Sable Yong

1 week ago | vogue.com | Sable Yong

The first time I permed my hair, I was probably about 12. I wanted wavy mermaid hair, and my mom obliged me with a box perm from the drugstore and went to town on my head, wrapping perming solution-soaked strands around neon plastic rods. I remember the fumes making my eyes water. My very straight, thick hair turned into a poodle on top of my head, giving me the biggest, spookiest jumpscare that I remember to this day. Tears were shed. Heads were rinsed.

2 weeks ago | allure.ph | Sable Yong

When you think of the most expensive fragrances in the world, your mind probably doesn’t go to tree fungus. But that’s where you’ll find the origins of oud—one of the most expensive raw materials in the world. As with many rare and precious materials, oud takes a long time to develop naturally; it can’t simply be planted and plucked, like other fragrance notes. Oud takes time to cook, so to speak.

1 month ago | airmail.news | Sable Yong

Our pores have spent the past 15 years under increasingly intense scrutiny. We assault them with acids, lasers, specialized extraction tools, and other torture devices that wouldn’t be out of place in a Bond villain’s lair. The hope is not enhancement or care; it’s an effort at magic, making each pore disappear until it’s as imperceptible as it was the day we were born. Recently, I’ve seen peel-off masks pop up on my TikTok feed, peddled breathlessly by glass-skinned nano-influencers.

1 month ago | coveteur.com | Sable Yong

The first bob that imprinted in my psyche was Audrey Tautou’s cheekbone-grazing brunette French bob in the film Amélie. I was in high school and had just cut my hair into an ill-advised pixie, constantly pawing at the herd of cowlicks on my head that I called a hairstyle at the time. I now had a north star in Tautou’s flippy little coif. That it was French made it all the more appealing—the aughts birthed the indie twee scene and “French girl beauty” as we know it, after all.

2 months ago | airmail.news | Sable Yong

I caught up with one impeccably put-together friend a few weeks ago over a leisurely lunch, Italian in length. As we got up to leave, she pulled out a black leather lipstick tube from her purse and twisted it up to reveal a charcoal black bullet that she skimmed over her mouth—no mirror. It left behind an incongruous light pink stain. This friend wouldn’t dare touch a nail polish darker than Ballet Slippers, hence the lipstick caught my eye.