Andrew Sotomayor

I received a reply to the email I sent to a Maybelline representative on June 10th. Below is my next open letter response.

Like many of us, in the wake of coronavirus pandemic, I've spent the last three months getting emails from Verizon, Chase Bank, and almost every company I've ever shopped with online. It's always sentiments about what a difficult time Americans are experiencing, words about how much they care, and usually very little about what they actually do.

In the second webisode of “Lip Service” I talk about why being “popular” is all about what other people want, and why being “likable” is all about what you want. If you’re feeling overwhelmed right now thinking about competition, social media, and your relationships, click the link in my bio to watch 👏 this 👏 video 👏. As the world is changing around us, it couldn’t be more important to find one word at a time to carve your path to what’s next.

Confidence is highly overrated. For real. Hear me out.

Author’s note: A previous version of this piece was published on The Huffington Post in 2017. With so many significant changes to the fight against HIV/AIDS in terms of the success of PrEP, new information about what it means to be undetectable, a dizzying array of political issues, the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, and through it all an additional 2 million new HIV cases globally, I felt that now more than ever, this piece needed to be updated and reshared. While cases of sexually transmitted infections have most likely fallen temporarily as social distancing have been put in place to drastically varying degrees depending on location, it is to be expected they will return along with previous social norms.

In honor of the new, and really cool Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt interactive special “Kimmy vs. The Reverend” on Netflix, which is basically a Choose Your Own Adventure book come to life, I decided to have a spa night with the hilarious Lauren Adams from the show! Full disclosure...no spoilers! Instead, with her cult hit Instagram page @MaskingForTrouble, Lauren Adams from "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" is someone I've been wanting to team up with for a skincare face mask side by side trial forever! We have mutual friends dating as far back to high school and college, so this was a collaboration that was meant to be. Join us for a girls night with tips for positivity, gratitude, and joy, plus lots of deep dive skincare tips from the expert on face masks. Seriously, she must have tried hundreds. She’s even made special trips to the Korean shopping district in New York, and has even been to South Korea!