What is Charlotte’s Book?
Charlotte’s Book is where beauty, wellness, and life collide — without the magazine spin or influencer gloss. I cover the surgeons, the tweakments, the products, the dating disasters, and the divorces — all the things women actually talk about behind closed doors but rarely see written down honestly.
My goal is to reality-check the hype, expose what’s truly worth it, and share the intel that usually only lives in group chats or whispered referrals. Sometimes that means the unvarnished truth about a facelift consult. Sometimes it’s the skincare that actually delivers, or the $20 Amazon flip-flops I can’t live without. Other times it’s what I’ve learned from marriage, a horrific divorce that lost nearly $20 million, or dating in midlife. It’s all fair game — as long as it’s honest.
Why I Write Charlotte’s Book
I’m not a beauty editor, and I don’t want to be one. I don’t care about comps, brand trips, or playing nice with PR. I care about being obsessive — about tweakments, aesthetics, and the transformations that change lives. And I care about telling the truth, even when it’s messy.
When I first launched Charlotte’s Book in 2014, it quickly grew to nearly 200,000 monthly visitors. We had a partnership with Yahoo, were featured in Refinery29, Town & Country, justBOBBI, and more. Then my personal life blew up. My marriage collapsed in spectacular fashion — complete with a cheating husband, a midlife crisis, and losing nearly $20 million in the process. I went silent for almost two years, too busy surviving.
When I came back, I wrote one of my most-read essays ever: “Divorce, Affairs, and Friedrich Nietzsche.” It resonated because women in their 40s and 50s aren’t just talking about facelifts and fillers — we’re talking about betrayal, reinvention, money, and survival. That’s when I knew Charlotte’s Book had to be bigger than beauty.
What Makes This Different
Beauty media has always felt highbrow, safe, and a little fake. Most outlets still can’t say what they really think because advertisers and editors won’t allow it. And most beauty veterans? They still play nice. Influencers, meanwhile, are shilling the next comped serum.
That’s why I started Charlotte’s Book: I wanted the raw intel.
Here, you’ll get:
The aesthetics edit you actually want — facelifts, Botox, filler, skin. Brutally true.
Life, unfiltered — divorce, dating after 40, the mess, the funny, the lessons.
Products worth buying — no fluff, no PR spin, only what’s worth your money.
Reinvention after 40 — the glow-ups, the heartbreaks, the rebuilds, and the power plays.
Why Subscribe?
If you want glossy, polite, and PR-approved — don’t subscribe. If you want the truth, with all the messy details, welcome.
Some posts will always be free. But the juiciest intel — the surgeon shortlists, the real numbers, the disasters, the regrets, even what it costs to hire a private investigator mid-divorce — will be for paid subscribers. Think of it as your insider pass: the girlfriend’s guide no one else will publish.
A Little About Me
I’m Robin Shobin — founder of Charlotte’s Book. I started this space because I wanted somewhere to tell the truth about beauty and life without filters.
Before that? I was the youngest Director at JPMorgan, heading the energy sector in my 20s. I later raised $30 million to found Halo Hydration with investors like Pitbull and Don Saladino. It failed — a masterclass in co-founder mistakes and startup heartbreak. After my divorce, I renovated four homes in upstate New York, which brought me back financially. I still co-own Woodstock Brewing with my ex-husband, launched in 2018 — where I also learned the hard way not to hire 19-year-old bartenders your 40-year-old husband will cheat on you with.
I’ve done a lot: finance, startups, real estate, beauty. All of it gave me a front-row seat to wealth, image, lifestyle, and what really matters — and how women actually navigate it.
Now, I spend most of the year in Australia and Bali, with a few months back in the U.S. I’m 47, divorced, finally in a relationship after a lot of dating detours, and still as obsessed with aesthetics as I was at 27. The difference now? I’ll tell you what’s worth it, what’s not, and everything I wish someone told me sooner.
The Bottom Line
Charlotte’s Book started because beauty media felt like a bad dinner party — everyone polite, no one spilling the good tea. Here, you get the unvarnished truth: the wins, the disasters, the prices, the regrets.
No glossy editor bullshit, no PR hand-holding, no sugarcoating. This feels like sitting on the sofa with the brutally honest friend who’s actually had the surgery (or spent the money) and will tell you where it sucked and where it was worth every penny.
And sometimes? You’ll get dating advice, divorce drama, travel recs, and the excellent things actually worth your money. Subscribe and get the gossip you really want to know.
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