New Gothic Beauty features include Schattengewänder dark enchanting garments designed by Joana Gierga and Friederike and modeled by Sphaera Obscura, Mandy Toxic, Jopie, justenizer, and Friederike, Wave Gotik Treffen music, portraits, and extraordinary encounters photo journal by Annie Bertram, the art of Dan Eternal with ink, ash, blood, and bone, and Lenore and Niki explore Oaxaca Mexico for Day of the Dead. Plus book reviews and music reviews, with spotlights on Black Spikes, Motionless in White, Dead Cool, The Awakening, Elias Rønnenfelt, Massive Ego, and Boy George.
I think those of you who get the Gothic Beauty Box for that extra deluxe Gothic Beauty experience are going to really enjoy the new one. It includes a really fun variety of new items, plus we’ve brought back one oft-requested past favorite. As always, we have photos of past boxes in the listing for Gothic Beauty Box 60, so that will be a surprise, unless you follow unboxings on social media, but exact item photos are now live at our distributor Zinetastic for Gothic Beauty Box 58 and Gothic Beauty Box 59. All other past Gothic Beauty Boxes are sold out.
All Gothic Beauty Magazine and Gothic Beauty Box pre-orders have now entered the shipping process. We are a small indie team, so it takes some days to get everything packed up beautifully for you all, but keep an eye out for those tracking numbers hitting your email!
Gothic Beauty Magazine and the Gothic Beauty Box have had quite the crazy ride this year. As we have done for over a quarter century, we persevere, but it has certainly been trying. Thank you so much to all of you who supported Gothic Beauty in specific and small business and the goth community in general during these challenging times. On the positive side, we did a retrospective calendar project to celebrate our 25 year anniversary with favorite photos from the vaults of the early oughts. This was so well-received that we are looking at doing a similar book and a 2027 calendar with more recent images. On the less enjoyable side, not only are tariffs making things more expensive, but US Customs now feels compelled to check every package, only US Customs does not have the extra personnel to accomplish this quickly. In addition, many other countries have introduced retaliatory tariffs. This means that, firstly, it can take a very very long time to actually receive items, even once they have arrived locally because Customs needs to look through everything and they give no time estimates, so there is no way to know when anything will arrive. Next, many of our favorite unboxing creators are across the pond, only many have been blocked by Customs from receiving a Gothic Beauty Box or we’ve been able to pay the tariff fees but they are now insanely high. In some places, the local Customs office has charged tariff based on the Gothic Beauty Box total value and not its actual fantastic deal price. Also, while we have held the line on what we charge for shipping, shipping costs have increased. The algorithms for YouTube have been supporting goth creators less. We had items distributed on TikTok Shop for a while, which was a very very costly mistake. It was also time to renew some legal framework paperwork for Gothic Beauty and the legal costs have been astronomical. Maybe TMI, but it has been a lot to deal with so, for those who were curious, these are the details. For those who have been kind and patient and generous with your belief in us, your goodness has truly been what powered the ability to navigate the storm. Thank you.
– Kathryn Valerie
