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Speaker 1: Trust me?

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Speaker 2: Do you trust her?

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Speaker 3: Right ever lead you a story? Trust?

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Speaker 1: This is the truth, the only truth.

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Speaker 4: If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't

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Speaker 4: welcome to trust me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief

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Speaker 4: and manipulation from two beauty junkies who've actually experienced it.

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Speaker 1: I am Lola Blanc and I am Megan Elizabeth.

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Speaker 4: Today our guest is Arabella Sicarti, author of the House

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Speaker 4: of Beauty Lessons from the Image Industry. We're going to

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Speaker 4: discuss the ways that obsessing about beauty and stopping aging

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Speaker 4: becomes a way of feeling in control of our lives

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Speaker 4: when they feel out of control, the connection between Mormonism

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Speaker 4: and plastic surgery, and why Utah has some of the

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Speaker 4: highest rates in the country, and how beauty and power

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Speaker 4: go hand in hand.

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Speaker 1: Yes, we will.

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Speaker 5: We'll get into Coco Chanel's Nazi ties, how some of

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Speaker 5: the scammer sides of beauty and the wellness industry can overlap,

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Speaker 5: and why the healthiest way to engage with beauty is

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Speaker 5: to prioritize connection with other people except when it comes

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Speaker 5: to MLMs.

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Speaker 4: Indeed, before we get into it, do you have a

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Speaker 4: cultiest thing of this week that you experienced.

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Speaker 1: You bet your boots, I do my boot. You're okay.

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Speaker 5: So we're recording this a couple weeks in advance, so

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Speaker 5: perhaps when you're listening to this, there will be new

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Speaker 5: breaks in the story.

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Speaker 1: Right, but good disclaimer for to day.

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Speaker 5: What we know is that basically Tampa, Florida mega mansion

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Speaker 5: they just discovered sixty people living inside of it.

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Speaker 4: And this is the same one we've talked about before,

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Speaker 4: or no, this is a new one.

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Speaker 5: Okay, it's a new one. So it's called the Kingdom

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Speaker 5: of God Global Church. It's still operating. Actually, even though

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Speaker 5: the two leaders of it have been taken to jail,

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Speaker 5: they're still operating their twenty four hour prayer line.

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Speaker 1: Whoa like a phone like Allah?

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Speaker 5: And we've pulled in like fifty million dollars people working

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Speaker 5: for free, people collapsing, water being poured on them to

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Speaker 5: wake them up, which is actually something that did happen

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Speaker 5: to me once. What yeah, in what just like a

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Speaker 5: wake up water being pored I mean there's.

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Speaker 1: Like in your sorority or no, in.

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Speaker 5: The two by two oh shit, and then the context

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Speaker 5: of a convention. Wow, it's a long story, okay, anyway.

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Speaker 4: Okay, So what's the This is obviously some kind of

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Speaker 4: like church, like a religious cult.

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Speaker 1: It's a church. It's a religious cult.

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Speaker 5: They've been using people like to work twenty four hours

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Speaker 5: a day to raise money that these people have been

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Speaker 5: using to buy luxury cars. Jet skis a like two

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Speaker 5: hundred and fifty thousand dollars SUV. I don't even know

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Speaker 5: what the purpose is. And this the most interesting part

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Speaker 5: to me that no one keeps expanding upon. They just

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Speaker 5: kind of drop it in there like it's no big deal.

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Speaker 5: Is that there's human sized statues in cages?

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Speaker 3: What?

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Speaker 1: Yeah are their photos? Yeah? WHOA.

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Speaker 4: I'm looking at Google images right now, and this mansion's crazy.

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Speaker 5: So the mansion is so big and I'm like sixty people.

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Speaker 5: It feels like that mansion could handle that.

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Speaker 4: It does seem like it's a This is a very

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Speaker 4: large property that I'm looking at.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like they're just sticking the victims in

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Speaker 5: like the great Enclosed Area something.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god. So we I have people been into,

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Speaker 1: Like how did it come out? Do you know the

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Speaker 1: FBI rated it. I don't know if they got a tip.

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Speaker 5: I don't know what exactly happened, but I'm very interested

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Speaker 5: to see how the story plays out. And I'm very

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Speaker 5: interested to see where this would have gone had it

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Speaker 5: not stopped.

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Speaker 1: The human size statues and cages. What the fuck? Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean that feels like something's cooking. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, at least it's psychological torture of some kind or like,

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Speaker 4: you know, trying to be menacing, Like there's something that's

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Speaker 4: very ominous. Yeah, well, I am looking for to learning more.

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Speaker 1: Yes, what about you? It's your cult this thing of

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Speaker 1: the week.

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Speaker 4: I was going through our trust Me email and phone

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Speaker 4: hotline this week, which we have not done in I

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Speaker 4: was gonna say, damn once we're back on top of it, y'all.

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Speaker 4: So if you want to share your story, please send

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Speaker 4: us an email.

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Speaker 1: Gives a call. But I've found like a.

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Speaker 4: Very like an older email from someone pitching a guest,

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Speaker 4: and it was super interesting to me because this is

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Speaker 4: a man who was a member of a woman led cult.

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Speaker 4: And maybe I won't say what it is because I

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Speaker 4: don't know if i'll I want to identify this person,

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Speaker 4: but there's a woman led cult that he had been

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Speaker 4: speaking out about his experiences with, and I was like, oh,

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Speaker 4: this sounds like a really interesting guest, Like I love

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Speaker 4: when men are willing to share their stories because it's

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Speaker 4: much harder to get them too. But then I went

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Speaker 4: to his Instagram page, and his Instagram page is all

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Speaker 4: like why I'm not a feminist anymore, why you should

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Speaker 4: be strong in your masculinity, very like Andrew Taty kind.

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Speaker 1: Of like a shiplash back from the class.

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Speaker 4: Yes, it's like what a fascinating I mean, like from

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Speaker 4: the outside, obviously I don't know this person, but from

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Speaker 4: the outside it very much looks like had a negative

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Speaker 4: experience with one woman who abused her power and extrapolated

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Speaker 4: upon that to then react and go with a complete

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Speaker 4: opposite direction and be like, actually women should have no power,

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Speaker 4: which is just like, so it's just so interesting. This

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Speaker 4: is just I mean, that is what we do as humans,

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Speaker 4: you know, Like I reacted to my religious upbringing in

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Speaker 4: which I believed really really hard by believing in absolutely nothing.

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Speaker 4: And sometimes I'm a little rigid in that people who

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Speaker 4: come out of polygamy sometimes become so vehemently antipolygamy that

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Speaker 4: they then are actually like against the victims of it

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Speaker 4: because they're still in it for you know, like, we

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Speaker 4: have such strong responses after we leave something, and I

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Speaker 4: guess that's just like one of the things that have

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Speaker 4: But it's so interesting to me how rare it is

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Speaker 4: that we balance out and we're like.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I guess that's why therapy is such a necessary

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Speaker 5: part of the process, so that somebody can like hold

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Speaker 5: space for radicalness maybe and then reflect it back to

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Speaker 5: us and be like when we're ready to hear it,

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Speaker 5: kind of be like, so here's what I'm seeing, because yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 5: it's it's it's impossible to not repel, yeah, trauma.

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Speaker 4: And we overcorrect, Like that's just like I feel like

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Speaker 4: that's just such a human thing. We overcorrect, But damn

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Speaker 4: I don't want to, like I don't want to like

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Speaker 4: just flip flop and swing from one extreme to the other,

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Speaker 4: you know, and it's.

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Speaker 1: Easier to do. So yeah, yeah, that's that's a really

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Speaker 1: interesting one.

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Speaker 4: So we're looking for a balance, we're looking for a

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Speaker 4: moderation and self reflection, and we're looking for beauty and

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Speaker 4: we're looking to be the most beautiful people alive.

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Speaker 5: Shall we talk to Ara about Let's do it.

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Speaker 1: Welcome Arabella Saicarti to trust me.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me excited to be here.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for being here.

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Speaker 4: Your book is so beautiful, it's written so well. Nonfiction

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Speaker 4: can of course be written very beautifully, but you don't

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Speaker 4: always expect there to be this like poeticism, and I

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Speaker 4: really appreciated that.

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Speaker 1: About it, so great job, Thank you.

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Speaker 4: So can you tell us a little bit about your

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Speaker 4: really impressive background and what brought you to the subject

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Speaker 4: of beauty.

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Speaker 3: So it all started because I was online way too much.

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Speaker 3: So I've been a writer working in the beauty space

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Speaker 3: pretty much since my brain started for me, Like I

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Speaker 3: started writing for magazines when I was like fourteen or fifteen,

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Speaker 3: So I have many years in the industry at this point,

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Speaker 3: and I split my time between New York and I

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Speaker 3: and going other places for reporting on the beauty industry.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes I write about fashion and wellness, hospitality, but my

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Speaker 3: bread and butter is the beauty industry, specifically around the

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Speaker 3: connections between beauty and politics, so I do reporting around that.

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Speaker 3: I also run a nonprofit called the Museum of Nails Foundation,

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Speaker 3: which is basically a digital first archive that documents now

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Speaker 3: art now culture and tries to give beauty workers in

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Speaker 3: the nail industry their flowers. Because beauty workers are often

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Speaker 3: uncredited and underappreciated.

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Speaker 4: Amazing, This is totally in aside. But were you and

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Speaker 4: Tavi Gevinson compared a lot?

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Speaker 1: Was that?

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Speaker 3: I don't know compared? We grew up together, Like we

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Speaker 3: were really really close friends when we were both teens,

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Speaker 3: so they were Yeah, like I was part of the

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Speaker 3: Rookie og staff, So.

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Speaker 1: You were a team. Were you a team? Is caat Marnel?

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Speaker 1: Is that in this world or not?

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Speaker 3: I came a couple of years later in like a

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Speaker 3: little different wave. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, so Exo Vain

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Speaker 3: came I guess after Rookie or maybe at the same time,

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Speaker 3: but kind of different social bubbles.

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Speaker 5: Well, you have a really cool perspective on culture, beauty

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Speaker 5: cults actually, as we discovered while reading this book, and

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Speaker 5: one of the things that I found very amusing about

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Speaker 5: your book was that you got super into beauty because

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Speaker 5: of the fifth element. Yeah, when she has the Chanel moment,

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Speaker 5: and we can get into Chanel later and the problems

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Speaker 5: that surround her. But yeah, I was also extremely into

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Speaker 5: beauty as a child to a degree. That was very

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Speaker 5: odd because we were both raised in cults, so I

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Speaker 5: wasn't allowed to have makeup, I couldn't cut.

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Speaker 1: My hair had to be in buns.

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Speaker 5: But somehow I convinced my parents to get me like

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Speaker 5: a magnified mirror in seventh grade and no, yeah, and

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Speaker 5: it was like.

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Speaker 1: A ten time magnified mirror.

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Speaker 5: And I would just like, and I'm older than you,

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Speaker 5: So this was like way before kids my age were

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Speaker 5: even doing this.

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Speaker 1: But I was like really thinking.

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Speaker 5: About anti aging and like fourth grade and it's just

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Speaker 5: really odd. So I really related to a lot of

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Speaker 5: your book and the way it just kind of creeps

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Speaker 5: in there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I think we were all obsessed with not wanting

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Speaker 3: to die as children in some form or another. Right, Yes,

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Speaker 3: I mean I think you know, like those hotel magnifying

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Speaker 3: mirrors that you can pull in and out. Of course,

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Speaker 3: I feel like they should be like criminalized. I know.

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Speaker 3: I don't think that they should exist. No, they just

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Speaker 3: pause everyone to want to like hate themselves or book

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Speaker 3: a hotel spat treatment because they're like, no one should

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Speaker 3: be looking at their pores.

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Speaker 4: People, Oh my god, No, absolutely not. So what are

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Speaker 4: some of the obviously the fears that beauty praise upon.

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Speaker 4: You just mentioned one, which is the fear of death.

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Speaker 4: Can we talk about how this industry can kind of

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Speaker 4: take advantage of some of our deepest anxieties.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, of course. I mean one of my taglines or aphorisms,

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Speaker 3: I would say it's like beauty is terror, but on

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Speaker 3: the same side, or like a different side of the

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Speaker 3: same coin. It's also an active care and for a

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Speaker 3: really long time, and kind of the guiding motive behind

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Speaker 3: the book was that I wanted to trace the connection

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Speaker 3: between terror, like the political form of terror, but also

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Speaker 3: just the feeling women feel and people feel navigating the

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Speaker 3: world in our bodies, always being judged, and see how

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Speaker 3: it plays into all the different industries around us, not

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Speaker 3: just the beauty industry, but how it's connected to every

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Speaker 3: other industry there is, because all of our products are

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Speaker 3: made of many different things and they are all connected

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Speaker 3: in some form or another.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean corporations and companies in general that are

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Speaker 4: marketing anything to us by design have to make us

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Speaker 4: feel inadequate or like there's something there's something missing from

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Speaker 4: our lives and something that we need. And obviously the

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Speaker 4: beauty industry, it just makes it centered around ourselves and

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Speaker 4: what is missing or wrong with us.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and that moving goalpost, it never you never reach utopia.

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Speaker 5: It always always be hotter, so you can always be hotter.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, some of the.

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Speaker 4: Hottest women I know are the ones that are the

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Speaker 4: most anxious about how they look all the time and

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Speaker 4: being hotter. I'm like, you're literally I would like die.

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Speaker 1: To because it's a disease. It's a disease.

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Speaker 5: But I love in the book how you kind of

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Speaker 5: go at it from both sides, where it is like

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Speaker 5: something very dangerous and corruptible, but it's also such a

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Speaker 5: beautiful way of connecting with people, and we can get

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Speaker 5: to that more later. You have a really perfect quote

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Speaker 5: about it. I also like how you call it like

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Speaker 5: body hacking. Can you tell us a bit more about

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Speaker 5: what the term body hacking means?

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Speaker 3: So body hacking, at least in the framework of the book,

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Speaker 3: it really refers to this impulse to let's call it

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Speaker 3: like body optimization for the boys and the boyfriends of

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Speaker 3: beauty girls. It's basically doing a bunch of different things

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Speaker 3: either to your body or different wellness things. Might be surgical,

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Speaker 3: it might not be where you are trying to either

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Speaker 3: like live longer or like be a little healthier, be younger.

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Speaker 3: You know, all this anti aging stuff that we do

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Speaker 3: or we're seeing pop up in different clinics, or the

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Speaker 3: adaptogens or like the really fancy scientific founding skincare products

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Speaker 3: GLP one. All of these things they have to do

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Speaker 3: with this impulse to try to delay death in some

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Speaker 3: form or another, because the idea of being healthy has

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Speaker 3: so much to do with just like staying homozomaly, like younger,

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Speaker 3: because when you're younger, you have less chronic illnesses. So

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Speaker 3: much of the transhumanist movement pretty much is just about

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Speaker 3: trying to stay alive and as young as scientifically possible.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, Percella Pressley to me looks like she

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Speaker 5: could run a marathon. Yeah, like, and it's just like

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Speaker 5: an illusion. I'm like, she's she's young. You know, it

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Speaker 5: works on me. I'm like, you're young.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting talking about biohacking versus beauty. I mean

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Speaker 4: it almost seems like for men it's sort of outwardly

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Speaker 4: named as life extension and like this idea of health

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Speaker 4: or something, whereas for women or from people, it's more

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Speaker 4: like the appearance of youth.

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Speaker 3: No, I totally agree with you. It's definitely like gendered.

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Speaker 3: It's like it's like gender washed somehow. These conversations and

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Speaker 3: you can actually see this in like how different wellness

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Speaker 3: spaces are marketed at at least in New York City.

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Speaker 3: I'm thinking a lot about this because I'm just going

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Speaker 3: to a bunch of them for the bit, because I

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Speaker 3: love doing that for research and seeing how people are

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Speaker 3: treating themselves in their body in different ways. Because wellness

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Speaker 3: is a cult. Beauty is a cults in itself, so

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Speaker 3: I want to see all the little cults and how

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Speaker 3: they're hanging out and what they're doing and chatting about.

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Speaker 3: So for men, I feel like it's really marketed in

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Speaker 3: terms of like almost like Terminator is on the mood board.

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Speaker 3: Oh my god, what I mean. It's so like we're

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Speaker 3: in tron We're going to do an AI robot massage.

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Speaker 3: We're going to get our like body scanned so we

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Speaker 3: see every single thing that possibly be wrong with us.

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Speaker 1: Optimize, Optimize.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, We're going to.

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Speaker 3: Do like ivy infusions. We're going to do all these

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Speaker 3: things and make us feel like we're in a spaceship.

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Speaker 4: It's about strength. It's about like being stronger, longer or something.

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Speaker 3: Maybe, yes, there's this phrase in the book. I think

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Speaker 3: so like longevity, velocity or something. At this point, I

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Speaker 3: don't remember exactly, but it has to do with like

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Speaker 3: just trying. There's like a barometer that's scientists and people

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Speaker 3: that are doing all of this body hacking stuff. They

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Speaker 3: are obsessed with statistically trying to make sure that you

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Speaker 3: live a little longer, and all of this stuff is

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Speaker 3: just for that effort, whereas all of the stuff that's

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Speaker 3: thrown that women for anti aging is really just about

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Speaker 3: like fake your age to be younger, remove and erased

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Speaker 3: parts of yourself so you give an idea of being

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Speaker 3: younger than you are. Your health kind of doesn't matter

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Speaker 3: in these conversations.

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Speaker 1: Right at all.

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Speaker 5: It doesn't even matter if it's a dangerous surgery, Like no,

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Speaker 5: bbl's are so dangerous, and people are like, gotta get

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Speaker 5: that fat ass babe, Like it.

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Speaker 1: Just I'm attempted and I haven't been yet.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I have fake boobs, Like it's a whole

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Speaker 5: I was telling Lola, getting my fake boobs was the

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Speaker 5: happiest experience of my life. So like it's just a

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Speaker 5: complicated subject because I also am like people shouldn't have

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Speaker 5: to change, and then I'm like, but I want to.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough.

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Speaker 3: Yeah it could be a playground or it could be

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Speaker 3: a prison, and sometimes it's both at the same time.

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Speaker 5: You there it is, that's why you're the expert. That's

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Speaker 5: exactly what's happening. Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 4: Well, speaking of prison, the prison of beauty, I mean,

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Speaker 4: so you did talk about on another podcast, which is

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Speaker 4: I think how we came across you in the first place,

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Speaker 4: the connection between Mormonism and plastic surgery. And as someone

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Speaker 4: who was raised Mormon, this was very surprising to me.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know how.

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Speaker 4: Deep any of y'all have gotten into this, but like

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Speaker 4: when I was growing up, you could not get your

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Speaker 4: ears pierced, you could not get tattoos, nobody got plastic

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Speaker 4: surgery because your body is a temple, and like if

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Speaker 4: somebody did, they really would try to hide it. It

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Speaker 4: was not something that was normal or acceptable. And I

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Speaker 4: started asking around about how that's changed. But can you

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Speaker 4: tell us some of them a little bit about that,

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Speaker 4: because it's changed a lot.

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Speaker 3: It's changed a lot, it has. I mean when I

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Speaker 3: was just lightly doing the research about Mormonism and plastic

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Speaker 3: surgery and self cared body stuff, I was really surprised

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Speaker 3: that people are spending a lot, a lot of money

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Speaker 3: to do that, and it's so kind of related to

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Speaker 3: the paradynamics of being in the church and how much

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Speaker 3: money people are spending to kind of align themselves with

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Speaker 3: a very new, kind of off topic version of grace

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Speaker 3: and values that seem antithetical, as you said, to like

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Speaker 3: what it might have been before. I mean, now there's

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Speaker 3: Real Housewives situations going on on Hulu where you have

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Speaker 3: Mormonism kind of funneled through the lens of a Kardashian right, right.

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Speaker 3: And I'm sure for a lot of people that doesn't

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Speaker 3: feel like the religion that they might have grown up in.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And I was asking some friends and family members because

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Speaker 4: I was like, is this are you guys noticing this

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Speaker 4: is happening in your communities? And it seems like it's

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Speaker 4: definitely more prevalent in Utah specifically than to Mormon culture.

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Speaker 4: Outside of Utah. It seems to be the consensus. But

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Speaker 4: my Salt Lake friends.

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Speaker 5: Were like, oh, yeah, Utah in general has those plastic

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Speaker 5: surgeons besides Miami and Los Angeles?

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Speaker 1: Is that correct?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, outside of Brazil, it's like one of the

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Speaker 3: capitals of plastic surgery in the world.

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Speaker 4: It's fascinating that the religion of don't drink coffee or

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Speaker 4: tea because that will because your body's a temple is now, Like,

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Speaker 4: but boob jobs are great, and in fact, do everything

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Speaker 4: you can.

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Speaker 1: To be beautiful for God.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but of course obviously there's a patriarchal element, you know,

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Speaker 4: like your kind of role as a woman in Mormonism

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Speaker 4: is to be presentable to your husband or your future

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Speaker 4: husband to bear children. Like, have you gained any insight

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Speaker 4: into some of the thinking that goes on there?

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Speaker 3: I think what I've observed from across different religions that

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Speaker 3: are also they have like a patriarchal lens through which

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Speaker 3: they view women is that you're kind of a commodity

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Speaker 3: for God, and it is in your best interest and

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Speaker 3: in God's best interest or higher powers best interest if

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Speaker 3: you do this, that and the other thing. And if

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Speaker 3: you don't, you don't love the higher power quite enough.

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Speaker 3: You haven't sacrificed yourself enough to transform to be closer

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Speaker 3: to the vision.

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Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, it's a ritual.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but who determines what is Like the dudes, dude

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Speaker 4: in each community, the men in each community are like,

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Speaker 4: this is what God likes. But it's so fascinating because

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Speaker 4: like if you look at the FLDS, like that's the

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Speaker 4: app like, yeah, no makeup.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, but I remember one of the women saying, and

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Speaker 5: I don't remember where, but like Thinness was very stressed

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Speaker 5: for in her family in which family and her FLDS family.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I mean that might be true, but it's not everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean one of the things I think we can

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Speaker 3: all kind of clock is that just because testimony or

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Speaker 3: like the actual primary source materials say one thing, it

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Speaker 3: doesn't mean that any specific like church or organization is

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Speaker 3: exactly following, of course, the rich in guidance.

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Speaker 1: Of course.

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Speaker 3: The other day I just saw that like some church

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Speaker 3: had created an AI voice of Charlie Kirk around it. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and they were having like group hallucinations about like Charlie

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Speaker 3: Kirk giving some sermon for the church, and it was

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Speaker 3: just an AI voice, you know. So I'm like, we

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Speaker 3: love a lot.

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Speaker 4: Quite aggressively, quite aggressively, we have lost the plat well.

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Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, Christianity and America has taken a gone

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Speaker 4: way far from the Bible in many cases Evangelical Christianity.

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Speaker 3: M hm.

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Speaker 5: I like the history you explored in this book of

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Speaker 5: how far back beauty and power and politics have intersected,

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Speaker 5: and just you know, beauty attracts power, it attracts political power,

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Speaker 5: and so it is it might be painted as something silly,

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Speaker 5: but actually it is kind of an end to a

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Speaker 5: sort of power that women aren't really granted otherwise. So

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Speaker 5: I don't know if there's a question in that, but

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Speaker 5: I would love for you to expand upon that a bet.

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Speaker 3: Sure. I tend to qualify beauty as a form of

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Speaker 3: like soft power, and soft power is technically a term

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Speaker 3: in like political theory and strategy about like it's it's

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Speaker 3: the things that you might do, or the conversations that

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Speaker 3: you might have, and these ways of finessing a situation

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Speaker 3: in order to impact real change. Right, you don't need

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Speaker 3: to be physically violent or threatening to get something done.

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Speaker 3: And oftentimes women are not afforded actual weapons or other

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Speaker 3: tools or financial means in order to get things done.

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Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean that they aren't the most important

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Speaker 3: person in the room. Right. There's like that quote like

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Speaker 3: behind every powerful man is a woman, you know, And

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Speaker 3: beauty has always been kind of an exitdoor, a loophole,

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Speaker 3: a way of having some sort of currency in a

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Speaker 3: world that wants to constantly discredit women. And that's not

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Speaker 3: just true in beauty, it's really true in how money

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Speaker 3: and aesthetics are intertwined overall. I mean the art world specifically.

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Speaker 3: It's all about aesthetics and beauty, right, But it's also

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Speaker 3: a commodity in which really wealthy people move their money

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Speaker 3: around on a global scale, and it's often a front

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Speaker 3: for more serious conversations and bargains, and that has so

441
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 3: much to do with beauty, politics, currency, and soft power.

442
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:39,320
Speaker 3: In these conversations, it's like, oh, it's a beautiful thing,

443
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:42,239
Speaker 3: but I also want this person to do something for me,

444
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:44,720
Speaker 3: so I'm going to buy their stuff or this, that

445
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,359
Speaker 3: and the other thing. But in terms of just the

446
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 3: beauty industry and power and currency, the beauty industry financially

447
00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:57,600
Speaker 3: is one of the most significant industries in the world,

448
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 3: and it's connected to other industry that we use every

449
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:05,119
Speaker 3: single day. Right. It's connected to shipping. It's connected to

450
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 3: like boxing and shipping supplies and materials. It's connected to

451
00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 3: retail spaces. It's an industry where you can work as

452
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 3: a service worker, you can work retail. You might be

453
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 3: a makeup artist, you might be a model. There's so

454
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 3: many different careers within the industry, and for a lot

455
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 3: of women for generations, working in the beauty industry was

456
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 3: the only way that they could actually make money right Financially,

457
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 3: women were needed allowed to have credit cards in their

458
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:35,840
Speaker 3: own bank accounts until like, you know, the mid nineteen hundreds,

459
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 3: like the fifties or so. I might be wrong about that,

460
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:39,359
Speaker 3: but it was.

461
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:44,200
Speaker 2: It's within it's within the living memory, right within living memory,

462
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 2: and so beauty has often been one of the only

463
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,919
Speaker 2: ways that women could actually find financial agency and a

464
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 2: sort of actual material power in their.

465
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 1: Lives and even in sex work before that. Yeah.

466
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:58,199
Speaker 3: Yeah, the oldest industry in the world has to do

467
00:24:58,240 --> 00:24:59,159
Speaker 3: with beauty and desire.

468
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 5: Yeah right, I think that you were talking about this

469
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 5: on the podcast that we listen to. But you know,

470
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,639
Speaker 5: I've even started to think this way. I'm ashamed to admit,

471
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:11,879
Speaker 5: but like, I need to budget my life differently because

472
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:15,679
Speaker 5: I'm going to need a facelift. And then once you

473
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 5: start getting that work done, your retirement might go back

474
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,119
Speaker 5: a couple of years, and then you also look younger,

475
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:25,399
Speaker 5: so maybe you can stand spaces for longer and keep working.

476
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:29,440
Speaker 5: And it's like a bigger conversation that has really serious

477
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 5: repercussions that we're beginning to see more.

478
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I think it's a really pragmatic way

479
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 3: of looking at the realities of capitalism honestly, Like, yes,

480
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 3: it's depressing, but it's also just realistic about how beauty

481
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 3: and agism and how men treat women that are older.

482
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 3: That all factors into pretty privilege and you know, career

483
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 3: opportunities at any age. So yeah, I get while you're

484
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 3: thinking that way, it's the industry is kind of meant

485
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 3: for you, shaped itself for you to do that.

486
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 4: I mean, and it makes me think about cultures outside

487
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 4: of Utah. In Utah, it seems like it kind of

488
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 4: like started and then everyone else was doing it, and

489
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:10,679
Speaker 4: then everyone was like, well, if they're doing it, I

490
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 4: have to do it because I have to keep up.

491
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 4: Are facelifts on the rise overall and or happening younger?

492
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 1: Do we know?

493
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 3: I think they are happening younger. The type of facelifts

494
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 3: that are popular now are different than they were maybe

495
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 3: five or ten years ago. The trends and the micro

496
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 3: trends of what kind of things you're getting that has changed,

497
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,679
Speaker 3: and more and more people are getting things younger but

498
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 3: they might not be as permanent because you can get

499
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 3: facial threads right, which is not you know, it's like

500
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 3: a different form of alteration and it's not a traditional

501
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 3: facelift the way that we've potentually thought about it. And

502
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 3: I've been in group chats with you know, gen z

503
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 3: girlies that are financially like having me to do whatever

504
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 3: they want, and I remember they asked me for facial

505
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:03,679
Speaker 3: threading places and I thought they meant like hair like eyebrass, right,

506
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:08,239
Speaker 3: because understandably that's more affordable for most people, because like

507
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 3: that might cost like twenty dollars and a lot of

508
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 3: this day, I was like, oh, well, I go here, here, here,

509
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 3: and they're like, no, we want facial threads.

510
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 1: Wow.

511
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:17,360
Speaker 3: And I was like, you're twenty two.

512
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 1: Your face is that's highest it's ever gonna be.

513
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 5: I started getting botox when I was eighteen eighteen, and

514
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 5: I don't really anymore because I can't. It's very expensive.

515
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 5: But yeah, I had access to somebody who was like

516
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:36,880
Speaker 5: willing to do some experimenting and I was like, hand up,

517
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:39,359
Speaker 5: every wrinkle in my four head gone, and I was like,

518
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 5: in high school.

519
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 4: Okay, I hear that, and I raise you My friend

520
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 4: has a daughter who is I believe six, Oh god,

521
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:53,160
Speaker 4: she and her friends have gotten TikTok brained and are

522
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 4: trying to use like retinal products. I'm like, you don't understand,

523
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 4: Oh no, you're a baby. Like they're not obviously lending them,

524
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 4: but like they're seeing these in their feet.

525
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: And thinking that they need to do that, and their

526
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:07,200
Speaker 1: babies so crazy.

527
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,880
Speaker 3: It's quite depressing. And I'm really just genuinely waiting for

528
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 3: Sephora specifically to roll out a children's wing, yeah, because.

529
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 5: It's unbearable to go there and now as an adult,

530
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 5: because it's just all kids. I'm waiting for them. I'm

531
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 5: waiting for them to roll out the baby face left.

532
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:28,639
Speaker 5: That's what I want to see, just in a bottle,

533
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 5: just like yeah, yeah, I want to see a baby

534
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 5: with like that surgery.

535
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 3: Coming up on the New Children's program.

536
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah.

537
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 4: Our perception of what is normal and what is human

538
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 4: is just becoming skewed, and I imagine that's only going

539
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 4: to keep happening and keep getting more and more uncanny

540
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 4: over time. Speaks speaking as someone who has botox and

541
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,080
Speaker 4: filler and I've done peels.

542
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, you love the peels.

543
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 3: Well it wos are great, Yeah, should that's yeah, they're so.

544
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: I mean she can handle more than me. I put

545
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 1: one on and.

546
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 3: Was like, get it off of me.

547
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 5: But it's just it's an endless cycle that can really

548
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 5: take all of your money and all of your brain

549
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 5: power and completely hijack your thoughts and your agency as

550
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 5: a human being on this planet who should be maybe

551
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 5: thinking about other things.

552
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: That's been my experience. Yeah, I see I see.

553
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 4: It happening among people I know, and sometimes I myself

554
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 4: as well, where like we feel really out of control

555
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 4: in this like healthscape world that we're living in and country,

556
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 4: and so the easiest thing to turn to to feel

557
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 4: a sense of control again is our own bodies. And

558
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 4: we've talked about that in terms of like eating disorders

559
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 4: and the connections that eating disorders often have to cults,

560
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 4: but I think it also very much rears its head

561
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 4: in the form of like do I get the surgery,

562
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 4: do I get the surgery? How much filler do I need?

563
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 4: How much dissolver do I need? Did I do too much?

564
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 4: You know, it's just this like obsessive sort of mind

565
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 4: consuming thing. I mean, we're really sucking at having actual

566
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 4: questions today, But if you have any say on.

567
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 5: That, Yeah, I'm like, do you mind just framing your

568
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 5: book into a list of questions for us that relate

569
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 5: to cults because we read it, we loved it, but

570
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 5: we can't talk today.

571
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 3: No, It's totally fine because like the overarching vibe that

572
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 3: you understand about it is that beauty is a cult

573
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 3: and there's just little sex within it, right, And the

574
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 3: idea of the constant self correction and the self the

575
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 3: constant self policing is something that anyone in the beauty industry,

576
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 3: where like considers themselves a beauty girly, experiences and it's

577
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 3: the same policing and surveillance that people and cults experience

578
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 3: on a day to day basis. You just fill in

579
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 3: the blanks a little differently, right, That's ultimately what it is.

580
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 3: And I think in order to be able to find

581
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 3: a sense of peace and love within yourself and be

582
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 3: able to pause on doing things or going into debt,

583
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,160
Speaker 3: you really have to find a sense of self removed

584
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 3: from other people's desires or expectations or like the idea

585
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 3: of a higher power and what they might want out

586
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 3: of you. It's really just like looking yourself in the

587
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 3: mirror and being like is this enough for me today?

588
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 3: And if you can't reach that, you are doomed, right,

589
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 3: And it's not a constant state of being, Like on

590
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 3: one day I might be like, I am the hottest

591
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 3: bit alive correct, And another day I might be like,

592
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 3: if I don't get a facial with extractions and my

593
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 3: eyebrow's done and maybe a two hour massage, I'm going

594
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 3: to lose my mind. And both of those versions of

595
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 3: me are true, and they're the same person. It's just

596
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 3: the target. And my balance between these two planes is

597
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 3: always changing. And I think when it comes to the

598
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 3: cult of beauty, a lot of people get lost at

599
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 3: sea because they can't find a sense of gravity within

600
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:15,040
Speaker 3: themselves that doesn't ask for someone else to love them unconditionally.

601
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 3: It has so much to do with like is it

602
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 3: enough for me to be myself today? And what does

603
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 3: that mean? If I don't have the answer? Or the

604
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 3: answer scares me. That is a scary place to be.

605
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, irrelevance is terrifying. And I think we

606
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 4: live in a society that really teaches us that that's

607
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 4: what will happen if we are not perceived in a

608
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 4: way that conveys beauty.

609
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: And it is something that does happen. Yeah, then no,

610
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: it does. Yeah.

611
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 4: I mean many people will talk about how they became

612
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 4: invisible once they got a little older and it started

613
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 4: to show, or if they gained weight beyond what was

614
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 4: considered societally desirable. It's such a tough thing because like

615
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,959
Speaker 4: we don't want to rely on external validation of course,

616
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 4: because we need a centered self, but also like we

617
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 4: do need humans and connection and like, yeah, to feel

618
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 4: you know, confident, and like it's such a tough balance

619
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 4: to strike sometimes.

620
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 3: No, I totally agree, And I think so much of

621
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 3: finding the balance is finding people that aren't in competition

622
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 3: with you, and that aren't perhaps drowning in quite the

623
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 3: same way, like people that are actually physically drowning. When

624
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 3: you try to rescue them, oftentimes they'll drown you too, right,

625
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 3: And I think that if you surround yourself with people

626
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 3: that are deeply insecure to the point where they're wondering

627
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 3: why you aren't insecure as well, it becomes infectious.

628
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've experienced that, I am.

629
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, So for me, what's at least helped me, like

630
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 3: navigating being so deep in a beauty and fashion spaces

631
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 3: for all of my life, and in this book is

632
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 3: finding people that are not within it to be my

633
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 3: closest confidants in my friends, because they can pull me

634
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 3: out of the absurdity of the of my daily life.

635
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 3: Because I mean, I know, I have a very lucky

636
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 3: and random, specific life, and things in the beauty and

637
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 3: fashion spaces that feel normal or are daily occurrence to

638
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 3: me are often once in a lifetime experiences for other people.

639
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:13,879
Speaker 3: And when I can surround myself with people that are

640
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:17,719
Speaker 3: removed from these spaces, I can understand how rare and

641
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 3: absurd it can be. And I don't have to take it.

642
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 3: It doesn't become a competition, it doesn't become a fomo.

643
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 3: If I miss a party or whatever, it's like, oh yeah,

644
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 3: my life is bizarre. I should touch grass and understand

645
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 3: that this is not all there is.

646
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 4: Which going to draw the connection to cults as well,

647
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 4: because so many stories of people sort of emerging from

648
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 4: indoctrination have to do with getting a little bit of

649
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 4: time outside of the group or a little bit of

650
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 4: time talking to someone else and get just like getting

651
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 4: a little bit of breathing room, an outside perspective that

652
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 4: starts to wake them up, and I can imagine being

653
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 4: surrounded by beauty professionals all the time that would just

654
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 4: start to feel like that for sure.

655
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 3: Oh totally.

656
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, Well, what I'm hearing is that, you know,

657
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 5: the cult leader kind of becomes the ener critic in

658
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 5: your head, and you're nodding for the listeners who might

659
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,760
Speaker 5: might not see you. So I think you agree, yes,

660
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,919
Speaker 5: And then kind of influencers and celebrities become the cult

661
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 5: leader above.

662
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 1: That, and then brands that.

663
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 3: They're all acquire.

664
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, they require a beautiful choir, but but really

665
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:40,399
Speaker 5: the most dangerous one is that kind of enner cult

666
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 5: leader that becomes internalized from the absurd things we're seeing

667
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 5: in the world right now.

668
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 3: Totally. I think all of the aura of influencer culture

669
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 3: online and all of the money spent by brands to

670
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 3: stay relevant and get you problems for them to fix

671
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 3: for us, and the relationship between them, like the politics

672
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,439
Speaker 3: and the vibes outside of the industry, they all kind

673
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 3: of converge to become every single bad thing you've ever

674
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 3: thought about yourself right in your head. Yeah, and a

675
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,359
Speaker 3: lot of us can never escape it because we're all

676
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 3: addicted to our phones. Right, what are you talking about?

677
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 1: I don't have seven hours a day online, right exactly.

678
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't need to know. Don't tell me.

679
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 3: I know how bad it is.

680
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 1: It's getting so much words too.

681
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 5: Yeah, and like the filters like little kids just wanting

682
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,280
Speaker 5: to filters that are on their phone, like recipe for disaster.

683
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 3: I know.

684
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: Yeah.

685
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 4: Like, in all of your work researching and writing and

686
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:47,880
Speaker 4: working in this space, like, have you noticed anything particularly

687
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:52,120
Speaker 4: cult like about how brands operate? Is there what's going

688
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:54,240
Speaker 4: on at the like company level.

689
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 3: I don't know if I can talk about the inner

690
00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 3: workings of the corporations, because one, they're extremely litigious, and

691
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 3: too they don't let me know most things. You know

692
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 3: I'm talking about them. But I would say that the

693
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:13,360
Speaker 3: way that they conduct brand trips, let's talk about that.

694
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 3: So brand trips, at least for fashion and beauty brands,

695
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 3: they spend a lot of money per trip, and they

696
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 3: choose their favored influencers. They usually have more than a

697
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 3: quarter million followers to get on a trip, usually a

698
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:30,920
Speaker 3: million plus. They choose their chosen few. They bring them

699
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 3: to a deserted, isolated space, usually first class or sometimes

700
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 3: private jet style and then they give them a couple

701
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 3: of days surrounded by products and anything they could ever

702
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 3: want in a villa, and they're expected to post about

703
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 3: it constantly. That kind of is just like a religious retreats.

704
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:57,319
Speaker 3: Sometimes oftentimes they actually go to spiritual or wellness retreat spaces,

705
00:37:57,520 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 3: you know, and they just sprinkle their products around. I've

706
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 3: been on a couple of these fancy brand trips before,

707
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 3: and they're really fun, but they're also extremely insular, and

708
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 3: there's certain expectations that come with agreeing to go on one,

709
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:18,280
Speaker 3: and your appearance and activities are highly monitored and surveyed

710
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 3: the entire time you're on this on.

711
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 1: These trips, like if you're not posting enough, like is

712
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 1: that oh yeah, oh wow?

713
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they may not confront you directly, but you'll

714
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 3: get an email like from someone like two steps of

715
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 3: people between you, so everyone will have understood that this

716
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 3: is happening, but they will never say to your face,

717
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 3: but yeah, it's a very regimented, high expectation situation. And

718
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 3: I mean, in some ways I get it because they

719
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:48,399
Speaker 3: may have spent forty thousand dollars a person to get

720
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 3: you there, so they expect at least that much in

721
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:55,239
Speaker 3: terms of their social numbers from you specifically, but it

722
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 3: is very much we're taking you, we're isolating you, or

723
00:38:58,880 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 3: we have demands.

724
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 1: Wow, I mean I would do it.

725
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 3: And they've been fun.

726
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 5: Like meth building around a brand, you know, and that's

727
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 5: always fascinating to me because it's so similar to what

728
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 5: cults do and oh.

729
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's just the parallels.

730
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 4: Yeah, speaking of that, I mean, can you talk a

731
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 4: little bit about your essay on the Chanel brand and

732
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:25,719
Speaker 4: the history there and how much that's been sort of

733
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 4: cleaned up over time.

734
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 3: Of course, they actually just did a brand trip to

735
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 3: celebration Tioneal number five and a bunch of influencers and

736
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 3: editors went to grass to celebrate that, which I find

737
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 3: beautifully timed to my book. Literally, I saw on Instagram

738
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:43,400
Speaker 3: like three days ago a bunch of people that I

739
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 3: that I know, acquaintances wise, they're all there, and I'm like,

740
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:53,839
Speaker 3: what a small world. But basically, the origin story of

741
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 3: the House of Beauty was really it came out of

742
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 3: my obsession with Chanelle number five and the history of

743
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:06,359
Speaker 3: Coco Chanel and the elephant in the room of every

744
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 3: biography about her that yes, she was an incredible fashion

745
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 3: designer that changed how women dressed. But she was also

746
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 3: a spy for the Nazis and had a code name,

747
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 3: and was a violently anti Semitic human being. And that's

748
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 3: all documented by people that worked in fashion and were

749
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 3: familiar with her, And she spent a lot of her

750
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 3: personal money funding anti Semitic propaganda papers and going out

751
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 3: of her way to make the lives of a lot

752
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 3: of Jewish people and people more vulnerable than her harder

753
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 3: to live during World War Two. That of course is

754
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 3: not in any of the biographies, right, but it's also

755
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 3: so important to the story of how Chanelle number five

756
00:40:55,440 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 3: still exists today because the people that funded her perfume

757
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:06,320
Speaker 3: brand were and still are a Jewish family, and during

758
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 3: World War Two she actively tried to have the company

759
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 3: rianized and returned to her while they had fled Europe

760
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:18,840
Speaker 3: because they were afraid of being put into concentration camps.

761
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:24,040
Speaker 3: My gosh, it's a very important part of the brand

762
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 3: history to kind of sweep under the rug the brand

763
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 3: owes itself to its history and the people that kind

764
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 3: of went out of their way to make sure the

765
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 3: brand existed in spite of her anti semitism.

766
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 5: I like how nuanced you made it in the book,

767
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 5: where you were kind of saying, like, you know, you

768
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 5: wanted to just hate her and judge her, but you

769
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 5: kind of understood was it the Rits she was staying at.

770
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:55,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was a Rits Gurly rets.

771
00:41:55,440 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 5: Curly, and you went there and saw the majesty. I

772
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 5: was wondering if you could just say a bit about that.

773
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 3: Of course, so let me set the scene. I flew

774
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:12,000
Speaker 3: to Paris fresh off of the first election for the

775
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 3: current man, and in the airports there were still, you know,

776
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:21,800
Speaker 3: protests happening, like the taxis were on strike in JFK

777
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 3: when I was flying into Paris, so it was very

778
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 3: much feeling like the end of the world was specifically

779
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 3: happening that day. And I was staying on the couch

780
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 3: of one of my friends who's a fashion editor in

781
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:39,879
Speaker 3: Japan now, but she has a place in Paris, and

782
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 3: we ended up having dinner at the Ritz with some

783
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 3: global supermodel, the head of some model agency, some other

784
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:52,239
Speaker 3: people important fashion people that probably have no idea who

785
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 3: I am. And I was walking through the hallways overhearing

786
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 3: all of these conversations with people to staying at the

787
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 3: Writs talking about politics, but in a way that's like

788
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 3: let them eat cake. Almost Meanwhile, I was texting friends

789
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 3: being like, do you have your lawyer's number written in

790
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 3: sharp beyond your hand? Do you stail money? N how

791
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 3: is your green card status going? Do you know the

792
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:28,839
Speaker 3: best way to wash out your eyes from riot spray? Like?

793
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:30,959
Speaker 3: These are the conversations I was having on my phone

794
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 3: while I was overhearing conversations with people that couldn't necessarily

795
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 3: afford to stay at the writs at any point in time.

796
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 3: And I think what is so alluring about being in

797
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:44,799
Speaker 3: these spaces for a lot of people is like the

798
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 3: ease of luxury that luxury likes to give. It's a

799
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 3: frictionalist experience. You don't actually ever have to think about

800
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 3: harm if you can afford to stay in them, because

801
00:43:55,200 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 3: you're protected from it. There's bodyguards, there's security, there's sometimes

802
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:02,239
Speaker 3: no windows to the outside space, and it's all about you,

803
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:05,279
Speaker 3: how to serve you. It is a dreamland for a

804
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 3: narcissist with power, and that is ultimately what people with

805
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:15,839
Speaker 3: a lot of privilege and money are sometimes. But being

806
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:20,959
Speaker 3: in there, I understood how easy it is to want

807
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 3: to stay because fundamentally a very beautiful place, incredible atmosphere.

808
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 3: They are there specifically to serve you. And when you

809
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 3: are terrified of losing control and you have a lot

810
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 3: of power and prestige, control is an aphrodisiac that you

811
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 3: would rather harm someone than to ever give up. And

812
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 3: understanding that makes me understand a lot about her, even

813
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 3: if knowing that I can understand her makes me like

814
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 3: myself a little less because of course I wanted to

815
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 3: go there be disgusted by everything, be like, ugh, what

816
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 3: a heartless woman? Like yeah, she might be heartless even

817
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 3: when she clearly loved people, like the people in her life,

818
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 3: but she wasn't deranged. She knew what she was doing.

819
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 3: I just don't agree with what she did, and I

820
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 3: don't agree with a lot of people. That doesn't make

821
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 3: them crazy. It just means that we have different moral compasses.

822
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean I completely relate to this, like

823
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 4: friction of feeling connected to ideas about capitalism being harmful

824
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 4: and wanting to you know, make the world better, and

825
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 4: like a lot of that has to do with confronting

826
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 4: you know, excessive wealth. And then at the same time,

827
00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 4: like I love a beautiful house, you know, like I

828
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:51,839
Speaker 4: just am dying to live in a beautiful house, you know.

829
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 4: That's like, and when I'm somewhere there where it's like

830
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 4: everything's nice and luxurious, Like of course, it's like so

831
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 4: tempting when you are in spaces like that where you

832
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 4: feel protected from the like stresses of understanding reality and

833
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:07,719
Speaker 4: understanding some of these systems and like the things that

834
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 4: go on, Like, it's much more pleasant of an experience,

835
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 4: Like it's very tempting to want to stay there.

836
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 1: It's almost impossible not to.

837
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:18,400
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's what we have to fight against, you know,

838
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:21,600
Speaker 5: because we are, at the end of the day, like

839
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 5: just animals. And yeah, it's a constant battle to be like,

840
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:30,720
Speaker 5: I'm going outside of my comfort zone. I'm going outside

841
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 5: of my privilege, I'm going outside of whatever because it's

842
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 5: the right fucking thing to do, even though it's not comfortable.

843
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:41,279
Speaker 4: And I'm going to just mention some studies I haven't

844
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,080
Speaker 4: looked at a long time, so I couldn't tell you

845
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 4: what they already studies, But like I've talked a little

846
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:50,840
Speaker 4: bit about how like there are studies that show that

847
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 4: like wealth can decrease empathy for your fellow man. But

848
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 4: then there are also there's also research that shows that

849
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 4: like that can be mitigated by exposure to other people's circumstances.

850
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:06,719
Speaker 4: Like it isn't this like you are automatically evil if

851
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 4: you are in these spaces or if you have wealth,

852
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 4: but it makes it more likely that you'll be less connected.

853
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 4: And so the work is like, I guess reconnecting or

854
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:18,959
Speaker 4: helping people reconnect if you.

855
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:20,959
Speaker 1: Are too far down that road. Does that make sense?

856
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:24,239
Speaker 3: It does? And it's also you know, we can see

857
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 3: this in how billionaires spend their money, like McKenzie mackenzie X.

858
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:32,799
Speaker 3: You know, she's doing so much work giving away all

859
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,839
Speaker 3: of the money that from her divorce and she's still

860
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:38,359
Speaker 3: richer than she was before. And when you look at

861
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 3: how she's spending her money as a billionaire versus anyone else,

862
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:47,760
Speaker 3: you're like, it's so wild that world hunger could be solved.

863
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 3: There is a number on it, and the un actually

864
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:52,800
Speaker 3: like gave that number to Elon Musk at one point

865
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 3: when he was like, yeah, I can I can spend

866
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 3: the money on it. Give me the number. They gave

867
00:47:57,120 --> 00:47:59,279
Speaker 3: him the number and he didn't solve it right, He

868
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:01,359
Speaker 3: was like, I would act. She likes to keep these

869
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 3: billions thank you, right, And getting clean water to Flint,

870
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:08,600
Speaker 3: Michigan is like actually has numbers around it, and that's

871
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:12,719
Speaker 3: still not solved. So wild they would rather buy ultra yachts,

872
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 3: you know, or by twitter exactly. Their whims are at

873
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,240
Speaker 3: a different scale, and it's about at a certain points,

874
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:24,720
Speaker 3: about just whatever makes them happy, not about other people.

875
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:29,399
Speaker 3: And that's fundamentally just like a divide that is very

876
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 3: stark and hard to breach. Yeah.

877
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, when you were researching the book, were there any

878
00:48:35,120 --> 00:48:37,560
Speaker 4: particular I mean, obviously you probably knew a great deal

879
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 4: about a lot of these processes before, but was there

880
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:45,719
Speaker 4: anything in particular you learned about, like the production of

881
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,799
Speaker 4: beauty products that was particularly dark Because I'm just going

882
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,319
Speaker 4: to set it up for listeners, Like the way that

883
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:57,759
Speaker 4: they write about some of the sourcing of materials and

884
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:02,040
Speaker 4: shipping is all first per from the perspective of like

885
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 4: the material or whoever happens to be there in that

886
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:07,759
Speaker 4: part of the process. I never thought that I would

887
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 4: be engaged in the journey of like an ingredient, Like

888
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:16,880
Speaker 4: I never thought I'd be like, Ooh, what's happening with

889
00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 4: this ingredient? It's very literary and engaging, but Yeah, is

890
00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:25,320
Speaker 4: there anything in particular that you learned that you were sort.

891
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 1: Of shocked by?

892
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:29,320
Speaker 3: I mean, that whole chapter that Choose your Own disaster

893
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:33,120
Speaker 3: chapter was also a learning experience for me. I spent

894
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 3: almost a year just interviewing people from every aspect of

895
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:41,359
Speaker 3: the industry around the world about what they do in

896
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:46,359
Speaker 3: their jobs. And some of it was quite tragic, and

897
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 3: some of it was really cool, and so much of

898
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:54,160
Speaker 3: it was just a cloud of bureaucracy. But what I

899
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:56,879
Speaker 3: really found so interesting and made it into a couple

900
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 3: of pages of that chapter had to do with people

901
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:03,560
Speaker 3: that work on shipping container ships and also the hostage

902
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 3: negotiators that deal with shipping containers being taken by pirates

903
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 3: and modern day piracy, which is kind of mentioned in

904
00:50:14,719 --> 00:50:17,719
Speaker 3: the book as like a juicy footnote or as like

905
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:21,880
Speaker 3: one of the pages. But there are still modern pirates today,

906
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:25,280
Speaker 3: and they make a lot of money just by hopping

907
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:28,479
Speaker 3: onto a ship and calling up a conglomerate being like, hey,

908
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:29,919
Speaker 3: do you want your ship back?

909
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 1: Wow?

910
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:34,399
Speaker 3: And they may not violently harm anybody, but they are

911
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 3: just going to stop it from going anywhere, and every

912
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 3: single day and every single hour a ship does not

913
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 3: make it support every single conglomerate that has ordered space

914
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:47,560
Speaker 3: on that ship loses money. And these companies are spending

915
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:51,240
Speaker 3: lots and lots of money and more and more every

916
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 3: single year because of climate crisis and global warming and

917
00:50:55,040 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 3: strikes and this and the other thing to get ships

918
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:01,719
Speaker 3: to move around. The tariff situation that we are experiencing

919
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 3: now is totally like intertwined with the ports and piracy.

920
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:11,880
Speaker 3: And just like these conversations, everything costs a lot of

921
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 3: money because of political decisions, and pirates are great at

922
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:20,400
Speaker 3: taking advantage of that and making every decision really expensive.

923
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 3: So I thought that was really fun.

924
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a pirate.

925
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:30,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry, this is not pirate apologism, but I did

926
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:32,960
Speaker 3: think it was really cool because the negotiators they have

927
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:36,359
Speaker 3: to know like half a dozen languages, the languages right

928
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:38,759
Speaker 3: on call, Like their schedules are like a.

929
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:40,439
Speaker 1: Spy maritime law.

930
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:44,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love you said a quote in the book

931
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 5: you said, beauty is only worth keeping if it is

932
00:51:49,040 --> 00:51:53,759
Speaker 5: focused on people, not things. Can you tell us kind

933
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 5: of where you were going with that and what that

934
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:58,759
Speaker 5: means for the future of beauty and how we can

935
00:51:58,880 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 5: keep beauty.

936
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 3: So I think a lot of conversations that we have

937
00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 3: around the beauty industry have to do with the products

938
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:08,799
Speaker 3: we buy in order to look a different way or

939
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:13,719
Speaker 3: to fix something about ourselves. And for me, my favorite

940
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:16,680
Speaker 3: parts of beauty culture have so little to do with

941
00:52:16,719 --> 00:52:19,839
Speaker 3: the products involved. But it's more about the connections I'm

942
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:22,359
Speaker 3: making with the other people in the room that might

943
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 3: be teaching me a technique or complimenting me, or doing

944
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 3: something that makes me feel cared for. Those moments are

945
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 3: what make beauty important to me. It's being able to

946
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 3: connect with another person, to share a story, and to

947
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 3: find a way to humanize each other. Right there's no

948
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:44,719
Speaker 3: one who will ride for you harder than a girl

949
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:48,000
Speaker 3: in a bar bathroom, right Like, she will give you everything,

950
00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:50,759
Speaker 3: she will give you anything in her bag, she will

951
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:53,239
Speaker 3: give you advice, she will give you a hug, and

952
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,720
Speaker 3: she'll give you her lipstick or something. And those moments

953
00:52:56,760 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 3: of just like plain generosity and knowledge sharing and research

954
00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:06,400
Speaker 3: sharing and care that makes beauty worth it to me

955
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 3: because those connections are what life is about. It's like,

956
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:12,440
Speaker 3: how do we find better ways to take care of

957
00:53:12,480 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 3: one another? Beauty is at its best when it's about that,

958
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:19,919
Speaker 3: not about the products or things to do to you know,

959
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:23,400
Speaker 3: make people like us more. It's like, I want to

960
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 3: know more about you, what you love, what inspires you,

961
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 3: what makes you feel curious or spicy and fulfilled? Like

962
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 3: what about you? Can you tell me that we can share?

963
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 3: And beauty is often that pathway.

964
00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 5: Well as something you just said struck me where it's

965
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:42,760
Speaker 5: like and that connection needs to be me being curious

966
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 5: about you, not me wanting to produce a feeling of

967
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 5: you being impressed by me or you being like I

968
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 5: love that you got your face left, you know what

969
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:58,120
Speaker 5: I mean? Like it has to be a curious conversation

970
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 5: otherwise we'll just get read trapped into the loop of

971
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 5: like comparison and yeah.

972
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:07,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean curiosity and comparison can be intertwined, like genuinely,

973
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 3: I'm like when one of my friends wants to get

974
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 3: a nose job or whatever, we will go into that

975
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:16,520
Speaker 3: rabbit hole of like what is the best technique or

976
00:54:16,560 --> 00:54:19,359
Speaker 3: skill or skilled surgeon who does the type of work

977
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 3: that you like, and it becomes more about craft and

978
00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:25,600
Speaker 3: signatures because like some plastic surgeons do things in a

979
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:27,839
Speaker 3: different way, you know, like not every nose job looks

980
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 3: the same, and some jobs are legit like works of art.

981
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:37,080
Speaker 3: You're like, how see this vision? But it's still like

982
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:42,239
Speaker 3: about a conversation and transparency and trust and care. And

983
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:44,560
Speaker 3: I don't like to use the word authentic. I think

984
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:46,480
Speaker 3: it's like kind of a meaningless word at this point.

985
00:54:46,719 --> 00:54:49,960
Speaker 3: But it's about knowing what you want and knowing what

986
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:52,359
Speaker 3: you're willing to provide and give to someone else who

987
00:54:52,440 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 3: might be curious, and having a conversation around that. And

988
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:00,560
Speaker 3: you know, people might keep a bunch of differ things

989
00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:03,920
Speaker 3: because like they're protective. And I think the best conversation

990
00:55:03,960 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 3: about beauty really understand it as a crash and a

991
00:55:06,520 --> 00:55:10,240
Speaker 3: tool of storytelling, and the most productive versions of beauty

992
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 3: come from that. It's like, this is a story we're

993
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:16,400
Speaker 3: both involved in. You and I are the main characters

994
00:55:16,440 --> 00:55:19,880
Speaker 3: of our lives, but we're part of this bigger story together,

995
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 3: So why don't we talk about it as like a group.

996
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:25,000
Speaker 1: And then it's not a cult anymore.

997
00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:28,000
Speaker 4: Of course, that made me think of Mary Kay parties

998
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:29,400
Speaker 4: growing up. I was like, what does that make me

999
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:31,879
Speaker 4: think of where I've connected with people a beauty Oh

1000
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:33,200
Speaker 4: Mary Kay party.

1001
00:55:34,600 --> 00:55:39,759
Speaker 1: Broad experience? Cool?

1002
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:40,279
Speaker 3: Yeah?

1003
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:43,480
Speaker 1: Are we missing? Are we messing any of the parallels?

1004
00:55:44,120 --> 00:55:46,200
Speaker 3: No? I mean It's good that you mentioned like Mary

1005
00:55:46,280 --> 00:55:50,320
Speaker 3: Kay parties because like MLMs have been able to frankenstein

1006
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:57,759
Speaker 3: community conversations into capitalism in a really exploitative way. So

1007
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:01,799
Speaker 3: that's its own, its own Pandora's box and the conversation.

1008
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:06,680
Speaker 3: So I never want to shout out MLMs, but they

1009
00:56:06,719 --> 00:56:12,440
Speaker 3: are a great example of this intertwined connection between community

1010
00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:15,480
Speaker 3: care and capitalism that we always have to be aware of,

1011
00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:18,200
Speaker 3: and I think we all need better training on how.

1012
00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:19,880
Speaker 1: To avoid one.

1013
00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 4: If do you have any like guidelines that you live

1014
00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:29,640
Speaker 4: by when like choosing a product for how to do

1015
00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 4: it ethically or.

1016
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:34,799
Speaker 1: You know, just be mindful about our.

1017
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:39,319
Speaker 3: Choices, like the red Flags of beauty. Yeah, sure, So

1018
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:42,239
Speaker 3: there's one chapter in the book that's just like red

1019
00:56:42,239 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 3: flags to avoid or best practices, because I want that

1020
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:47,279
Speaker 3: to be a chapter people can like flip back into

1021
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 3: and refer to. So there's that. But also I think

1022
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 3: just doing your research about the kind of values that

1023
00:56:56,080 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 3: you really want to prioritize. Do you super care about

1024
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 3: being able to recycle the beauty products? There are certain

1025
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 3: brands that really prioritize that and having recyclable packaging or

1026
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 3: reusable stuff. You can look that up there are certain

1027
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:16,640
Speaker 3: retailers that kind of are built around certain ethos, like

1028
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 3: Credo Beauty cares a lot about sustainability and this idea

1029
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 3: of clean beauty and clean beauty is its own conversation.

1030
00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:27,680
Speaker 3: But they make sure that their products that they stock

1031
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:30,480
Speaker 3: don't have this and the other thing. And they've done

1032
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:33,040
Speaker 3: a lot of the legwork for the consumer, which is

1033
00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 3: good because honestly, the average consumer shouldn't have to become

1034
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 3: a PhD or a beauty reporter to buy something. It

1035
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:44,120
Speaker 3: should just be easier for everybody. For me, I think

1036
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:48,080
Speaker 3: just asking questions and doing your research on who owns

1037
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:50,840
Speaker 3: a brand, what do they stand for? That matters to

1038
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:52,720
Speaker 3: me because I don't want to give my money to

1039
00:57:52,800 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 3: someone that actively doesn't want me to have rights.

1040
00:57:56,720 --> 00:58:00,000
Speaker 1: Right I do have.

1041
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 4: I recommend that chapter in the book In general, one

1042
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 4: of the things you mentioned there was this marketing of

1043
00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 4: natural as good and synthetic as bad and why that

1044
00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:14,880
Speaker 4: is like a marketing binary basically that is frequently not

1045
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:19,440
Speaker 4: reflective of what is actually good to use or not use.

1046
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:22,680
Speaker 4: And that's something that I think intersects with cults a lot,

1047
00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:28,880
Speaker 4: just and the sort of wellness Yeah, yeah, the trust

1048
00:58:28,960 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 4: of anything modern, you know.

1049
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 3: Totally the pipeline between like using beef tallow and only

1050
00:58:37,800 --> 00:58:41,280
Speaker 3: drinking like thinking like non pasteurized milk is like a

1051
00:58:41,360 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 3: thing that you should do, to becoming a trad wife,

1052
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:50,680
Speaker 3: to being like red pilled, and you know, being in

1053
00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:54,720
Speaker 3: a particular kind of cold, like those are all interconnected. Yeah. Yeah,

1054
00:58:54,840 --> 00:58:58,520
Speaker 3: it's like this belief that anything that you that you

1055
00:58:58,560 --> 00:59:00,880
Speaker 3: can't make yourself at home is going to poison you.

1056
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:04,120
Speaker 3: I saw a video the other day from someone being like,

1057
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 3: you should make your own sunscreen at home and sunstream

1058
00:59:06,880 --> 00:59:09,160
Speaker 3: causes cancer, and I'm like, you have literally done no

1059
00:59:09,240 --> 00:59:11,840
Speaker 3: research in your entire life, actually, and you will be

1060
00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:15,280
Speaker 3: the one that gets sun cancer because you aren't. You

1061
00:59:15,320 --> 00:59:20,280
Speaker 3: don't believe in science, right, So there's there's definitely a

1062
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:24,240
Speaker 3: connection there. But the people that are often the victims

1063
00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:28,400
Speaker 3: of it would never be open to the science of it.

1064
00:59:28,640 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 3: So it kind of feels doomed sometimes to have these.

1065
00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:34,240
Speaker 5: Oh sure, well, And I was just going to add

1066
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:37,280
Speaker 5: something in that chapter woke me up a bit where

1067
00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:40,680
Speaker 5: it's just like these industries lull us to sleep where

1068
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:43,240
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh, I'm going to buy this green, you know,

1069
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:48,240
Speaker 5: super natural product off Amazon now. I've just got in

1070
00:59:48,280 --> 00:59:53,200
Speaker 5: it shipped across the ocean, and a box wasted a

1071
00:59:53,240 --> 00:59:56,720
Speaker 5: shit ton of Like, I just never thought critically enough

1072
00:59:56,800 --> 00:59:57,400
Speaker 5: about that.

1073
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:00,360
Speaker 1: Not but how it gets to you think, how it

1074
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:03,680
Speaker 1: like now has undone.

1075
01:00:03,320 --> 01:00:08,640
Speaker 5: Any clean, green green whatever, So like my critical thinking

1076
01:00:08,760 --> 01:00:10,440
Speaker 5: was definitely turned off in that area.

1077
01:00:10,640 --> 01:00:12,640
Speaker 1: So yeah, surprise, surprise.

1078
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:16,760
Speaker 3: Now that's why local products are so much more expensive

1079
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 3: in comparison, right, because the offset that Amazon can afford

1080
01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:25,600
Speaker 3: to create makes it seem like convenience is so cheap,

1081
01:00:25,920 --> 01:00:29,080
Speaker 3: but it's actually very expensive. We're just not paying for

1082
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:32,000
Speaker 3: the cost up front. The cost is climate crisis, right,

1083
01:00:32,480 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 3: It's not numerical to us yet, but when you know,

1084
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:38,440
Speaker 3: systems begin to collapse or people pass out in warehouses,

1085
01:00:38,480 --> 01:00:41,080
Speaker 3: that is the cost. But we're not paying it as consumers.

1086
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:42,680
Speaker 1: So yeah.

1087
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:49,440
Speaker 4: The deforestation stuff also very very vibe. Sorry, yeah, it's

1088
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:52,800
Speaker 4: very it's very depressing. But I also beautifully written and

1089
01:00:53,600 --> 01:00:55,480
Speaker 4: I opening in a way that I think is important.

1090
01:00:55,760 --> 01:00:59,439
Speaker 5: And yeah, I am hopeful. You said you you thought

1091
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:02,600
Speaker 5: the book would be crueler, and it wasn't. You know,

1092
01:01:02,640 --> 01:01:05,760
Speaker 5: there's some hard stuff to read, but at the end

1093
01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:09,320
Speaker 5: of the day, I come away hopeful and wanting to

1094
01:01:09,360 --> 01:01:12,320
Speaker 5: go brush my friend's hair and give each other manicures

1095
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:13,520
Speaker 5: and connect with people.

1096
01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:14,800
Speaker 1: So thank you.

1097
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:18,040
Speaker 3: Good that was the point. I'm glad that that was

1098
01:01:18,120 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 3: what you took away from it.

1099
01:01:21,320 --> 01:01:23,240
Speaker 1: Where can people find you? Where can they find your book?

1100
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:25,920
Speaker 3: You can find the House of Beauty pretty much wherever

1101
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:30,200
Speaker 3: books are sold in the US, like Barnes, Noble Bookshop

1102
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:34,320
Speaker 3: dot org, your local indie bookstore. There are two bookstores

1103
01:01:34,360 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 3: in the United States that have scented bookmarks and signed

1104
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:43,080
Speaker 3: pre orders, and those are Skylight Books in LA and

1105
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:46,120
Speaker 3: books are Magic in New York, so you can get

1106
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:50,640
Speaker 3: fancier copies there. But yeah, you can just google it online,

1107
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:53,920
Speaker 3: find it and ideally join me for one of the

1108
01:01:53,960 --> 01:01:57,960
Speaker 3: book events across the country that are happening in October

1109
01:01:57,960 --> 01:01:58,560
Speaker 3: and November.

1110
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:02,600
Speaker 5: Amazing And did you did you give your Instagram handle

1111
01:02:02,920 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 5: or do you have a handle you want to give?

1112
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:07,120
Speaker 3: I do? Yeah, so I'm parentally online and my handle

1113
01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:09,120
Speaker 3: is the same everywhere. So you could find me on

1114
01:02:09,160 --> 01:02:15,280
Speaker 3: Instagram our Belscarti or on Substackarbelsacardi substack dot com. You know,

1115
01:02:15,440 --> 01:02:17,160
Speaker 3: say hi, send me a pick of the book if

1116
01:02:17,200 --> 01:02:17,640
Speaker 3: you buy it.

1117
01:02:18,600 --> 01:02:20,520
Speaker 1: Sick awesome. Thank you so much.

1118
01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:23,040
Speaker 5: Yes, thank you for joining us, thank you for having me.

1119
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:27,919
Speaker 5: So that was a fascinating episode. I think we both

1120
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:30,480
Speaker 5: know that we are in the culs of beauty for

1121
01:02:30,600 --> 01:02:33,880
Speaker 5: the long run. Yeah, it's just kind of what it is,

1122
01:02:33,880 --> 01:02:37,040
Speaker 5: we reflected. At least we're aware of it, aware, we're

1123
01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:40,680
Speaker 5: aware about it. It's there for sure, for sure.

1124
01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:42,200
Speaker 1: So uh.

1125
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:45,720
Speaker 5: One of the things that really struck me about beauty

1126
01:02:45,760 --> 01:02:48,680
Speaker 5: being a cult that haddn't before I read this book

1127
01:02:49,240 --> 01:02:53,400
Speaker 5: is just the moving goalpost of beauty and how you

1128
01:02:53,720 --> 01:02:55,320
Speaker 5: said it in the episode, like some of the most

1129
01:02:55,360 --> 01:02:59,200
Speaker 5: beautiful women you've ever met still don't feel beautiful because

1130
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:04,160
Speaker 5: it's like you, you can never actually achieve it. It

1131
01:03:04,240 --> 01:03:09,800
Speaker 5: has to be like an inner knowing beyond physicality, because

1132
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:13,120
Speaker 5: the goalpost does always move every second, and you never

1133
01:03:13,280 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 5: reach your destination.

1134
01:03:15,000 --> 01:03:18,320
Speaker 4: Maybe you do for like a year, but and even

1135
01:03:18,400 --> 01:03:21,240
Speaker 4: then though, like there's there's so many types of beauty.

1136
01:03:21,360 --> 01:03:24,040
Speaker 4: So yeah, even if we're like, even if you achieve

1137
01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:27,760
Speaker 4: maximum beauty as one type of beauty, then you're still

1138
01:03:27,760 --> 01:03:30,280
Speaker 4: going to meet someone who's maximum beauty a different type

1139
01:03:30,280 --> 01:03:31,120
Speaker 4: of beauty.

1140
01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:32,880
Speaker 5: And that's going to make you feel insecure. If you

1141
01:03:32,920 --> 01:03:37,160
Speaker 5: are insecure, correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So it's.

1142
01:03:36,680 --> 01:03:39,080
Speaker 4: Like I'm definitely going, like, my type of beauty is

1143
01:03:39,120 --> 01:03:43,200
Speaker 4: like goth, like right, you know, girl who gets cast

1144
01:03:43,240 --> 01:03:45,360
Speaker 4: as the bitchy friend all the time. Like that's my

1145
01:03:45,560 --> 01:03:48,120
Speaker 4: particular type of beauty. And sometimes I'm like, but I

1146
01:03:48,160 --> 01:03:52,160
Speaker 4: should have maximum beauty as you know, someone with long.

1147
01:03:51,920 --> 01:03:57,560
Speaker 1: Blonde hair and like atoned abs and I was not.

1148
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:04,600
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean it definitely opens so many paths

1149
01:04:04,720 --> 01:04:08,320
Speaker 5: to like I'm just gonna call what you're saying envy.

1150
01:04:08,440 --> 01:04:09,040
Speaker 1: I relate.

1151
01:04:09,120 --> 01:04:10,960
Speaker 5: I have it as well, you know, but like it

1152
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:13,080
Speaker 5: opens so many paths for women to.

1153
01:04:13,000 --> 01:04:14,080
Speaker 1: Be pitted against each other.

1154
01:04:14,080 --> 01:04:18,560
Speaker 5: It gives the voliabilities and it totally undermines a big

1155
01:04:18,600 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 5: part of how we could be coming together.

1156
01:04:20,760 --> 01:04:23,040
Speaker 1: So I love her point that beauty.

1157
01:04:22,680 --> 01:04:25,880
Speaker 4: Should be in the connection and like and yeah, and

1158
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 4: our connection to ourselves. And it's okay if other people

1159
01:04:29,760 --> 01:04:32,880
Speaker 4: are beautiful, that's so we're all people, you know.

1160
01:04:33,640 --> 01:04:34,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I don't know.

1161
01:04:34,720 --> 01:04:39,480
Speaker 4: That's something that I think growing older has become easier

1162
01:04:39,480 --> 01:04:42,560
Speaker 4: and easier to acknowledge and like it's such a better

1163
01:04:42,640 --> 01:04:46,960
Speaker 4: place to be. Yeah, like, yeah, you're all so beautiful

1164
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:47,720
Speaker 4: and that's great.

1165
01:04:47,880 --> 01:04:50,760
Speaker 1: I love that for for you, for all of us,

1166
01:04:50,800 --> 01:04:51,240
Speaker 1: and the end.

1167
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:54,120
Speaker 5: If you don't care about beauty, well then that's great too.

1168
01:04:55,520 --> 01:04:57,160
Speaker 5: Is that something normal to say?

1169
01:04:57,520 --> 01:05:00,600
Speaker 1: Also, beauty is not the most important thing. Yeah, exactly.

1170
01:05:00,880 --> 01:05:03,400
Speaker 1: It's like a cherry on top. Yeah.

1171
01:05:03,560 --> 01:05:03,680
Speaker 3: You know.

1172
01:05:04,000 --> 01:05:06,560
Speaker 4: One time I was at a party and a famous

1173
01:05:06,600 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 4: woman who was much older than me, I walked up

1174
01:05:09,840 --> 01:05:12,120
Speaker 4: and she was like, Wow, you're so beautiful, which was

1175
01:05:12,240 --> 01:05:14,360
Speaker 4: very nice. And she was like, but I'm sure it's

1176
01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:17,920
Speaker 4: just the cherry on top. Oh, And I was like, oh, okay,

1177
01:05:18,560 --> 01:05:19,240
Speaker 4: and I don't know.

1178
01:05:19,720 --> 01:05:21,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I want to know who it is. I'll

1179
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:22,680
Speaker 1: tell you later. Okay.

1180
01:05:23,040 --> 01:05:25,320
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for listening to another episode of

1181
01:05:25,320 --> 01:05:28,320
Speaker 5: Trust Me. We can't wait to see you again next week,

1182
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:32,800
Speaker 5: and as always, remember to follow your gut, watch out

1183
01:05:32,800 --> 01:05:34,800
Speaker 5: for red flags, and never.

1184
01:05:34,920 --> 01:05:37,160
Speaker 1: Ever trust me I mine.

1185
01:05:39,640 --> 01:05:42,240
Speaker 4: This has been an exactly right production hosted by.

1186
01:05:42,120 --> 01:05:45,800
Speaker 5: Me Lola Blanc and Me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer

1187
01:05:45,880 --> 01:05:48,680
Speaker 5: is Gee Holly. This episode was mixed by John Bradley.

1188
01:05:48,840 --> 01:05:52,160
Speaker 5: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker

1189
01:05:52,280 --> 01:05:53,320
Speaker 5: is Patrick Kottner.

1190
01:05:53,640 --> 01:05:55,959
Speaker 4: Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

1191
01:05:56,280 --> 01:06:00,320
Speaker 5: Trust Me as Executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia hart Stark,

1192
01:06:00,400 --> 01:06:01,320
Speaker 5: and Danielle Kramer.

1193
01:06:01,560 --> 01:06:03,840
Speaker 4: You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast

1194
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:06,160
Speaker 4: or on TikTok at trust Me Cult Podcast.

1195
01:06:06,480 --> 01:06:09,560
Speaker 5: Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,

1196
01:06:09,920 --> 01:06:12,920
Speaker 5: Shoot us an email at trustmepodat gmail dot com.

1197
01:06:12,960 --> 01:06:15,880
Speaker 4: Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1198
01:06:16,000 --> 01:06:17,560
Speaker 4: or wherever you get your podcasts.