Hamish McKenzie talks to Jessica DeFino about the ravages of beauty culture, her struggles as a journalist in the age of social media, and the ageism of ‘Instagram face’
There's so much in this episode I love, but on a personal level I wanted to say how much I valued you sharing your experience of suffering with dermatitis.
I have atopic eczema, which went berserk four years ago affecting everything from work to my mental health. I'm sure many other people like me will feel seen, heard and want to high-five their airpods when they listen to this episode.
Jan 19, 2023Liked by Hamish McKenzie, Jessica DeFino
Jessica is a valiant writer, a righter of wrongs, a corrector of bullshit, and a much needed destroyer of illusions! Her Substack is divine. Her Twitter is hilarious. This convo with Hamish McKenzie
I will listen to it, even though the beauty industry doesn't interest me, The Active Voice podcast is fantastic. Always great conversations, with people I don't know. I especially like Chris Hedges, George Saunders and Ted Goia. As I thoroughly enjoyed past episodes of "unexpected people" because unknown to me, I am open minded to Jessica, whom I do not know and will be speaking about a subject that theoretically doesn't interest me
Loved this interview Hamish, Jessica’s writing has allowed many illusions about the beauty industry to open up how we as women look at this topic. Thanks for showcasing her substack!
I took a long look at the INGREDIENTS used in many, many “beauty products” l was shocked to find that many neurotoxins are used such as phenohexyethaline - this is a favourite in lipsticks. I was also horrified when looking at the preservatives used and the level of animal testing! Having developed lots of allergies to foods and chemicals l was in a mission! I endeavoured to speak to various companies and it went like this “we never speak to members of the public or our ingredients are a trade secret” WELL! I was disheartened as the advertising is a Psyops presenting “l wanna look like that women” many who have had surgical procedures and Botox like treatment - There is absolutely NO WAY you are going to look like that! GET REAL and learn to love who you are both inside and out!
I was previously very much a lipstick and heels gal .. would NEVER be seen without my make up on! Then went on a real back to nature beach holiday in an amazing place and decided to wear NO MAKE UP .. l actually realised that l felt better, looked myself and my mood was better without pumping in dopamine and serotonin depleting “slap” .. when l came home l looked at ORGANIC alternatives and STOPPED COLOURING my hair with horrific toxic chemicals - l shaved my long “chestnut locks” wore some amazing wigs for a year and now 2 years on have the most beautiful, healthy, shining and stunning long silver hair which is remarked on wherever l go and most of all l FEEL FREEDOM from the commercial and unhealthy world of TOXIC MAKE UP! It’s a totally different approach to life as l now practice an Ayurvedic lifestyle and have NEVER FELT SO WELL! So sorry for all the folks who feel they MUST ALIGN with these huge cosmetic empires pumping out, in some cases, forever toxins!
Not trying to wear my heart on my sleeve, but the comparison to Jesus is a slap to Christians everywhere. It is a completely unnecessary and heretical metaphor. Please try to be sensitive to people of faith.
I think that as a Christian rather than be offended by her heretical metaphor you should be heartbroken by her ignorance of who Jesus is and what he did for her.
If she understood the greatness of God, the depravity of her own heart and the giant chasm of sin that separates her from God she wouldn’t make such heretical remarks. If she understood that only the willing blood sacrifice of the only truly innocent man to walk this Earth, Jesus, try Son of God, was able to close that chasm she wouldn’t make those remarks. If she understood the joy of a right relationship with God she wouldn’t make those remarks. For that matter if she had any historical understanding of the brutal horrors of Roman crucifixion she wouldn’t make such remarks.
I think it would be more beneficial to worry less about your personal feelings and more about her ignorance and the eternal price of it.
I had similar thoughts when I read that line. The guest’s journey is nowhere near the journey of Jesus. And for the author to say that it’s literally the same? I suggest she revisit the definition of literally.
I cannot decide if it’s endearing or sad that someone could make it not only to adulthood but well into with that kind of naïveté. It’s certainly sad to make it that far into adulthood and have a such a superficial understanding of identity and self worth. Glad she woke up and grew up and is trying to help others do the same.
Lol I mean I'm sad about it! This work has also connected me with thousands of women my age, younger, & older who are similarly struggling with internalized beauty culture, identity crises, and low self-worth — so I don't think it's particularly uncommon.
It's definitely sad. What I love about Jessica's work is that she shows us the insidious corporate machinations that maintain this superficial understanding of identity and self-worth. While it's certainly on us to mature, I think we need to acknowledge the gravity of the billion-dollar beauty industry that works against us.
I guess it’s just shocking to me that anyone is fooled by this because the nonsense of it all was made quite clear to me long before the age of 14. It’s a culture and a mindset that I simply cannot fathom.
I think this is predominantly a problem within very specific and narrow cultures. Mostly cultures in extremely well developed nations where losing children to preventable diseases and malnutrition hasn’t been a reality for about a hundred years. This seems to very much fall into the category of a first world problem.
Yes. We’re talking about a beauty ideal marked by very expensive cosmetic interventions and surgeries, so that’s a given. But this also radiates outward to other cultures. (It’s an ideal stemming from white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism—so it functions much the same in terms of its global impact.) For example, the Western ideal of whiteness has given way to very, very harmful skin lightening practices in less developed nations all over the world. People are dying of ingredient exposure, developing neurological conditions, damaging their skin (which is the first line of defense for the immune system, and thus damage can lead to major health issues that are not appearance-related), etc. If you are interested, check out The Beautywell Org, which does political work & cultural outreach in these communities to address the affects of colorism & toxic beauty products globally. I donate a portion of my newsletter’s proceeds there each month precisely so that my writing about this “first world problem”, in some small way, can help people with problems more significant than my own spoiled ones :)
I have no interest in the topic, seems like keeping children from starving to death, stopping the sex trafficking of women, and trying to ensure the toxic combination of the US, Chinese, and and Russian governments do not nuke us back to the dark ages seem like more pressing issues. In America the homeless crisis, fentanyl crisis, abhorrent state of the mental healthcare system, prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, and systematic murder of a million babies a year seem like issues more desperately in need of attention.
It’s nice that you have the privilege to worry about colonialism and the white beauty ideal as you step over homeless schizophrenics and drug addicts on the streets of every major city in America, as more than 100,000 of your fellow countrymen drop dead of opioid overdoses, 2 million of them are in for profit prisons and jails, and your government just voted to spend $858 billion on the military industrial complex so it can wage proxy wars all across the world, but most of us don’t have that privilege. So maybe when my state ceases to be a national hotspot for fentanyl deaths, suicides, and human trafficking maybe then I will get to the horrors of the cosmetic industry.
So because my concern is for my small community, for the one young person under thirty a month that is dying of drug overdoses (most of whom aren’t white but certainly aren’t dying due to the white beauty ideal), for the six veterans a year dying of suicide, for the approximately 2,000 people who have serious mental health needs and cannot get help, because I have to live every day of my life with the devastating consequences of the US government funding global wars to enrich the elite and politicians that I somehow lack kindness and empathy.
Maybe if the next time you walk down a major city street you engage with the homeless instead of averting your eyes and looking past them, maybe if you sit in the NICU and listen helplessly as a meth addicted baby spends its first several weeks screaming in pain and confusion during its withdrawal and you listen to nurses scramble to try and find someone who can take this baby once he’s ready to leave because the overworked social worker isn’t returning their phone calls and his mother and her people abandoned him, maybe if every other month you were watching another broken young American man go into the ground at the veteran’s cemetery and you looked around haunted by the question of who will be next, maybe if you took the time to get to know the people who struggle with these problems you would see why they seem so much more pressing than the evils of the cosmetic industry.
It doesn’t seem to me like you have matured or learned much at all, you have just figured out that you can make more money fighting against the beauty industry than you ever could fighting for it. Which is a savy business move. Fighting homelessness and trying to keep young people on the Rez from killing themselves one way or another isn’t very sexy and it certainly doesn’t get you massively popular Substacks.
I feel sorry for women who are so lost and have such a shallow image of their own self worth that they fall victim to the beauty culture. But I feel worse for the women who are victims of human trafficking, for the mothers burying their children far too young because of suicide and drug use, and for the women of Afghanistan and Iraq who suffer not from western beauty ideals but because our government spent two decades blowing them back into the Stone Age and then abandoned them to their fate. I suspect most of them would be happy to see the day when they could be oppressed by white colonial beauty standards. They don’t get to enjoy even their own natural beauty because they are covered head to toe and don’t have enough to eat thanks to non-colonial standards of beauty and modesty but at least they aren’t being duped into buying cosmetics. It seems to me that it is your empathy that is rather limited in its scope.
There’s a big difference between prettiness and beauty. They might overlap in some people, but the intersection between the two is far from perfect. We usually experience the perception of beauty as a visual thing, but that’s only partly true. I’ve known any number of gorgeous women who became actually unpleasant to look at after talking with them a very short time. Conversely, plain-looking women can become quite lovely. It’s all about the interactions, and what’s inside.
No amount of makeup changes this
Eric Berne: “Anatomy can make a woman pretty, but only a father’s smile can make beauty shine from her eyes.”
Great interview and takes head on a trillion dollar industry that relies upon keeping mostly women feeling inadequate which in turn justifies them purchasing beauty products and services. You can’t always write about everyone’s perspective because that requires you know everyone’s experience instead we talk in general terms and majority. Many women fall victim to feeling inadequate and are surely not aware of that fact. Great job!
I’m a registered nurse who specializes in skin care. In the 25 years of skin care research & caring for patients I realized that those who write articles in magazines have no background in science or the care of skin. They are almost always new to journalism as well.
In addition, there are thousands & thousands of new skin care lines. Using skin care products that haven’t been tested by an independent source is irresponsible.
A journalist doesn’t know the necessity of testing a finished product. They also don’t know the attributes of individual ingredients. A simple example is vitamin E. To note that a product contains vitamin E means very little. There are 9 (maybe more now) types of vitamin E. The only form of E that penetrates skin is alpha-tocopherol. Other forms of E are added as antioxidants to protect the product. They do nothing for the skin. However, the front label of the product frequently states, “contains vitamin E.”
I seriously doubt if a journalist knows facts like these.
death threats from nail artists? I thought I'd heard it all...our solitary culture of mostly unsupervised adults + internet makes it far too easy to rage at people...this kind of behavior, in traditional societies, got your head beaten in. For a reason.
Thank you so much for having me on!! I loved this conversation :)
Thank you for coming on and sharing your story! I, too, loved the conversation.
There's so much in this episode I love, but on a personal level I wanted to say how much I valued you sharing your experience of suffering with dermatitis.
I have atopic eczema, which went berserk four years ago affecting everything from work to my mental health. I'm sure many other people like me will feel seen, heard and want to high-five their airpods when they listen to this episode.
Thanks for everything you do!
Jessica is a valiant writer, a righter of wrongs, a corrector of bullshit, and a much needed destroyer of illusions! Her Substack is divine. Her Twitter is hilarious. This convo with Hamish McKenzie
is MARVELOUS!
E. Jean! Thank you!!!
I will listen to it, even though the beauty industry doesn't interest me, The Active Voice podcast is fantastic. Always great conversations, with people I don't know. I especially like Chris Hedges, George Saunders and Ted Goia. As I thoroughly enjoyed past episodes of "unexpected people" because unknown to me, I am open minded to Jessica, whom I do not know and will be speaking about a subject that theoretically doesn't interest me
Loved this interview Hamish, Jessica’s writing has allowed many illusions about the beauty industry to open up how we as women look at this topic. Thanks for showcasing her substack!
I took a long look at the INGREDIENTS used in many, many “beauty products” l was shocked to find that many neurotoxins are used such as phenohexyethaline - this is a favourite in lipsticks. I was also horrified when looking at the preservatives used and the level of animal testing! Having developed lots of allergies to foods and chemicals l was in a mission! I endeavoured to speak to various companies and it went like this “we never speak to members of the public or our ingredients are a trade secret” WELL! I was disheartened as the advertising is a Psyops presenting “l wanna look like that women” many who have had surgical procedures and Botox like treatment - There is absolutely NO WAY you are going to look like that! GET REAL and learn to love who you are both inside and out!
I was previously very much a lipstick and heels gal .. would NEVER be seen without my make up on! Then went on a real back to nature beach holiday in an amazing place and decided to wear NO MAKE UP .. l actually realised that l felt better, looked myself and my mood was better without pumping in dopamine and serotonin depleting “slap” .. when l came home l looked at ORGANIC alternatives and STOPPED COLOURING my hair with horrific toxic chemicals - l shaved my long “chestnut locks” wore some amazing wigs for a year and now 2 years on have the most beautiful, healthy, shining and stunning long silver hair which is remarked on wherever l go and most of all l FEEL FREEDOM from the commercial and unhealthy world of TOXIC MAKE UP! It’s a totally different approach to life as l now practice an Ayurvedic lifestyle and have NEVER FELT SO WELL! So sorry for all the folks who feel they MUST ALIGN with these huge cosmetic empires pumping out, in some cases, forever toxins!
Not trying to wear my heart on my sleeve, but the comparison to Jesus is a slap to Christians everywhere. It is a completely unnecessary and heretical metaphor. Please try to be sensitive to people of faith.
I think that as a Christian rather than be offended by her heretical metaphor you should be heartbroken by her ignorance of who Jesus is and what he did for her.
If she understood the greatness of God, the depravity of her own heart and the giant chasm of sin that separates her from God she wouldn’t make such heretical remarks. If she understood that only the willing blood sacrifice of the only truly innocent man to walk this Earth, Jesus, try Son of God, was able to close that chasm she wouldn’t make those remarks. If she understood the joy of a right relationship with God she wouldn’t make those remarks. For that matter if she had any historical understanding of the brutal horrors of Roman crucifixion she wouldn’t make such remarks.
I think it would be more beneficial to worry less about your personal feelings and more about her ignorance and the eternal price of it.
I had similar thoughts when I read that line. The guest’s journey is nowhere near the journey of Jesus. And for the author to say that it’s literally the same? I suggest she revisit the definition of literally.
123456
Thank-you for speaking up for many of us.
I find it interesting, I have relatives who work in that industry and at least it will help me to exchange new points of view with them.
I’ve loved Jessica’s writing! So great to see her featured here!
I cannot decide if it’s endearing or sad that someone could make it not only to adulthood but well into with that kind of naïveté. It’s certainly sad to make it that far into adulthood and have a such a superficial understanding of identity and self worth. Glad she woke up and grew up and is trying to help others do the same.
Lol I mean I'm sad about it! This work has also connected me with thousands of women my age, younger, & older who are similarly struggling with internalized beauty culture, identity crises, and low self-worth — so I don't think it's particularly uncommon.
It's definitely sad. What I love about Jessica's work is that she shows us the insidious corporate machinations that maintain this superficial understanding of identity and self-worth. While it's certainly on us to mature, I think we need to acknowledge the gravity of the billion-dollar beauty industry that works against us.
I guess it’s just shocking to me that anyone is fooled by this because the nonsense of it all was made quite clear to me long before the age of 14. It’s a culture and a mindset that I simply cannot fathom.
I think this is predominantly a problem within very specific and narrow cultures. Mostly cultures in extremely well developed nations where losing children to preventable diseases and malnutrition hasn’t been a reality for about a hundred years. This seems to very much fall into the category of a first world problem.
Yes. We’re talking about a beauty ideal marked by very expensive cosmetic interventions and surgeries, so that’s a given. But this also radiates outward to other cultures. (It’s an ideal stemming from white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism—so it functions much the same in terms of its global impact.) For example, the Western ideal of whiteness has given way to very, very harmful skin lightening practices in less developed nations all over the world. People are dying of ingredient exposure, developing neurological conditions, damaging their skin (which is the first line of defense for the immune system, and thus damage can lead to major health issues that are not appearance-related), etc. If you are interested, check out The Beautywell Org, which does political work & cultural outreach in these communities to address the affects of colorism & toxic beauty products globally. I donate a portion of my newsletter’s proceeds there each month precisely so that my writing about this “first world problem”, in some small way, can help people with problems more significant than my own spoiled ones :)
I have no interest in the topic, seems like keeping children from starving to death, stopping the sex trafficking of women, and trying to ensure the toxic combination of the US, Chinese, and and Russian governments do not nuke us back to the dark ages seem like more pressing issues. In America the homeless crisis, fentanyl crisis, abhorrent state of the mental healthcare system, prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, and systematic murder of a million babies a year seem like issues more desperately in need of attention.
It’s nice that you have the privilege to worry about colonialism and the white beauty ideal as you step over homeless schizophrenics and drug addicts on the streets of every major city in America, as more than 100,000 of your fellow countrymen drop dead of opioid overdoses, 2 million of them are in for profit prisons and jails, and your government just voted to spend $858 billion on the military industrial complex so it can wage proxy wars all across the world, but most of us don’t have that privilege. So maybe when my state ceases to be a national hotspot for fentanyl deaths, suicides, and human trafficking maybe then I will get to the horrors of the cosmetic industry.
Wow. Thank God for kind, empathetic, understanding folks like you!
So because my concern is for my small community, for the one young person under thirty a month that is dying of drug overdoses (most of whom aren’t white but certainly aren’t dying due to the white beauty ideal), for the six veterans a year dying of suicide, for the approximately 2,000 people who have serious mental health needs and cannot get help, because I have to live every day of my life with the devastating consequences of the US government funding global wars to enrich the elite and politicians that I somehow lack kindness and empathy.
Maybe if the next time you walk down a major city street you engage with the homeless instead of averting your eyes and looking past them, maybe if you sit in the NICU and listen helplessly as a meth addicted baby spends its first several weeks screaming in pain and confusion during its withdrawal and you listen to nurses scramble to try and find someone who can take this baby once he’s ready to leave because the overworked social worker isn’t returning their phone calls and his mother and her people abandoned him, maybe if every other month you were watching another broken young American man go into the ground at the veteran’s cemetery and you looked around haunted by the question of who will be next, maybe if you took the time to get to know the people who struggle with these problems you would see why they seem so much more pressing than the evils of the cosmetic industry.
It doesn’t seem to me like you have matured or learned much at all, you have just figured out that you can make more money fighting against the beauty industry than you ever could fighting for it. Which is a savy business move. Fighting homelessness and trying to keep young people on the Rez from killing themselves one way or another isn’t very sexy and it certainly doesn’t get you massively popular Substacks.
I feel sorry for women who are so lost and have such a shallow image of their own self worth that they fall victim to the beauty culture. But I feel worse for the women who are victims of human trafficking, for the mothers burying their children far too young because of suicide and drug use, and for the women of Afghanistan and Iraq who suffer not from western beauty ideals but because our government spent two decades blowing them back into the Stone Age and then abandoned them to their fate. I suspect most of them would be happy to see the day when they could be oppressed by white colonial beauty standards. They don’t get to enjoy even their own natural beauty because they are covered head to toe and don’t have enough to eat thanks to non-colonial standards of beauty and modesty but at least they aren’t being duped into buying cosmetics. It seems to me that it is your empathy that is rather limited in its scope.
“Just like Jesus dying on the cross...”
Let’s build a church.
Sheesh!
Hamish, You do an excellent service to the Substack community with these interviews. Thank you. D
Thank you for listening!
There’s a big difference between prettiness and beauty. They might overlap in some people, but the intersection between the two is far from perfect. We usually experience the perception of beauty as a visual thing, but that’s only partly true. I’ve known any number of gorgeous women who became actually unpleasant to look at after talking with them a very short time. Conversely, plain-looking women can become quite lovely. It’s all about the interactions, and what’s inside.
No amount of makeup changes this
Eric Berne: “Anatomy can make a woman pretty, but only a father’s smile can make beauty shine from her eyes.”
Great interview and takes head on a trillion dollar industry that relies upon keeping mostly women feeling inadequate which in turn justifies them purchasing beauty products and services. You can’t always write about everyone’s perspective because that requires you know everyone’s experience instead we talk in general terms and majority. Many women fall victim to feeling inadequate and are surely not aware of that fact. Great job!
I’m a registered nurse who specializes in skin care. In the 25 years of skin care research & caring for patients I realized that those who write articles in magazines have no background in science or the care of skin. They are almost always new to journalism as well.
In addition, there are thousands & thousands of new skin care lines. Using skin care products that haven’t been tested by an independent source is irresponsible.
A journalist doesn’t know the necessity of testing a finished product. They also don’t know the attributes of individual ingredients. A simple example is vitamin E. To note that a product contains vitamin E means very little. There are 9 (maybe more now) types of vitamin E. The only form of E that penetrates skin is alpha-tocopherol. Other forms of E are added as antioxidants to protect the product. They do nothing for the skin. However, the front label of the product frequently states, “contains vitamin E.”
I seriously doubt if a journalist knows facts like these.
death threats from nail artists? I thought I'd heard it all...our solitary culture of mostly unsupervised adults + internet makes it far too easy to rage at people...this kind of behavior, in traditional societies, got your head beaten in. For a reason.
🫰🫰🫰❤️. Well said. True.