industry recession-proof.

Except…it’s not. Ulta’s full-year sales growth target is just 4% to 5%, which falls below Wall Street’s estimates, and Estée Lauder announced in February it was laying off 3% to 5% of its workforce after some difficult months.

Zoom out: Other consumer goods powerhouses are bracing for a slowdown, too. The parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger said this week that it’s preparing for a 6% to 7% revenue drop this year.

Silver lining: The beauty slowdown comes despite heightened demand from the kids who are glamming up for bar mitzvahs and proms. Over the holidays, higher-priced goods notched 16% sales growth among higher-income households with children under 18, compared with 6% growth among childless households with the same income.—ML

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Biden urged an immediate Gaza cease-fire in a call with Netanyahu. In his first conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since Israel took the blame for killing seven aid workers in an airstrike, the president stressed that Israel must announce steps to address civilian suffering in the war—and that US policy toward Israel could hinge on it, per a White House readout of the call. Biden said a cease-fire is needed “to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians.” He also reaffirmed support for Israel as Iran threatens to retaliate after an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed senior Iranian commanders.

Apple might pivot to robots. The tech giant is considering a push into home robotics as its “next big thing” after its attempt to develop an electric car failed, Bloomberg reported. Among the projects reportedly in the works are a mobile robot that follows users around their homes and a robotic tabletop smart display. As demand for the iPhone, which accounted for 52% of the company’s $383 billion in sales last year, slows in key markets like China, Apple is trying to identify new long-term sources of revenue. The recently launched Vision Pro headset is not expected to become a cash cow for the company for several years.

X gave free blue checks back to users who didn’t want them. In the latest twist in Elon Musk’s cockamamie Twitter X verification strategy, the social platform suddenly began restoring blue checkmark badges this week to “influential” users with at least 2,500 verified followers. They also received complimentary subscriptions to X Premium, which normally costs $3/month and includes reduced ads and access to ad revenue sharing. Many of the new blue check recipients are celebrities, journalists, and other public figures who specifically avoided having them, as the badge’s meaning and utility were diluted when Musk bought the company and allowed anyone who pays to receive one.

After nearly 25 years of its flagship product being free, the search engine king is thinking about asking you to chip in.

Google is considering charging for AI-powered search features, the Financial Times reported. The change would mark the first time that the company has made anyone pay for search—a signal that even one of the most dominant tech companies isn’t sure how to deal with the competitive threat of ChatGPT.

How it would work: Regular old Google wouldn’t change, but you could also get a paid subscription to a version of the search engine powered by Google’s AI tech, Gemini. AI chatbots have gained popularity as an alternative to Google because they can provide a complete, thorough answer to a question that you might otherwise have to sift pages of links to find.

But AI ain’t cheap. One former Google employee said that using AI to power a search engine is “eye-wateringly” expensive due to the vast amount of computing required.

Zoom out: Google’s next move could have enormous implications for the future of search. An AI-powered engine could disrupt the ad market and make it harder for websites to generate traffic.—CC

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There will soon be another time zone to factor into scheduling your all-hands. NASA’s next big mission, an order straight from the Oval Office, will be to develop a unified standard of time on the moon. Coordinated Lunar Time, or LTC, will help countries, private space companies, and, eventually, celestial industries synchronize.

Making LTC happen is a lot harder than just adding an hour to EST. There’s less gravity on the moon, so time moves slightly faster there than on Earth, where time is kept by hundreds of atomic clocks placed around the globe to measure the changing energy of atoms. Experts say the moon may need its own atomic clocks.

A moon time zone would require everyone down here to agree on one standard. The European Space Agency is also working on tracking moon time.

One small step for time, one giant leap for moonkind. A time zone is just the start of creating a fully functional moon economy. DARPA, an R&D agency under the Department of Defense, has already started collaborating with companies to develop a lunar railroad (among other moon tech) to transport supplies and materials around the surface of the moon.—MM

Stat: In what amounts to the green-tech version of that “It’s enough slices!” meme, China is producing so many cheap solar panels that people in Germany and the Netherlands are using them as fencing, the Financial Times reported. Due to a Chinese manufacturing boom, the global solar panel supply is on track to hit 1,100 gigawatts this year, three times the current forecast. That’s driving the price of panels way down: As of March, they cost 11 cents per watt, half of what they were at that time last year. Now you can keep your neighbors out and save on your electricity bill at the same time.

Quote: “A lot of people don’t even understand really what it means.”

His proxy fight over Nelson Peltz now won, Disney CEO Bob Iger is offering up some hints about what the future of the Mouse House looks like—and it’s clear that he believes the drama over “woke” is behind it. Speaking to CNBC, the exec argued that Disney’s critics don’t actually know what the politically charged term means and merely use it to attack its strategy of producing content for a wide range of audiences. Iger reiterated that the company’s “number one goal is to entertain” and said that “infusing messaging” into its content is not a priority, though it remains committed to reaching diverse viewers.

Read: Seven agonizing nights aboard the biggest cruise ship ever. (The Atlantic)

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