Los Angeles, California: city of dreams, city of strikes, and—perennially, necessarily, unavoidably—city of wellness. I’ve been writing about the bizarreness of L.A. “health culture” since I was starting out as a baby reporter here in 2017, back when Moon Juice reigned supreme (sidenote: remember the “sex dust?”), but when I left the city for New York in 2018, I genuinely thought I d never be back for good. I was a 24-year-old dirtbag in a city of finely honed and barre-class-toned beauty, and as much as I’d loved mall trips and In-N-Out and sunrise drives to the beach, I told myself I “just wasn t the L.A. type.” If only Amanda Chantal Bacon could make a bespoke dust to cure that ailment.
I may not have been swept up into the rising tide of wellness-mania when I last lived in L.A., but now that I’m living back here, five years later, I’m stable, much happier, medicated, and even vaguely meditated (if you can call zoning out to Real Housewives of New Jersey nightly meditation, which I think you can.) All my insecurities from my previous brush with Hollywood haven’t melted away, but my lingering teenage acne mostly has; still, I fret over the state of my skin as much as the next cis-heteropatriarchy-steeped she/they, always staying vigilant for breakouts and spending more money than I should on various serums and mists that promise to leave me as glowy as a high-watt bulb. Thus, when TikTok first informed me of Hailey Bieber’s Strawberry Skin Glaze Smoothie, which is currently being sold at hot-earthy-girl mecca Erewhon for the very normal and not at all jaw-dropping price of $20, I was intrigued; could a silly little beverage really make my skin better? And if it could, would it taste horrible?
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I’ve never been a skilled math student, but as I see it, if one Skin Glaze smoothie is supposed to give me a skin glow-up, then a week of Skin Glaze smoothies should legally have to make me at least 30% hotter, right? Luckily, I work at an outlet willing to reimburse me to test out that theory (which comes in particularly handy given that a week’s worth of daily Erewhon smoothies will set you back a cool $140). So without further ado, I present to you my week of Skin Glaze smoothies, rest, relaxation, and (spoiler) persistent gastrointestinal distress.
Day One: Monday, July 24
Reference photo of skin before Smoothie #1:
I stride into the Silver Lake Erewhon feeling like a kid on Christmas morning, unable to believe that my job for the day is to drink an expensive celebrity-hewn smoothie. This location is absolutely teeming with cool teenagers buying $40 bottles of water after soccer camp, but I try not to let it get me down; even before I take my first sip, I’m feeling okay about my skin thanks to constant sunscreen and Everyday Oil application, so I can only imagine how much better-looking I’ll be once I get a Skin Glaze smoothie down the hatch. It works instantly, like poison in cartoons, right?
I take my first sip. Mmm, delicious chalk. The color is supposed to be bright pink, according to the internet, but it comes out more of a faded beige; it genuinely tastes like a treat and not a nauseating wellness supplement, but even I, a champion eater who has never had a problem housing, say, an entire large popcorn at the movies, can’t finish the whole thing. I hand the remaining half of the smoothie to my partner before we go swimming at our local public pool, and I have to admit that I finish my set of ten laps significantly faster than usual. Has Hailey been marketing this thing wrong? Is it actually a sports drink?
9:32 p.m. update: my partner sleepily told me my skin looked great as we were getting in bed, to which I responded by sitting up straight and loudly reminding them that I had just started my smoothie regimen. Had they remembered? No, they hadn’t, they swore, they had just genuinely thought my skin looked great and told me so unprompted. Put a W on the board, folks!
Day Two: Tuesday, July 25
Reference photo of skin before Smoothie #2:
I finish the work day with a sexy little trip across town to Culver City to see my dentist, who pronounces my teeth “very good” and my gums “pretty bad.” We schedule a follow-up “deep clean” and I trek over to the Culver City Erewhon, trying to shake the cognitive dissonance of spending $20 on a smoothie while also planning for an unexpected dental procedure that is, for some reason, only partly covered by insurance. (I don’t work eight hours a day to treat my own periodontitis, bro!) Obviously, I’ll get reimbursed for the smoothie, but it still feels vaguely preposterous.
The Culver City Erewhon bathroom is gorgeous, if you happen to be in the neighborhood shopping for sea moss or picketing at Amazon (or both!) and need a pit stop. I have to admit my skin looks a little glowier after just one smoothie, but I also remembered to moisturize last night (which rarely happens), so, take that with a grain of salt. Have I always had that one weird little wrinkle next to my eyebrow? Is this why people get Botox? Should I get Botox instead of my dental work?
Day Three: Wednesday, July 26
Reference photo of skin before Smoothie #3:
And lo, on the third day, I became convinced my skin was actually somehow getting...worse? A barely visible but frustrating new pimple above my lip caused me to finally Google the Skin Smoothie’s ingredients to see if it included dairy, which sometimes makes me break out; it doesn t, but it does contain “almond milk, strawberries, vanilla collagen, hyaluronic acid, coconut cream, sea moss gel, avocado, maple syrup, dates , and housemade strawberry glaze.” Hmm, collagen and hyaluronic acid; both legit, as I know from my amateur Reddit-beauty-sleuth habits, and I know sea moss gel is a thing too, although I can’t help picturing it being a blended-up version of the long strings of kelp that periodically encircle me in the water when I’m swimming in Malibu, briefly convincing me every time that the mermaid from Aquamarine is trying to drown me.
Maybe I’m just generally in a bad mood today, but day three is when the taste of the smoothie—once refreshing, if a bit saccharine—starts to get to me. There are so many other things I want at Erewhon—fancy water! Tahini balls! Weird nuts that cost more than my monthly car insurance payment!—but I’m fated to just drink this one smoothie forever, like Penelope weaving her shroud, if Penelope’s shroud were dairy-free and low in added sugar.
Day Four: Thursday, July 26
Reference photo of skin before Smoothie #4:
Today’s trip back to the Silver Lake Erewhon is a trying one, as I show up in a sports bra and bike shorts before heading out to walk the Silver Lake Reservoir and am the recipient of what I perceive to be judgmental looks (from the thin people standing around me at the counter, not the Erewhon employees, who, it should be said, are absolute angels who bear the brunt of the sticker shock that the store’s absurd prices often elicit). I usually don’t let fatphobia of that sort get to me, given that it’s pretty hard to permanently avoid in L.A., but it bums me out today; what perks me up, though, is examining the triumphant fuck-you selfie I spend way too long shooting by the elevator and noticing that the apples of my cheeks are glowing.
Oh, and I’m coming back around on the taste! Or maybe it’s just so hot in L.A. (and seemingly everywhere right now) that I can’t imagine eating or drinking anything that wasn’t blended with ice. I’m not some Soylent bitch who prefers to drink my meals, but I’ve been too lazy to cook lately, and it’s kind of nice to just...drink the same thing every day without thinking about it, even if the strawberry glaze is starting to ever-so-occasionally make me gag. My friend Sophie suggests I get my smoothie without the maple syrup; it really is too sweet, and I have no doubt she s right that that substitution helps with the taste, but I feel like I shouldn’t alter the recipe for the sake of journalistic objectivity.
Day Five: Friday, July 27
Reference photo of skin before Smoothie #5:
I m back in Culver City to join some friends on the picket line at Sony, so I decide to go to the beach afterward and hit Erewhon in between. The lovely woman making my smoothie gives me a full cup of ice water for free and I apply fancy tester sunscreen while I wait, so it’s a pretty top-tier visit. I have grand visions of sipping the smoothie while listening to the Barbie soundtrack as I drive down the Pacific Coast Highway, but I leave the cup in the left-hand cup holder too long and it gets warmed up by the sun to a truly foul temperature before I’m even out of Santa Monica. I force myself to chug a few sips, wondering what sun exposure does to sea moss gel, and throw the rest away, aware that I’ve essentially just set fire to $16.
Much to report on the skin end, folks, as the very sweet cat I’m currently watching in Echo Park accidentally scratched me in the face while frantically trying to cuddle; I now have a thin but relatively long and visible gash on the right side of my chin, and I wonder if the collagen in the smoothie will do anything to help it go away. (Of course this happens on the one week when I happen to be uploading high-res pics of my stupid face to the Internet.)
Day Six: Saturday, July 28
Reference photo of skin before Smoothie #6:
Okay, I don’t know what kind of magic is at work here, but my skin looks the best it has in weeks, if not months, today? I snapped this picture at a red light (L.A. girlie behavior), and while I’m being blasted with light, Sweet Dee-style, I can also see that there’s more clarity to my skin than there was this time last week. Granted, I’m wearing makeup for the first time this week, but it’s just some concealer on my chin and some blue eyeliner, I swear. Time to put this newfound glow to the test with a night of early-twenties-style heavy drinking and pizza eating!
Today’s shake goes down not-so-smooth, especially in comparison to the non-strawberry, non-skin glaze smoothie that my friend and Vogue colleague Hannah Jackson ordered after kindly driving us to Erewhon; I coveted my neighbor’s smoothie, the highest of sins, and ended up sulkily drinking mine like a five-year-old who’s been told she won’t get dessert if she doesn’t finish her adaptogens (which, in L.A., is a real and persistent threat.) I drank the smoothie around noon and was then too full for the three shrimp tacos I ended up eating at my friend’s barbecue, leading me to lie on my stomach groaning for the majority of the afternoon before regrouping in the evening. Had to be done.
Day Seven: Sunday, July 29
Reference photo of skin before Smoothie #7:
Truth time: I stayed out way too late last night, as in “4 a.m.” too late, as in “You’re 30 years old, stop humiliating yourself on the dance floor” too late, and only got a few hours sleep. I stop at Erewhon in the morning, before deciding I need more caffeine and chemicals than an organic grocery store can provide—and then make an emergency landing at Guisado’s for a supplemental quesadilla, tamale, and size-large cold brew horchata dyed Dodger-blue with food coloring. Now this is a beverage!
Guys. Guys. I barely slept, I acted like a “tall child” (if I may quote Mitski) all night, I used and abused an open bar stocked with fruity cocktails, I ate drunk pizza in the wee hours, and yet...my skin is glowing so much in today’s hangover selfie that my friends Julia and Allegra (both women with glowing complexions themselves, it should be said) DM’ed me with compliments.
Well, friends, the results are in: the drink is borderline disgusting after a week of regular consumption and you could probably get a similar glow just from adding collagen supplements to your coffee and hyaluronic acid to your skincare routine, but I look awake, even with dirty hair, a dazed expression and a size-XL Bronx Zoo T-shirt on. It feels ridiculous to spend $20 a day on a liquid, but I’ll admit it; it’s also kind of amazing. Imagine doing this every day! Why is everyone in line at Erewhon so mean? Your life is perfect!
Do I have to join Hillsong now?
