On Night Cream & The Nothingness of Being

Two interviews with The Editing Spectrum and ENTHUSIASM.

In case it’s of interest: I was interviewed by Amanda B. Hinton for her newsletter The Editing Spectrum yesterday and by Kate Leaver for her newsletter ENTHUSIASM with Kate Leaver today! Below, a few excerpts; here and here, the full interviews.

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Amanda B. Hinton: Were you a chatterbox as a child, or were you quiet or something else entirely? When you spoke up or expressed a preference, what sort of response did you get?

Jessica DeFino (me): In elementary school I remember pulling my long ponytail across my face and biting down on it. I figured if my mouth was full of hair (???) the teacher wouldn’t call on me. At home, I was the opposite. I loved to sing and put on shows, and I forced my family to watch me perform all day, everyday, until I left for college, where I majored in vocal performance and songwriting. (My parents were very supportive and still are. My dad is devastated that I’m no longer pursuing pop stardom. I’m 34.) I realized two years into college that I didn’t want to perform anymore — too much pressure — so I pivoted to wardrobe styling for musicians. I liked the idea of matching a look to a sound. I did that for a few years in LA and worked with Jason Mraz and All American Rejects and The Fray, which led me into celebrity lifestyle writing, which led me into working on the Kardashian-Jenner apps, which led me into the beauty industry, and here I am.

ABH: If you had to choose one person from your past that most influenced who you are today, who would that be and why? This can be a person from history, an animal, a fictitious character in a book, TV or movie.

JD: I am going to take the phrase “who you are today” very literally and go with Harry Dean Stanton — specifically, Harry Dean Stanton in conversation with David Lynch; that famous interaction where David Lynch says “How would you describe yourself?” and Harry Dean Stanton says, “As nothing. There is no self,” and they laugh. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of the self today for an article I’m writing on beauty as so-called “self-care” and “self-expression.” I bristle when people use these terms because in order for beauty products to be a tool for self-expression, you first must have a self to express, and I get the overwhelming sense that most people saying this don’t know who they are outside of what they buy and apply. Beauty products are more often used to create an image of a self than express an existing self. I don’t know. I’m taking a class on existentialism and Simone de Beauvoir, so that has something to do with it. But the more I think and read about the self, the more I’m convinced there is no essential self, not in any way that matters, and pursuing solidarity with the collective is a more interesting and liberating project than defining the self anyway? So yeah, today, specifically, I am luxuriating in the nothingness of being with Harry Dean Stanton (and Buddha before him).

ABH: What was the last creative spark that you were really excited about, but it ultimately fizzled out? What do you do when something doesn’t come to life like you’d imagined?

JD: OK, I am still excited about this one and it still fizzled! A couple months ago, a cosmetics company sent me a press release about its new app, in which users upload pictures of their nipples and the company generates a list of shoppable lipsticks shade-matched to the customer’s nips. The brand calls it a “biological phenomenon” and claims “nature has been giving us the answers all along.” Somehow, the absurdity of beauty industry marketing still shocks me! I let this marinate in the back of mind for a while until a creative spark hit me in the middle of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I was looking at “The Dead Christ With Angels” by Rosso Fiorentino and thought… If color-matching your nips to your lips is “biological” and an “answer” from “nature,” what if I Photoshopped nipple-matched lipstick onto a shirtless Jesus? Or Botticelli’s Venus? Or other famous nude artworks, paintings of all genders and all species? (Humans aren’t the only creatures with nipples!) I planned this big, subversive art show in my head in seconds, wanting to challenge the idea that women are biologically programmed for beauty, etc. And I was actually supposed to give a presentation on beauty standards later that month, but when I pitched this idea to the organizers, they said they’d rather stick to our original concept, and my motivation sort of fizzled from there. I realized I’m not an established artist or a curator or anything, and I don’t have the resources to produce a project like this. I settled for writing a regular article about the app instead — coming soon — but I still dream of nipple-lipstick Jesus. (Does anyone in the art world want to work on this exhibit with me??)

For more on my writing process, why I quit Instagram, and the Oscar Wilde quote I live by…

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Kate Leaver: At least once a week I look in my bathroom mirror and think, because of you, so what if I look older? What if I don’t “fix” my skin? How does your work make you feel about your own appearance? 

Jessica DeFino: My work doesn’t make me feel anything about my appearance. The industry my work revolves around makes me feel like shit, and my work helps me understand that this feeling is not my own.

KL: What’s your current least favourite beauty commercial? (There’s one for foundation that promises to remove texture from your face and I rock back and forwards muttering to myself about how deranged that is every time it comes on) 

JD: The one that immediately pops into my head is the Quinta Brunson Olay Night Cream commercial where she’s like, “Did you know your skin has a night mode? Skin cells renew overnight, so I wake up to smoother, brighter skin.” I’ve written about it before, but the reason it upsets me so is because it’s true! Skin does have a “sleep mode!” Skin cells do renew overnight! These things happen all on their own. These are reasons to skip the night cream, not buy another one. It just strikes me as particularly manipulative to use scientific facts about the wonder of the skin itself to sell consumer goods that deserve none of the glory. There is no need to bring products into this highly-intelligent bodily process!!

KL: What’s the most unhinged marketing email you’ve received recently? 

JD: A pitch from a plastic surgeon’s office with the subject line “Not Your Grandmother’s Nose!” 

KL: BOTOX, eye cream, collagen pills. They’re all ways we distract ourselves from the prospect of death. How often do you think about your own mortality? 

JD: Every day. My mother has stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Spending time with her over the past couple years has simultaneously made me doubt my work (why spend so much time worrying about physical beauty when life and death are happening around us, to us, inside us at every moment???) and motivated to do this work (life and death are happening around us, to us, inside us at every moment!!! We have to spend less time worrying about physical beauty!!!).

For more on jojoba oil, unwell dermatologists, and what my ex-husband thought about me wearing less makeup…