
The myth of good skin, with Jessica DeFino
09/01/22 • 53 min
Jessica DeFino is not your regular beauty journalist. After finding her pieces were regularly rejected from newspapers and magazines for being too incendiary, or dissing beauty brands who advertised, she founded her newsletter, The Unpublishable, where, in her own words she “dismantles beauty standards, debunks marketing myths and explores how beauty culture impacts people”. It now has 40,000 readers.
The Huffington Post once described her as “giving the middle finger to the entire beauty industry”.
Jess and I discuss why clear skin isn’t a health objective but an aesthetic one, the evolution of a tan, the explosion of celebrity makeup and skincare lines and why we’re at a tipping point in beauty.
Subscribe to The Unpublishable
Follow Jess on Twitter and IG @jessicadefino_
Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes
Production by Joel Grove
Jessica DeFino is not your regular beauty journalist. After finding her pieces were regularly rejected from newspapers and magazines for being too incendiary, or dissing beauty brands who advertised, she founded her newsletter, The Unpublishable, where, in her own words she “dismantles beauty standards, debunks marketing myths and explores how beauty culture impacts people”. It now has 40,000 readers.
The Huffington Post once described her as “giving the middle finger to the entire beauty industry”.
Jess and I discuss why clear skin isn’t a health objective but an aesthetic one, the evolution of a tan, the explosion of celebrity makeup and skincare lines and why we’re at a tipping point in beauty.
Subscribe to The Unpublishable
Follow Jess on Twitter and IG @jessicadefino_
Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes
Production by Joel Grove
Previous Episode

The nuances of grief, with Cariad Lloyd
I'm so pleased to bring you this s2 bonus episode sponsored by Sage Appliances, with Cariad Lloyd, which we recorded in front of a live audience a month ago. Cariad is a comedian and writer and the creator of the cult podcast, Griefcast, where she interviews famous people (usually comedians) like Robert Webb, David Baddiel and Sara Pascoe about the human experience of death and grief, and which has won multiple British Podcast Awards. I'm really interested in grief: why we fear it (especially other people's), why we expect grief to look a certain way, the lack of nuance in our understanding of grief. What I love about Griefcast is the way it democratises grief: there is no one way to grieve. Grief, as Cariad digs into, is not just very sad, it is funny, absurd, weird and life-expanding. You can listen to a new series of Griefcast now, on all good pod platforms and find Griefcast on Twitter @thegriefcast. Here are some helpful resources from Cariad: The Grief Network Let's Talk About Loss charity Dead Parent Club podcast The New Normal charity Bereavement Room podcast And some books I recommend: Grief Works by Julia Samuel, Once More We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene, It's Your Loss by Robyn Donaldson and Emma Hopkinson, Languages of Loss by Sasha Bates, Sunset by Jessie Cave and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
Next Episode

What we get wrong about dementia, with Wendy Mitchell
There are 50million people living with dementia worldwide. By 2050, it’s likely to rise to 152 million. But how much do you know about dementia? When it’s a disease so rapidly on the rise, why aren’t we talking more about it?
Wendy Mitchell is a former NHS worker who was diagnosed with young-onset dementia at the age of 58. She’s written two books: Somebody I Used To Know and What I Wish People Knew About Dementia
We talk about why dementia is so much more than memory loss; how the arts often falls back on stereotypes when featuring characters with dementia; and how Wendy thinks a diagnosis of dementia could be better broken by doctors - it’s not the end of life, she says, it’s the beginning of a different one.
Buy What I Wish People Knew About Dementia, by Wendy Mitchell
Follow Wendy on Twitter @WendyPMitchell
Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes
Production by Joel Grove
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