Jessica, I am so glad I found your Substack. I feel compelled to thank you for a voice of sanity in an insane beauty world! There are so many 20- and 30-something women I wish I could share your posts with (thinking of my two sons' long-term girlfriends), who seem obsessed with skin potions and magical formulas...but I don't think it would be well received if I shared them. When these young women visit us for a week, the bathroom tub ledge and shelves are literally crammed with their daily skincare potions. I mean it's crazy, like 10 or more bottles of stuff! When they're gone and take their stuff with them, we have handmade soap, shampoo and conditioner left, and that's it. Also, why is it no one uses soap any more to get clean—it's only body wash? Body wash, I will add, that comes only in single use plastic bottles that who knows what happens to them for disposal...from a generation that wants us concerned about climate change and using renewable resources. (Which is my pet peeve for younger generations, at least for my own kids and the people they hang with—that they are so concerned about the earth's future yet they are failing to associate this concern with all the plastic and CHEMICALS they are eagerly consuming in their skincare potions, body washes, scented laundry detergents etc....which are ending up in the environment.) And all those potions are in plastic bottles, usually small ones, that will get thrown away. I think I have really good skin for my mature age and all I've ever used is a good soap, water, and a clean lotion free of the bad stuff. I do remember, however, when I was a teenager and if you didn't use Noxema on your skin for cleaning instead of regular old soap, you were not hip. Thankfully I had a mom who called nonsense on all of that. We've just ratcheted up the game from Noxema so much more in the past 40 years! The beauty industry is a master at marketing with nonstop messages that you are not enough, so buy our products. It's great to see you calling them out.
I really enjoyed this interview. I was growing sceptical with the beauty industry pre-pandemic. I spent my 2 years not trying millions of things (that weren't cookie and came recipes). I discovered your substack about a year ago. Every entry crystallises the insidious nature of a "beauty industry".
I would sigh at new products all the time. So cyclical!!! But I was still an easy mark and was swayed by the potential of a magic product to make me look filter perfect. I'd find that product and also everything else in my life would fall into place.
I received an update from a brand newsletter. I've always wanted to try their products! The founder letter explained how bad cleansing balms are because of XYZ. HOWEVER!!! She formulated a cleansing balm that doesn't do XYZ and does all the right things.
I immediately thought of you and this substack. I might've scoffed last year. This year I get the marketing trying to play on my emotions. And failing.
Very interesting set of insights, Jessica! I am glad I found your voice of sanity. I might quibble with Emmeline Clein's concept of relating specific eating disorders to economic conditions. I experienced two bouts of anorexia, one fifty years ago or so, and the second thirty-three years ago. Both followed painful breakups.
Looking back, I can see the resulting anorexia had more to do with personal and financial issues than the greater economic climate. However, I was prescient enough to accept the need to sell the family home right when Bush Sr came into office--reckoning correctly that the Reagan prosperity was unsustainable. Each of us in that collapsing marriage came out with the same amount of money that we had together, thanks to the booming Silicon Valley market more than doubling the value of the house in just under two years. Then two years after that sale, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck and real estate values plummeted and stayed down for many years.
The Nation didn't exactly make it easy to find her piece, but I persevered and found it interesting. For all the onus she places on capitalism, I think culture bears a fair amount of blame too. That kids want to grow up to become influencers, like that Kardashian clan you slaved for, is an indictment.
First, I am so thankful for you and your work. I was turned on to your newsletter about 2 months ago and have been steadily making my way through all reports, essays, poems, ... to the point where last week I acknowledged I wanted to go deeper with paid subscription ;).
Next, I'm navigating disordered eating, body image, et al recoveries and finding your work extremely supportive. Thank you.
I can't believe (but I say that a lot these days) that I've never heard of dermatillomania, a disorder I have suffered many years, and I felt uncharacteristically motivated to specifically reach out. I feel very affirmed and possibly destigmatized by words/names/concepts you are giving. Which do not include "just stop it," the most common words I hear on this subject.
I found this poem I wrote in 2014 (a year before my mother died), and we don't know each other, so I hope this is not something I share to force a connection but a sort of artifact or contribution of evidence to this disorder...or maybe for me, in spite of some moments of utter cringe, a beauty-as-grief relic to share with someone's voice I'm always grateful to hear.
Many blessings, Emily
She was always drawn to the Confessionals
I went to Maine
This past week,
Went to Maine and
It was beautiful
So we took a lot of pictures.
Sent my mama the photo album
She says, "It looks like y'all had a great trip,
but, now I don't wanna hurt your feelings,
but
do you have impentigo on your chin?"
------
"No Mama I don't."
------
Now--as interesting and gross as
That sounds,
and maybe it would be always
good to go to the doctor to get
something checked out,
I am pretty positive I don't,
Because,
and here's the silly confession part,
I pick.
My face.
Obsessively.
Secretly.
(Though sometimes I suspect I do it unawares in public at this point)
I pick zits, bug bites, little marks, swellings
Any tiny little hint of an imperfection,
I guess.
I want it gone.
I get up in there and I pick
I look for the little guy
In my mirror or windows or phone screens
Or in absence of glass
Trace my perverse adaptation of a brail that I write on my chin then read and reread and analyze until it's gone,
whatever it is,
the satisfaction of getting it gone!
--------
But the thing about picking out
The imperfections
Is
That always leaves me left with trying to heal some scars
That I essentially made
Because I wanted to be smooth and perfect
And probably beautiful.
So I ask and re-ask...
does that mean that somewhere
In my subconscious
I believe that imperfections
Are not a part of beauty?
I like to publicly
Proclaim that they are--
That imperfections are a part of being human
And one's own unique beautiful best self.
But here...
the things that are
Under the skin
[zits and puss and blood and
Thoughts...] must be fixed, removed,
Eradicated.
-----
Then again
I'm here talking about
My obsessive picking at little imperfections--
and not my intense shame-inducing binging of old CW shows and bags of white chocolate
or my powerfully potent [poisonous?] wonderings of if I'm with the
Heyyyyyy, okay, so, wonderful wonderful wonderful poem, and I HEARTILY recommend you check out Alegra Kastens on instagram, she's a therapist with OCD who treats OCD and memes about OCD (I also have OCD, thus, you know, this). Some of the themes in your poem are very familiar to me. I'm not a doctor and I don't know you at all so it this is totally off base, please disregard! It just might be something to look into and see if anything strikes a chord.
Also related - going on a “beauty detox.” A fun experiment: no consuming of appearance-related media, and no engaging in beauty-related behaviors.
(Basically, in addition to a total social media ban, a routine of brushing my teeth and washing my hair and that’s it).
To goal of which to remove beauty-obsessing from the psyche as much as possible, free up that BRAIN SPACE, and see what happens. So far, it’s incredible.
Another fantastic article about how our “Beaty obsessed culture” is ruining skin in general but especially for young women. Just leave your skin alone and watch yourself turn into a beauty queen without the exorbitant routines and a wallet stuffed with money you didn’t need to spend!
Science as a foundation to obsession really hit me. I think as a young woman I wanted the control of having expertise in something and the realms of industrialized beauty were places where I felt I had a right to expertise, as explicitly women's areas. It almost feels like an intentional distraction, pulling away people with the urge to catalogue and to experiment from ending up as scientists or historians or archivists and sucking them down into the beauty whirlpool. I just want to say, to myself and to everyone, we have a right to any knowledge we're interested in. Anything. Everything. We have the right.
Jessica, I am so glad I found your Substack. I feel compelled to thank you for a voice of sanity in an insane beauty world! There are so many 20- and 30-something women I wish I could share your posts with (thinking of my two sons' long-term girlfriends), who seem obsessed with skin potions and magical formulas...but I don't think it would be well received if I shared them. When these young women visit us for a week, the bathroom tub ledge and shelves are literally crammed with their daily skincare potions. I mean it's crazy, like 10 or more bottles of stuff! When they're gone and take their stuff with them, we have handmade soap, shampoo and conditioner left, and that's it. Also, why is it no one uses soap any more to get clean—it's only body wash? Body wash, I will add, that comes only in single use plastic bottles that who knows what happens to them for disposal...from a generation that wants us concerned about climate change and using renewable resources. (Which is my pet peeve for younger generations, at least for my own kids and the people they hang with—that they are so concerned about the earth's future yet they are failing to associate this concern with all the plastic and CHEMICALS they are eagerly consuming in their skincare potions, body washes, scented laundry detergents etc....which are ending up in the environment.) And all those potions are in plastic bottles, usually small ones, that will get thrown away. I think I have really good skin for my mature age and all I've ever used is a good soap, water, and a clean lotion free of the bad stuff. I do remember, however, when I was a teenager and if you didn't use Noxema on your skin for cleaning instead of regular old soap, you were not hip. Thankfully I had a mom who called nonsense on all of that. We've just ratcheted up the game from Noxema so much more in the past 40 years! The beauty industry is a master at marketing with nonstop messages that you are not enough, so buy our products. It's great to see you calling them out.
I really enjoyed this interview. I was growing sceptical with the beauty industry pre-pandemic. I spent my 2 years not trying millions of things (that weren't cookie and came recipes). I discovered your substack about a year ago. Every entry crystallises the insidious nature of a "beauty industry".
I would sigh at new products all the time. So cyclical!!! But I was still an easy mark and was swayed by the potential of a magic product to make me look filter perfect. I'd find that product and also everything else in my life would fall into place.
I received an update from a brand newsletter. I've always wanted to try their products! The founder letter explained how bad cleansing balms are because of XYZ. HOWEVER!!! She formulated a cleansing balm that doesn't do XYZ and does all the right things.
I immediately thought of you and this substack. I might've scoffed last year. This year I get the marketing trying to play on my emotions. And failing.
Very interesting set of insights, Jessica! I am glad I found your voice of sanity. I might quibble with Emmeline Clein's concept of relating specific eating disorders to economic conditions. I experienced two bouts of anorexia, one fifty years ago or so, and the second thirty-three years ago. Both followed painful breakups.
Looking back, I can see the resulting anorexia had more to do with personal and financial issues than the greater economic climate. However, I was prescient enough to accept the need to sell the family home right when Bush Sr came into office--reckoning correctly that the Reagan prosperity was unsustainable. Each of us in that collapsing marriage came out with the same amount of money that we had together, thanks to the booming Silicon Valley market more than doubling the value of the house in just under two years. Then two years after that sale, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck and real estate values plummeted and stayed down for many years.
Yes, yes — the quote doesn't do her fully fleshed-out argument justice! That chapter of her book can be found here and might be interesting to you: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/capitalism-disordered-eating/f
Thanks! I enjoy learning more!
The Nation didn't exactly make it easy to find her piece, but I persevered and found it interesting. For all the onus she places on capitalism, I think culture bears a fair amount of blame too. That kids want to grow up to become influencers, like that Kardashian clan you slaved for, is an indictment.
First, I am so thankful for you and your work. I was turned on to your newsletter about 2 months ago and have been steadily making my way through all reports, essays, poems, ... to the point where last week I acknowledged I wanted to go deeper with paid subscription ;).
Next, I'm navigating disordered eating, body image, et al recoveries and finding your work extremely supportive. Thank you.
I can't believe (but I say that a lot these days) that I've never heard of dermatillomania, a disorder I have suffered many years, and I felt uncharacteristically motivated to specifically reach out. I feel very affirmed and possibly destigmatized by words/names/concepts you are giving. Which do not include "just stop it," the most common words I hear on this subject.
I found this poem I wrote in 2014 (a year before my mother died), and we don't know each other, so I hope this is not something I share to force a connection but a sort of artifact or contribution of evidence to this disorder...or maybe for me, in spite of some moments of utter cringe, a beauty-as-grief relic to share with someone's voice I'm always grateful to hear.
Many blessings, Emily
She was always drawn to the Confessionals
I went to Maine
This past week,
Went to Maine and
It was beautiful
So we took a lot of pictures.
Sent my mama the photo album
She says, "It looks like y'all had a great trip,
but, now I don't wanna hurt your feelings,
but
do you have impentigo on your chin?"
------
"No Mama I don't."
------
Now--as interesting and gross as
That sounds,
and maybe it would be always
good to go to the doctor to get
something checked out,
I am pretty positive I don't,
Because,
and here's the silly confession part,
I pick.
My face.
Obsessively.
Secretly.
(Though sometimes I suspect I do it unawares in public at this point)
I pick zits, bug bites, little marks, swellings
Any tiny little hint of an imperfection,
I guess.
I want it gone.
I get up in there and I pick
I look for the little guy
In my mirror or windows or phone screens
Or in absence of glass
Trace my perverse adaptation of a brail that I write on my chin then read and reread and analyze until it's gone,
whatever it is,
the satisfaction of getting it gone!
--------
But the thing about picking out
The imperfections
Is
That always leaves me left with trying to heal some scars
That I essentially made
Because I wanted to be smooth and perfect
And probably beautiful.
So I ask and re-ask...
does that mean that somewhere
In my subconscious
I believe that imperfections
Are not a part of beauty?
I like to publicly
Proclaim that they are--
That imperfections are a part of being human
And one's own unique beautiful best self.
But here...
the things that are
Under the skin
[zits and puss and blood and
Thoughts...] must be fixed, removed,
Eradicated.
-----
Then again
I'm here talking about
My obsessive picking at little imperfections--
and not my intense shame-inducing binging of old CW shows and bags of white chocolate
or my powerfully potent [poisonous?] wonderings of if I'm with the
Right
Partner...
---
I guess because,
At the end of the day,
I can somewhat cover my
Self-made little scars
With some make-up.
And for a tiny little while,
Feel smooth and beautiful.
Heyyyyyy, okay, so, wonderful wonderful wonderful poem, and I HEARTILY recommend you check out Alegra Kastens on instagram, she's a therapist with OCD who treats OCD and memes about OCD (I also have OCD, thus, you know, this). Some of the themes in your poem are very familiar to me. I'm not a doctor and I don't know you at all so it this is totally off base, please disregard! It just might be something to look into and see if anything strikes a chord.
Quitting skincare was one of the best things I ever did!
Also related - going on a “beauty detox.” A fun experiment: no consuming of appearance-related media, and no engaging in beauty-related behaviors.
(Basically, in addition to a total social media ban, a routine of brushing my teeth and washing my hair and that’s it).
To goal of which to remove beauty-obsessing from the psyche as much as possible, free up that BRAIN SPACE, and see what happens. So far, it’s incredible.
Another fantastic article about how our “Beaty obsessed culture” is ruining skin in general but especially for young women. Just leave your skin alone and watch yourself turn into a beauty queen without the exorbitant routines and a wallet stuffed with money you didn’t need to spend!
Science as a foundation to obsession really hit me. I think as a young woman I wanted the control of having expertise in something and the realms of industrialized beauty were places where I felt I had a right to expertise, as explicitly women's areas. It almost feels like an intentional distraction, pulling away people with the urge to catalogue and to experiment from ending up as scientists or historians or archivists and sucking them down into the beauty whirlpool. I just want to say, to myself and to everyone, we have a right to any knowledge we're interested in. Anything. Everything. We have the right.