Writer and beauty-industry critic Jessica Defino joins us to discuss the intersections of wellness/diet culture and beauty culture, how she went from child beauty-pageant participant to working at the Kardashian-Jenner apps to eventually becoming an outspoken critic of the beauty industry, how social media is spreading harmful beauty ideals, the ageism of “anti-aging,” how to change your relationship with beauty standards, and more.
Jessica DeFino is an award-winning beauty reporter and critic (The New York Times, Vice, Vogue) and author of the newsletter The Unpublishable. She writes the Guardian's beauty advice column, Ask Ugly, and has been called “the woman the beauty industry fears the most” by the Sunday Herald. Find her at jessicadefino.substack.com.
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Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.
If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.
Resources and References
Christy’s second book, The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses and Find Your True Well-Being
Subscribe to Rethinking Wellness on Substack for bonus episodes and more
Jessica’s Substack newsletter, The Unpublishable
Jessica’s Guardian column, Ask Ugly
Christy’s online course, Intuitive Eating Fundamentals
Transcript
Disclaimer: The below transcription is primarily rendered by AI, so errors may have occurred. The original audio file is available above.
Christy Harrison: Welcome to Rethinking Wellness, a podcast that offers critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, and reflections on how to find true well-being. I'm your host, Christy Harrison, and I'm a registered dietitian, certified intuitive eating counselor, journalist, and author of three books, including Anti-Diet, which was published in 2019, The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook, which will be out on February 20th, and The Wellness Trap, which was published in 2023 and is the inspiration for this podcast. You can learn more and get them all at christyharrison.com/books.
Hey there. Welcome back to Rethinking Wellness. I'm Christy and my guest today is writer and beauty industry critic Jessica DeFino, who writes the popular Substack newsletter the Unpublishable. We discuss the intersections of wellness and diet culture and beauty culture, how she went from child beauty pageant participant to working at the Kardashian-Jenner apps to eventually becoming an outspoken critic of the beauty industry, the problems with skincare, how to question and push back against beauty standards while also having compassion for all the ways we get sucked in, and lots more. This is a great conversation and I can't wait to share it with you.
But first, a few announcements. This podcast is inspired by and brought to you by my second book, The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses and Find Your True Well-Being, which is available wherever books are sold. The book explores the connections between diet and wellness culture and also gets into how the beauty industry intersects with wellness, including some talk of skincare and a deeper dive into the quote unquote glowing from within idea that I touch on in my interview with Jessica. I also talk a lot about how to think critically about wellness culture and protect yourself from misinformation, and those approaches can certainly apply to the beauty industry as well. So if you like this conversation, I'd love for you to check out the book that's christyharrison.com/thewellnesstrap or pick it up at your favorite local bookstore. This podcast is also made possible by my paid subscribers at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.
Not only do paid subscriptions help support the show and keep the lights on over here, but they also get you great perks like bonus episodes with our guests, including one I did with Jessica that'll come out this Friday, subscriber only Q & As where I answer questions about wellness diets, how to spot scams and misinformation, how to be discerning when it comes to popular wellness trends like gut health and anything else we cover on this podcast. Paid subscribers also get commenting privileges where you can connect with other listeners. And I have to say, it's been amazing to see the support people are giving each other as our membership grows. Just go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com to sign up. That's rethinkingwellness.substack.com. And if you're already a paid subscriber, thank you so much for your support.
Now, without any further ado, here's my conversation with Jessica DeFino. So, Jessica, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to talk with you today.
Jessica DeFino: Thank you so much for having me.
Christy Harrison: Yeah, I love your work and all of your writing about beauty culture. And so I'm very interested in talking with you about that and its connections with wellness and diet culture. But I'd love to start off first by talking about you and your own relationship with beauty culture and sort of where that began. I've read that you said you did beauty pageants as a kid, so I'm wondering if that's where it all started for you.
Jessica DeFino: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I mean, it feels like beauty culture has almost always been a part of my life. Like, I don't really remember a time before I was worried about what I looked like. I was in beauty pageants as a kid, probably like five, six, seven years old. But even before that, I have very sticky outy ears. And so before I started preschool, there was, like a big debate in my family of, are we going to get her plastic surgery before she starts school? So it's like I've always sort of been worried about what I looked like, what that would mean for how others would perceive me, and how I'd be treated as a result. Like, it's just always been there.
Yeah. I was in like Miss Sayreville Petite and Miss Young New Jersey when I was young as well. I really loved the talent portion. Like, that was why I did it. But I think the lesson that I internalized there was, like, in order to do the thing you love, you first have to be beautiful. And I think I carried that with me throughout the rest of my life.
As a kid, as a teen, I was very big into performing. I did musical theater. I was a singer songwriter, so I was always on stage. And, yeah, I mean, I think I probably put more effort into looking like a singer songwriter than actually doing the work. I wanted to be famous, and to me, that was like, you have to be beautiful first. Anyway, from there, I ended up moving to Los Angeles after college, working in the music industry as a wardrobe stylist, and somehow got into celebrity lifestyle writing for magazines. Eventually got recruited to work on the official Kardashian-Jenner apps in 2015, which was sort of my first entry point into the actual beauty industry, like writing about the beauty industry, being involved with PR and beauty products and beauty brands, and that kind of, like, blew my mind.
After that, I started to pivot. I started to consider what have I been focusing on for my whole life? Has this helped me or has it hurt me? And how does the beauty industry play into that and sort of capitalize on that in order to sell more products and create more insecurities? And, yeah, ever since then, my focus has been critiquing the beauty industry.
Christy Harrison: What an interesting trajectory. I'm curious about that work for the Kardashian-Jenner apps. I know there's probably not a lot of specifics you can give, but just curious what that was like being in sort of the belly of the beast in some ways of the beauty industry and how you kind of really got from there to critiquing it.
Jessica DeFino: Right. I mean, I loved my job. I will say that I was an assistant editor before the apps even launched. So I was part of the team that launched all of the apps, and we created content every day that was about fashion and beauty, what they were wearing, what they were using, lifestyle things. So, I mean, it was a really interesting environment because I had so much fun creating the content. At the same time, it was like such a high pressure situation because it was like you're writing for the most famous women in the world. On top of that, it was the first time in my life I'd been on the receiving end of beauty products from brands through PR. They just give you free stuff.
So I was using all of these products very much into the work I was doing, very much into the Kardashian ethos and aesthetic. And I think the combination of the high stress work environment and then using all of these products at once, I started to have skin issues. I developed dermatitis. I was put on steroids for dermatitis. I had a really horrible reaction to the steroids. Over time, my face started peeling off my body essentially. It took months to heal. And so in researching how to heal without products, because I couldn't put anything on my face, I sort of had these two pathways of realization at the same time.
One, I was like, "Wow, none of these products that I've trusted for my whole life are actually helping or healing in any way." Like a lot of products and prescriptions exacerbate skin problems, so why are we so invested in products? And at the same time I was like, "Wow, when I can't wear makeup, when I don't feel beautiful, I actually feel absolutely worthless. And how did I get to this point in my life where I don't have anything else that I value in myself, where when I'm not beautiful, I feel like nothing?" Through those two points, the physical and the psychological spiritual, I just started to dive into the history of beauty culture, really, both from a product perspective and from just an emotional health perspective. And I was like, this is all I want to do for the rest of my life is learn more about this, to learn more about how I got to where I am and how to get better. And so from there, I started writing for outlets like Allure and Vogue and New York Times and The Guardian and eventually launched my own newsletter where I cover these topics more in depth.
Christy Harrison: What was that like writing for mainstream outlets about beauty when you had this sort of burgeoning anti-beauty culture stance?
Jessica DeFino: I went into it very naive. I thought I was going to change the beauty industry. I thought the reason this information isn't out there is because no one knows it. And then I started writing for mainstream beauty outlets and I realized like, "Oh, no, there's a reason why none of this is being talked about." And the reason is brands and advertising and industry and money and clicks. And it's just like not profitable to say, "Hey, you don't actually need this product." Or like, "Hey, this insecurity was actually developed and created by executives to sell you a thing that you don't need and will in fact make the issue you're trying to solve worse."
There were a lot of ways that advertisers really influenced the content that was being created. I constantly had to sort of edit my stories, soften my stories, brand names would be taken out, things would have to be made more vague to the point of just being, "Why am I even writing this?" So it definitely was a struggle at times. But I also like to point out that while I was working in the beauty industry, like writing for the beauty industry, I had started out with this passion to change things. And probably three or four times I got sucked back into the cycle of, "Oh, products are great as long as I'm using clean products." I came up with all of these ways to still be a part of the beauty industry and justify what I was doing. And it was just like a lesson that I had to learn over and over and over again before I finally was like, "No, I'm going to just stop. I'm just going to step away from all of the politics of the beauty industry and the products of the beauty industry and try to do my own thing."
Christy Harrison: Yeah, I want to talk more about that discourse around clean beauty. And to me, that's where a lot of the intersection between beauty culture and wellness culture lives is like this discourse around clean beauty and this attention to supposedly toxic ingredients and the veneer of sustainability and eco friendliness being used to sell products that are actually harmful in many ways. We see that a lot with wellness food stuff, too, right? This idea of clean food being supposedly better and the actual harms of that marketing and that sort of positioning of things being quote unquote clean. Can you talk about some of the issues with this rhetoric and with this notion of clean beauty and the big piece that's really missing when we talk about supposedly clean or nontoxic beauty products?
Jessica DeFino: Right? Oh, my gosh, there's so much. I do want to start out by saying there is a kernel of truth in all of this, right? The beauty industry truly does not have our best interests at heart. And there are products that are formulated that are not what I would consider safe or useful to human health and flourishing. But any good intention, once commodified, is corrupted. And that's sort of what's happened with the clean beauty industry. It's taken reasonable arguments and turned them into selling points to sell more products, which often are pushing the same quote unquote toxic beauty standards. If we're talking about wellness, if we're talking about overall wellness, the thing that we should be focusing on are the standards of beauty that are embedded in these products, whether conventional or clean, because those are the things that are having more of a health effect on our bodies, really on our minds and bodies, is like this idea that we have to change ourselves in order to fit this certain standard of what wellness looks like.
And through that, we're actually seeing increased instances of appearance related anxiety, depression, dysmorphia, whether the product in question is conventional or clean. And then for sustainability, I was really pulled into the sustainable beauty industry for a while. And then I had all these brands sending me their quote unquote sustainable products, and I would see the boxes piling up at my front door. And eventually it just hit me like, there's so much waste in trying to make a product that's sustainable, when really the most sustainable thing would be to educate people on where they can divest from products that aren't sustainable or aren't quote unquote clean and safe and healthy, rather than creating these entirely new product categories. I mean, there's value in some of it, of course, but it's gotten to the point where I don't know that the clean industry is net positive compared to the alternative. Like, it's all pretty corrupt if you ask me.
Christy Harrison: Right. It's all still pushing consumption and the development of new products for people to buy and pushing people to consume at the same level, maybe that they did before, but it's just swapping one type of product for another rather than questioning the whole premise in the first place.
Jessica DeFino: Right, exactly.
Christy Harrison: Another thing that I see as sort of an intersection of wellness culture and beauty culture is that there's this notion of glowing from within, right? And if you just, in wellness culture, it's like if you just eat the right foods and have the correct wellness routine and are generally, well, in the sort of right ways, then you'll have glowing skin and you'll match up with beauty standards. And if you don't meet beauty standards, then it must mean you're unwell and that there's something wrong with you under the surface. Right? And I think I really bought into this many years ago when I was very caught up in wellness culture and trying to treat everything, quote unquote naturally and shooing conventional medicine in some cases in favor of dietary changes and stuff like that, and thinking that I could fix it all myself. And I did struggle in the conventional healthcare system to get the kind of support that I needed. So it's understandable that I'd be attracted to taking matters into my own hands to some degree. But I think there was this sense that if I fix all these problems with me, then I'll look the way that I think I should look. I'll match conventional beauty standards. I'll be this level of thin that I'm striving for, that I could never attain without extreme disorder in my eating.
And it was never enough. And there was always something else I was chasing and that I would glow and my skin would be good, and I have eczema and contact dermatitis and acne and all these things. And I was always sort of chasing this notion of skin perfection through eating the right things and being well in the right way or whatever. And I think it's really interesting that glowing from within now is often used to sell beauty and skincare products. They're supposed to put them on the outside to make us look like we're quote unquote well, or glowing from within. And then there's also like the supplement thing that's crossing over there where there's people like, I think it's Bobbi Brown who has like a supplement line about glowing from within. And so it's really interesting to see those messages and that sort of cross pollination between wellness and beauty culture. Have you seen those messages showing up? And how do you see them causing harm?
Jessica DeFino: Oh, yeah. I mean, I see them all the time. If you look at the majority of the wellness industry, it's actually the beauty industry. Like so many of the claims of wellness products, whether it's a food or a supplement or a diet or even an exercise routine, it's how are you going to look? Will you appear well rather than will you be well? So I think that's such an important thing to point out. I think this idea that who you are is what you look like is so strong right now, have a really hard time forming an identity without consuming something, forming an identity without looking a certain way. And we've conflated being a person to appearing. And that's just very dangerous psychologically on a spirit level, but also creates all of these problems for our actual bodies because we're putting things on them and in them in service to this beauty ideal. That's not actually making us well, it's making us obsessed with beauty and wellness to an unwell degree. Right?
So, yeah, I mean, I see that all the time. I think that's a huge issue. And again, it's like sometimes there is truth to some of this. What I've seen happening is it's kind of all or nothing when things are industrialized for the beauty industry, for the wellness industry. Like yes, it's true that some foods will have an impact on your skin, for better or for worse. If you have an intolerance to something or an allergy, yeah. That'll show up on your skin. That's actually one of the body's most beautiful methods of communication. You eat something you're allergic to, you break out in hives. That's a survival mechanism. Right? Your body has found a way to give you a visual cue that something is off.
Another thing I like to point out is like the skin barrier, which is the body's protective measure. It protects you from the sun, it protects you from environment, it protects you from invading pathogens and bacteria that's made up of mostly omega fatty acids, essential omega fatty acids. You can only get those, really from eating the body doesn't produce them on its own. So of course there are ways that these things can benefit your skin or harm your skin. I think what's happened, and that's really dangerous, is taking these sort of acute medical circumstances and universalizing them to everyone as an everyday practice. Like, your body does not need medical intervention on a daily basis for most people, for regular maintenance.
And just like, by recognizing these one or two true scenarios and turning them into industries and expectations for all has just created this sort of obsession with things to the point where it takes something that could be useful and blows it out of a proportion to the point that it's no longer useful as a metric of wellness or well being.
Christy Harrison: That's really interesting. I mean, it seems like from your experience of having your skin react so intensely to the products you were using, that was a clear signal your skin was giving you, that these were not useful and helpful to you to stop using products, right?
Jessica DeFino: Yes. And I think that's like a much healthier way to look at our skin and its reactions. Like everything that happens is a message. That message is morally neutral. It doesn't mean you have good skin or bad skin. It doesn't mean you've done a good job at wellness or a bad job at wellness. It's just information. The sad thing is that the beauty industry and the wellness industry make it so hard to find useful information. The information that's out there is largely sold to tying products that are not effective solutions.
Christy Harrison: Because if the solution really is, listen to your skin and stop using all these topical things that are irritating it, that's not beneficial to the beauty industry or to whoever's trying to sell you the stuff.
Jessica DeFino: Yeah, it's such an individual thing, and I don't think mainstream coverage of beauty and wellness really take that into account. What could be useful in terms of skin functioning for one person might not be necessary for another. It's the same with diets. Not everyone needs to cut out gluten. But for people with celiac disease, yeah, of course. This information has just been flattened to such a degree that it becomes problematic even when it could be useful for one person.
Christy Harrison: Yeah, well, speaking of that flattening, I think social media plays a huge role in that. Right? I'm curious to hear sort of your thoughts on the role of social media in disseminating information about beauty that is flattened and sort of one size fits all and doesn't actually address people's real needs, and also how social media creates this environment where people do feel like they need to look a certain way in order to access their identities or sort of figure out who they are.
Jessica DeFino: Yeah, I mean, I think you've hit on the two huge problems with social media. First, from an aesthetic standpoint like social media and the functions of it, the filters, the Facetune, Photoshop, these things have completely changed the standard of beauty in a really short time. We are expecting, like, avatar level perfection from our real life faces. I mean, that has devastating effects on mental health and also physical health in some senses, from products to procedures to undergoing risky surgeries to sort of emulate these digital versions of ourselves in the physical world. And then, like you mentioned, the way that information spreads and is popularized on social media is just, yeah, I don't think it's focused on truth. It's focused on virality. And very often the true thing is just very simple and boring. Honestly, a lot of things can be addressed with, like, are you drinking enough water? Are you sleeping? That, of course, has effects on your body, but that's not fun to share on social, right?
So it's like over the top ideas that spread really quickly and everyone wants to try them. And that's exciting because the truth of just basic body maintenance is boring. I'm not on social media anymore. I stopped using Instagram a couple of years ago. I never downloaded TikTok, which I'm very proud of. But when I was on social media, I would spend so much time, I would be writing these articles for, say, the New York Times, and put so much research into them, talk to experts, write this really thoughtful piece that I was proud of, and then you'd get random people in your comments or sharing the article and tearing it down and being like, "This isn't true." It's really hard, I think, for a journalist, where you're like, "But I've talked to so many experts, I've done so much research," and all of that can be discredited by just, like, a random person who isn't actually super familiar with the topic. So I think it's done dangerous things for health and wellness and beauty journalism as well.
Christy Harrison: Yeah, it really is demoralizing. I mean, I've had similar experiences covering wellness and nutrition and health, and from my perspective as a journalist and a dietitian, so I kind of have a specific lens on things and anti-diet, and I treat disordered eating and all of that. So I'm kind of, like, bringing that. But it's very evidence based. And what I put out there is so, I research things so much and fact check so much and for my books, I've had independent fact checkers that I've hired out of my own pocket and all of this stuff. And yeah, to have random people on social media or reviews just being like, "This is bullshit", and tearing it down without really understanding it or even reading it in some cases, right, it's like just the idea of the book or the idea of the story is something that they don't like, and so they're willing to go on there. It's incredibly demoralizing, and I think has definitely made me, I think, a couple of ways that that sort of algorithmic fanning of the flames of controversy can go. Right?
In some cases, it made me be more strident and more sort of like, I don't care and more black and white in how I promoted things because that got at least a lot of love and traction, even if it got haters too. It was like it went more viral if I was more sort of black and white on social media versus things that were more nuanced and maybe more accurate, there's only so much you can fit in a meme or whatever, but the things that had more nuanced words and more kind of squishiness didn't do as well, and then probably still were going to get torn down by commenters. And so I was just like, well, I'm going to do what seems to be working and sort of go in this more black and white direction. And that wasn't really an intentional choice. It was just kind of like, okay, here's what works. I'm going to do more of this. And found myself slowly getting pulled into this more strident, black and white, less nuanced direction that ultimately isn't in line with my values or what I want to put out there in the world. And I think is harming the discourse. The fact that so many of us are getting pushed into these extremes and not talking in a more nuanced way about things.
Jessica DeFino: I relate to that so much. I do feel like I got sucked into that a lot when I was in this phase of writing for the beauty media and focusing on clean beauty. I was such a supporter because I really believed in these underlying truths that clean beauty is trying to address. And I did get sucked into this very black and white way of thinking, like you said. And there's so many articles that I wrote when I was working at that time that I would never write now, and I wish I would have injected more nuance into them, because these things live on the Internet still, and I'm like, I would have said that differently today, but I mean, it's like anything. There are benefits to it. I do think being pushed by online critics has made me a better researcher or more cautious of saying something sensational if I don't have everything that could possibly back it up. That's good. That has improved my work. And then there's like a layer of it where you're just scared to put something out even though it could help people or be really useful to somebody. Because it's like, well, who's going to tear this down? Yeah, it's really tricky territory.
Christy Harrison: It is, yeah, I think so harmful to our overall well being and actual mental health to have that kind of discourse be going on. And then there's the misinformation piece, too, right where it's like social media is spreading. I see so much wellness and diet misinformation. I'm sure there's a lot of beauty misinformation out there, too. What's your take on that? How do you think people can protect themselves from that part of social media?
Jessica DeFino: Oh, that's such a good question. I mean, I would say if you can get off. Really worked for me.
Christy Harrison: Same.
Jessica DeFino: I read fewer Instagram captions and more books, which I think has given me a more reasonable take on all of this. But then, yeah, I would just be skeptical of anyone who is directly involved in the industry. Bias happens. It's not like a character flaw. Like, it happens to everybody. That's why we check for journalistic bias, or journalists are not allowed to accept gifts because these things happen and take measures to mitigate that. So I would just be a little skeptical of anyone who's like a brand founder or an influencer or a celebrity with a deal with a certain brand, even I've seen a lot of cosmetic chemists who work in the industry where it's like, of course, industry creating these products is their bread and butter. They're not necessarily trying to bamboozle you, but being within that industry creates a certain bias.
So I think I would just watch out for that. Just double, triple check any information that's coming to you from somebody who has a financial benefit to you believing it product wise, I think.
Christy Harrison: What about the filter piece, the beauty filters and Instagram face you've written about how that's influencing the medical system and the surgical procedures people are coming in to get. How can, again, I think probably your answer is going to be, get off social media. And I agree with that. But for people who feel like they have to be on there but they're still sort of being fed this content that is highly filtered. What can we do to be more skeptical or critical of it, or just kind of insulate ourselves a little bit from that influence?
Jessica DeFino: The filter piece is much harder to hide from. It's not as simple as get off social media, because it's really infiltrated almost all aspects of our lives. Like, even just getting on a Zoom meeting for work, you're seeing people through a screen. Some people are using that blur effect. So much of our lives are virtual and digital, even if you're not scrolling social media all the time. And through that, you're seeing other people through this lens, through this sort of polished, blurring lens that obscures reality. Yeah, I think it's important to have as much interaction with real people as possible. But even that, it's like a lot of real people are surgically enhancing themselves or procedurally enhancing themselves right now.
So even having face to face interactions creates that comparison thing. I think just being mindful of it, just reminding yourself that people don't inherently look like this, this is a very specific choice, a very specific standard of beauty that's being handed to us right now, just helps to keep that in check. And then for people who are interested in wellness, which I think a lot of people are interested in these things because it projects this image of being well. Be very careful about how you conceive of wellness versus looking well and decide what is more important to you, because we have plenty of data that shows this obsession with looking well according to the standard of beauty today in the western world has actually devastating effects on our mental health. In chasing the aesthetic of wellness, you are making yourself less well. And I think just keeping that top of mind and making that conscious choice like, "No. If wellness is important to me, it's because I actually want to feel well, not look well," influences our behaviors, emphasizes our values. And I think living by your values eventually helps you build up that confidence to resist things that don't align with your values.
Christy Harrison: Well, I mean, speaking of the sort of effort to look well undermining true well being, I think you see that very much in the pressure to lose weight and be thin and sort of the intertwining of wellness and diet culture. And I know you've talked about the intersections of beauty culture and diet culture. Can you talk a little bit about what those intersections are and also how you see beauty culture as being intertwined with other oppressive systems?
Jessica DeFino: I describe beauty culture as diet culture's face focused, fraternal twin. Different body parts we're focused on usually, but the same underlying structures that are creating these standards, which are patriarchy. This is a very gendered space. These standards mostly apply to women and gender nonconforming people. Capitalism, there's always a product to buy. There's always more and more to do to improve yourself, to optimize yourself. Colonialism and white supremacy, these are, like, the four main forces that create beauty culture and diet culture. And what I've seen really in the past five to ten years, especially as we had that little bit of pushback to diet culture in the mainstream media, and we got all these magazine covers that suddenly were like, "Love your body at any size, health at any size." We saw that entering the mainstream media.
You can look at the data and see that the beauty industry and beauty culture starts to get stronger and stronger and stronger because it's compensating to meet whatever was lost in terms of control and product sales. As diet culture became less acceptable to promote in the mainstream media, we see beauty culture rising up to meet that. We see injectables becoming way more popular. We see skincare becoming this huge craze. There was more of a focus above the neck, and so it was like we hadn't changed any of the underlying structures that created diet culture. We just sort of shifted our focus above the neck. And beauty culture is, like, thriving because of it. I think beauty culture has given people the language that allowed for what we're seeing now with this huge resurgence of diet culture, with thin being in again, not that it was ever really out, but the rise of Ozempic and all of this beauty culture, when it rose up to meet the space left by diet culture, introduced these ideas of looking good as mental health.
It created this idea of, like, well, whatever I do to my body is autonomy and empowerment. Now we're seeing those arguments being applied to losing weight. It's all the same stuff just applied to different body parts. Skincare culture in particular. I call skincare culture dewy diet culture. And there are so many parallels there. I mean, ideologically, is there a difference between fat rolls and frown lines? If you're uncomfortable with someone saying, like, "Too many fat rolls, you have to lose weight." Why are we comfortable with someone saying, "Oh, I got to get rid of my frown lines, and this is empowerment?" It's not. These are both just, like, basic realities of being a human in a body. And so I just think there's such a lack of critical thinking there of what we're willing to say is a quote, unquote, bad feature on somebody's face versus what we're comfortable with saying is a good or a bad feature on somebody's body.
Christy Harrison: Totally. So I'm sure that there are some people listening who will be like, "Yeah, but I just want to lose weight, or I just want to fix my wrinkles, or I just want to have skin stop sagging" or whatever. "And that would help me feel better about myself and feel better in the world." To me, that argument, I definitely understand that. I empathize with that, and I eschew most kind of cosmetic procedures, and I don't wear a lot of makeup, but I do sometimes still wear makeup to events and stuff like that if I'm going to be speaking or going to a wedding or whatever. And for me, I've sort of come to terms with that as, like, this is my ticket to being taken seriously in professional spaces sometimes. This is my ticket to not having people be like, "Are you okay? Are you tired? Like, what's going on with you?" Where sometimes I might answer that and have a conversation about that or whatever, if people are judging me overtly, but that doesn't really happen. I think it's more, like, in people's heads or whatever they might be thinking that.
But sometimes I will sort of be okay with whatever I'm imagining people are thinking about me. And sometimes I'm like, "Oh, I just don't want to deal with it. I want to fit in in this situation so that I can think and talk about other things and not have my appearance be sort of central or not stick out in this situation, because I need to blend in order to get things done, get my message across, do the work that I need to do" or whatever. So I kind of see it as like a ticket in or a ticket to getting what I need to do done in some ways. But I'm also not doing surgical procedures or anything like that. Not that I haven't been tempted. I had serious acne when I did IVF to have my daughter, and I had the worst acne of my life and had pitting scars and stuff as a result and have thought about, "Do I want to get that removed?"
Or these, like, I go back and forth feeling like, "Oh, this doesn't feel like me" or whatever, or, "These are my battle scars. This tells the story of what I went through to have my daughter, and this is beautiful, and this is a part of me, and I'm going to embrace it. We're not going to look like we did in our 20s forever. And I'm in my forties now, and I have changed and have grown, and these scars are part of that." And that's mostly where I land. But there are moments when I'm like, "But I just want them gone." So I'm very compassionate with that sort of thinking. But I'm curious, sort of how you personally have kind of started to relate to these things and how you would advise or encourage other people maybe, to see their relationship with beauty culture and to start to change it.
Jessica DeFino: Right? There's so much there. First of all, I would say for anyone who's like, "Well, I like this, or I want to look like this," of course you like this. Of course you want to look differently. This is what our culture glorifies and upholds as an ideal. Looking a certain way is a ticket to sometimes higher paying jobs, better jobs. I mean, social opportunities, relationship love opportunities, all of those things are very real, and it can make changing your body to meet the beauty ideals seem like a rational choice. So, of course, I understand that. What frustrates me is when we stop there and say, "Okay, I'm going to change my body, instead of working to change the values of society."
That's been a big refrain for me personally, is like, I don't want to change my body to meet the standard of beauty. I want to change what is expected of women so that I don't have to put my body and my mind in danger to meet this ideal. There's also a great quote that I repeat to myself all of the time from sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom. And she says, "I like what I like is always a capitalist lie," has really been an invitation to me to interrogate my own likes and wants and things that, like, drawn to and really sort of dismantle that and ask myself, why do I like this? Is it coming from within me, or is it something conditioned into me by a society that doesn't actually have my best interests in mind? And that's part of getting to know yourself, which I find thrilling. So it's not like a self critique necessarily, but an invitation to know yourself deeper and find out what your likes really are versus something that you have been conditioned to like. So that's sort of where I land with that. My work is like just trying to tell the truth about some of these things, because I think the truth is so obscured in the mainstream beauty media and social media.
I'll just speak for me when I learn about the history of some of these beauty standards and the oppressive systems that have given rise to these beauty standards. I always say beauty standards are the physical manifestations of systems of oppression. The reason the standard of beauty is often eurocentric, fat phobic, ableist, gendered. All of this is because those systems of oppression have shaped our society, and these are the physical outgrowths. So it's been really useful for me to learn that history, focus on that history, and then ask myself, is this something that I'm willing to be a part of? And then also because the standard of beauty is sort of forced upon us, and it creates this feeling of insecurity, this lack of confidence. The other part there is like asking myself do I have the emotional, mental energy to divest from that standard right now? Doesn't have to be like, you have to drop it all at once. But I do think it is a good practice to start recognizing.
I tend to call some of my beauty behaviors cosmetic coping mechanisms. I wear concealer sometimes. I have a lot of acne scarring. I don't wear concealer because I like it. It doesn't necessarily make me feel better. It mitigates what had made me feel bad, which is exactly the same thing. And so just telling myself the truth, that I don't like this, this isn't great for me, but I'm doing it to cope with a society that's going to judge me if I show up at an event full of acne scars with no makeup on. And I just contextualize that as, like, okay, it's a cosmetic coping mechanism. Coping mechanisms can be great eventually.
Sometimes you want to work through the actual problem so you don't have to cope with it. And so I feel like me personally, I'm always working toward that and then trying to let go of as many of these beauty behaviors and coping mechanisms as I can along the way, because through my research, I know they are not actually serving me. Another framework that I like to keep in mind is, like, beauty culture sort of creates this binary of the economic well being versus existential well being. Right. So the things that are conforming to the standard of beauty that will give us access to this economic system, give us more success in certain situations, creates, like, an existential issue on the other end. Right. So that's something that I like to think about as well. Will the economic boost that this thing gives me be worth it on the existential end?
Christy Harrison: Wow.
Jessica DeFino: Yeah. Most of the time, it's a no. Of course, I want to recognize that's coming from a place of privilege in a lot of ways for me. I'm a middle class white woman, so often I can forego some of these economic benefits of conforming to beauty in a way that not everybody can. And that's important to note as well. But in the back of my mind, it's like, it's always going to be better for us existentially to remove ourselves from these systems as much as we can.
Christy Harrison: What about ageism? How do you see that playing in? Because I think that's a big one, where our society devalues people as they age and sees signs of aging as signs of that people are losing value, I mean, especially for women and gender nonconforming people. So how can people who are older, who are having signs of aging, kind of grapple with this and use whatever cosmetic coping mechanisms they need to use while at the same time really starting to question these systems?
Jessica DeFino: Yeah, I mean, that's such a great question. I often forget to even mention ageism when I'm talking about beauty because it's so ingrained. It's just like, that is the standard of beauty. It's youth. Right? But yes, no, ageism is a huge part of what's happening with beauty standards today as far as the cosmetic coping part of it and grappling with, am I going to get work done or am I going to resist? One thing I like to point out is that you're going to be criticized for it anyway. There truly is no way to win. It's either, "Oh, she got work done or bad work done, or she doesn't look good," or "She has wrinkles, she looks old, she doesn't look good for her age," whatever. There's criticism on either end.
And so when it comes to a situation like that, personally, I tend to think I'm going to choose the path that more aligns with my values if I'm going to be criticized anyway. But, yeah, no, it's really difficult. There was an article in the Financial Times a couple of years ago that I think about constantly on this subject, and it framed ageism as a form of discrimination against yourself. Like, if you're lucky, you grow old. And so that's really helped me in worrying about looking older and taking measures to look younger. Like, I don't do anti-aging things. I don't do cosmetic procedures. I would go so far as to say I never will when it comes to aging because not only is it devastating on the collective level, but that's a form of discrimination against myself.
I'm just making it harder for myself to grow old by my own standards. So, of course, there's like a cultural weight put on that but I don't know. For me, it's useful to recognize the individual weight that I'm putting on it and that I'm actually actively making it harder for myself to accept myself as I grow old if I'm obsessed with reversing it.
Christy Harrison: I think about that a lot in my 40s, definitely showing some signs of aging that maybe not other people might not totally notice. But I'm looking at my face every day, definitely notice these things. But yeah, I think for me, at this point in my life, I don't think it's worth it. The calculus comes out in favor of acceptance and aging without those sorts of cosmetic coping mechanisms. And who knows? When I get into my fifties, sixties, whatever that might feel like, it starts to shift. But I feel like living in line with my values feels so much more aligned with just who I am at this point in my life and who I want to be. And also the model I want to give for other people too, because I think that would be discriminating against myself and that would also be showing my daughter and other people in my life that it's not acceptable to age, that my face, without cosmetic enhancements or whatever, is not a good face, and that there's a sort of implied judgment sometimes I think.
I don't know, when I encounter people who've had a lot of work done in my life, I sometimes think, "Oh God, they must be judging me." And who knows if that's true. That's probably a projection in a lot of cases. But I don't want anyone in my family, at least I don't want my daughter to be feeling that way or even having that cross her mind as a result of my enhancements or whatever.
Jessica DeFino: I think it's so important to highlight our role in the collective. I think one of the worst things about beauty culture and wellness culture is it perpetuates a sort of individualism, my wants and my needs above everybody else's. And it sort of downplays how we are all interconnected and how our actions actually do have collective consequences. And yeah, by participating in anti-aging culture, you're doing it quote unquote for yourself. But it's just a fact that our actions have consequences on the collective. Our actions, our adherence upholds the standard of beauty. Like not putting a moral judgment on that, not saying it's good or bad for you to invest or divest, but that's just simply the truth of how beauty standards work. We cannot separate our own individual actions from their collective consequences.
And yeah, I think that's especially powerful when you're looking at, say, your daughter growing up, and what do I want her to feel as she grows older? Do I want her to be scared of this? Do I want to give her the impression that this is something to be avoided at all costs? Yeah. And that can be really powerful. And the other thing I like to mention is, like, anti-aging is terrible for us on a longevity level as well. There was a study, I think, out of Yale a while ago that showed people with negative attitudes toward aging ended up dying seven and a half years earlier than subjects in the study who did not have a negative attitude toward aging. So this anti-aging obsession is literally anti-aging us. It's literally taking years off of our lives. And I think that's such a huge example of this big void between the idea of looking well and being well. Are you willing to give up seven and a half years of your actual life to look as if you've lived less life?
Christy Harrison: God, that's so intense and so important to recognize. And also, I mean, the risks of cosmetic surgery or cosmetic injections or whatever it might be are not zero. Right? You're also sort of rolling the dice when you're doing something like that.
Jessica DeFino: One hundred percent. And that's definitely something that's not talked about enough in the mainstream beauty media, is that all of these things have potential consequences on our actual health in the name of looking healthy.
Christy Harrison: Yeah. One question that I ask all my guests at the end is how you're rethinking wellness for yourself and in light of the work you do critiquing the beauty industry and beauty culture, I'm curious what wellness means to you and sort of how you're rethinking really more well being. I like to say well being as opposed to wellness, because wellness has been so word wellness, and the concept of wellness has just been so thoroughly co-opted by wellness culture and the wellness industry. And I think true well being is something that's far outside of what wellness culture really conceptualizes it as. But I'm curious if any of that resonates for you and sort of how you're rethinking wellness or well being for yourself in light of the work you do.
Jessica DeFino: Yes, it's interesting. I don't know if this is a great answer, but something that I was even just thinking about this morning is like, obsession. Like, if something comes to a point of obsession, it's probably not well. And the obsession with wellness in culture today points to very unwell society that's constantly chasing wellness because we don't feel well. Something I've been thinking about for myself is the less I'm obsessed with wellness, the less I'm trying to chase wellness, it's probably a sign that I'm doing pretty okay. I'm probably pretty well if I don't feel this intense obsession with performing wellness.
And I was thinking of that this morning because, like I said, I didn't know if we were going on camera talking to each other on this podcast, and I've had such a rough morning. Like, I didn't wash my face or brush my hair today. I had to run out to the pharmacy for a prescription, and I was just like, "I don't feel up to this, and I'm going on a wellness podcast. What are people going to think?" Then I was like, you know what? I did things today that were actually for my own wellness. Like, I picked up a prescription, I'm taking action. I didn't waste precious moments of my morning needing to brush my hair or wash my face and do these things, because I was actually taking care of myself in ways that are more well than the performance of well. So that's how I'm thinking about it today.
Christy Harrison: Oh, I love that. And I always say medication is a form of self care. There's so much in wellness culture that is anti-meds and pro fix it with food or whatever, but I have personally tried that myself in the past and it didn't work. And I've done a lot of research around it and a lot of the ways that we're conditioned to try to fix things through food or supplements or other wellness protocols are just not evidence based and are not supportive of actual well being. But prescription medications and over the counter medications really are in many cases. And so, yeah, I think that's really amazing.
Jessica DeFino: If there's a food that will take away the pain of a UTI, tell me about.
Christy Harrison: Oh, my God. The worst. I hate that so much. But, yeah, no, I used to try to treat UTIs with food and got myself into some really bad situations because if you don't treat a UTI properly and the bacteria keep multiplying, they can go other places and cause other problems and. Yeah, it's not a good scene.
Jessica DeFino: No, not at all. I'm feeling pretty well today, even though I don't necessarily look it.
Christy Harrison: I love that. And, yeah, it's like, who cares? And also, we're off camera anyway, so there's that. You don't have to have your ticket in the door of whatever I so appreciate that. Well, thank you for everything you shared. It's really a pleasure talking with you and I'm excited to talk more for the bonus episode. But for those who are just listening to this episode, can you tell people where they can find you and learn more about your work?
Jessica DeFino: Yes. So most of my work is on my newsletter. It's called The Unpublishable. Actually, that name will be changing soon. I'm going to do a rebrand in the coming months, but you can find it at jessicadefino.substack.com. I'm also a columnist at The Guardian, so every month I have a column called Ask Ugly, a beauty advice column, so you can find me there as well.
Christy Harrison: Awesome. We'll put links to that in the show notes so people can find it. I love your writing and definitely encourage people to check it out. And thank you again. This was really lovely.
Jessica DeFino: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for having me.
Christy Harrison: So that's our show. Thanks to our guests for being here and to you for listening. If you've enjoyed this conversation, I'd be so grateful if you could take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening. You can also support us by becoming a paid subscriber for just a few bucks a month on Substack. With a paid subscription, you unlock great perks like bonus episodes, subscriber-only q and a's, early access to regular episodes, and much more. Sign up now at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.
Got burning questions about wellness trends, diet fads, or anything else we cover on the show? Send them my way at christyharrison.com/questions for a chance to have them answered on an upcoming episode. And if you're looking to heal your relationship with food and break free from diet and wellness culture. I'd love for you to check out my online course Intuitive Eating Fundamentals. You can learn more and enroll now at christyharrison.com/course.
Rethinking Wellness is produced and edited by Softer Sounds podcast studio. Julianne Wotasik does our website production. Our album art was created by Tara Jacoby. Theme song was written and performed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. And I'm your host and executive producer, Christy Harrison. Thanks again for listening, and take care.
The Intersection of Beauty Culture and Wellness/Diet Culture with Jessica DeFino