Selleb Sisters on Almond Pancakes & Lash Serum
Selleb Sisters on Almond Pancakes & Lash Serum
Plus, ahem, Cream-Nut.
Hello!
I am writing this as my dog whines at me to play, so I will keep my intro brief this week. (Not that I mind; emotional support pet time during these chaotic times is about as important as it gets.)
First, a quick housekeeping note: Credo Beauty gave Gatekeeping readers early access to their friends and family sale before it opens to the public tomorrow! Use code LINDY20 for 20% off faves like Tower28 lip treatment balm, Ilia Super Serum Skin Tint SPF 40, and everything else in your cart. Wee! Also now feels like a good time to remind that I’m continuing to donate affiliate revenue to World Central Kitchen through the end of the month.
More fun news: Please welcome to the stage our first-ever duo(!) to Gatekeeping, sisters Chloe and Claire Lee. They’re the founders of Selleb, an app designed to show what people are actually buying in a world of incentivized reviews and sponsored content. And yes, they’re on Substack too, and were kind enough to feature me last week. *Blushes*
So what are the things Claire and Chloe themselves are into at the moment? From flowers to fleece, find it all ahead in their “yours, mine, and ours”-style questionnaire.
Meet the Gatekeepers:
Names: Chloe and Claire Lee
Call home: New York
In a nutshell: Chloe: Anti-supplements, sunscreen freak, serial scroller (on secondhand sites); Claire: Supplement-obsessed, dessert queen, sleep addict
What was the last great meal you ate?
We are voting for Claire’s homemade almond flour pancakes, which have all the trappings of a what-i-eat-in-a-day-video fever dream: almonds, bananas, eggs, vanilla and almond extracts, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, coconut oil, chia seeds, granola, and peanut butter. Lots of healthy fats. Just missing some protein powder. Is it weird that we both put PB on our pancakes instead of syrup? We’re PB fiends and put it on everything and anything. We also throw on some berries and this superfood mix Chloe picked up from Peru called Siete Dragones. It’s a complete nutrition-packed breakfast that we have every. single. day. As startup founders, we need a dependable AM routine to anchor our chaotic days. Tech bros have their black tees and dad jeans; we have our repeat recipe.
What was the last link you sent someone?
Chloe: I sent this to Claire because we live in Chelsea and it boasts quite the flower selection. Caribbean Cuts is a purveyor of exotic flowers and foliage—will brighten any space and has been on my NYC list.
Claire: Shameless plug but the last link I sent was this morning to our Selleb app. We’re currently in closed beta but slowly widening the funnel of users (any fashion/beauty/culture fanatics! so basically, most people on Substack). Send receipts (read: email order confirmations) to post@selleb.com to get boosted on the waitlist!
What is the seemingly random product you can’t stop talking about?
Cream Nut. Great name. We’re peanut-butter-obsessed (see above) and this is our ride-or-die. We’ve turned so many of our family members and friends and followers on social media onto this, we went viral on Twitter and TikTok. Shoutout to our friend Brooks Reitz, from whom we heard it first…
What’s the item you wear most in your closet, and why?
Chloe: District Vision Full Zip Grid Fleece. I wear this day and night. Claire says I look like a soccer mom. She also steals this from me allllll the time so cost/wear is like a fractional penny at this point. Got it on Matches during their closing sale, so I did not pay $295.
Claire: Sundae School Kiwa Fleece. She’s cozy, comfy, chic. Dae (the founder) is a good friend of ours; I walked his first fashion show last year on 4/20. This fleece is my saving grace precisely every day of the week. And seems like I’m not the only one either; you’d be hard-pressed not to see at least one of these on every block of downtown Manhattan during the fall.
What’s your favorite place to shop?
Vestiaire, The RealReal, and eBay are our favorite secondhand sites because it’s all a game and we get such a thrill from scoring deals and steals. ssense private sale hits hard too. We buy a lot of our jewelry from that.
What’s your current beauty obsession?
Regrettably, we’ve both been gifted with Asian eyelashes that enjoy gravity’s company. Holding a curl for more than five minutes is close to impossible. So over the last year-ish, we’ve been using generic Latisse1 every night to lengthen and fortify our lashes. Results are in! Eyelashes have never been longer/bushier BUTTTT the brushes that come with the prescription are WAY too aggressive and can cause major raccoon eyes if used without caution. So we found these ultra-thin precision brushes from Amazon to minimize the raccoon-age. **But we are not doctors so take this beauty advice with a grain bucket of salt.
What are you currently reading, watching, and listening to?
Chloe: The Human Stain. Philip Roth is otherworldly. I’m about to start Disclaimer because I’m a Cate Blanchett groupie and will watch anything of hers. I’m pulling up to this year’s Halloween festivities as Lydia Tár. I’m currently catching up on Normal Gossip, one of the most addicting podcasts. I eat it up.
Claire: The Human Stain. Points for good taste in books, Chloe, because I started reading this book BEFORE you lol. I’m a careful (read: slow) reader. I never seem to have any time left in the day for TV shows (opposite of Chloe because she watches everything).
You have a free day to do anything in NYC. What’s on the agenda?
We’re amblers through and through. If we could have it our way, we’d be outside all day on an extended sister stroll. Clock in 30k+ steps, start in Chelsea, make our way uptown, pop by Lodi for an espresso + pastry and read (not necessarily the best pastries in the city but we love sitting outside), hit the MoMA, walk uptown through Central Park, make our way down, and end the day with a movie (Regal Battery Park, The Metrograph, or Nitehawk). In a word, PERFECT.
From the archives:
Available by prescription only, as you may know from the commercials with Claire Danes back in the day