Is it Possible to Resist the Pressures of the Beauty Industry?

Jessica DeFino.

By Leslie Price

After logging time as an editorial staffer on the Kardashian-Jenner apps, and trying her hand in beauty media, writer Jessica DeFino launched her Substack newsletter, The Unpublishable. DeFino was inspired to go it solo after personally experiencing both the waste of the beauty industry (“I was probably getting $2,000 worth of beauty products a week delivered to my front door,” she says of her time freelancing), and the challenges she had getting critical articles placed in women’s magazines. I spoke with her about sunscreen anxiety, the anti-aging myth, and much more.

I've been in women's media for a long time, but was never in beauty. It was like they were speaking a different language. You had to know the science of all these ingredients and chemicals; there is a sort of mystique around it. 

Skincare is tied up with science in a really interesting way, especially in the modern beauty industry. It's important to realize that the science of beauty products is very different from the science of the skin. And the science of the skin will often disprove the “science” of beauty products. Science in the beauty space has been co-opted and manipulated for marketing purposes. I can say from my experience, most “skincare science” is marketing bullet points coming directly from brands, brand founders, and dermatologists who are paid to work with brands. 

We are living in a modern environment that's full of pollution and UV radiation from the sun, and of course there are actual medical skin issues that exist, but for the most part, the skin is pretty self-sufficient. It has mechanisms to self cleanse, self moisturize, self exfoliate. And we are doing way too much in the name of skincare science, which is actually skincare marketing.

I am 42, and I don’t remember much emphasis on sunscreen when I was younger. The attitude towards sunscreen now is much different. You always have to be covered to protect yourself. And if you're not wearing sunscreen, your skin will age and you will get cancer.

Skin cancer is a real problem. But the focus on sunscreen, though well-intentioned, creates a ton of anxiety about being in the sun. At least for me.

Sunscreen is important to wear, I would never tell somebody don't wear sunscreen, I wear sunscreen. That's common sense. That being said, the way the beauty industry has latched on to SPF and created almost a moral panic around it and really shames people for not wearing sunscreen or not applying sunscreen to me is completely unhinged and counterproductive. 

For example, like you mentioned, SPF is often promoted as something that prevents skin cancer and aging. That sort of puts aging on a level with skin cancer as a health issue when it's really not. It's an aesthetic thing, and it's something that's going to happen to everyone. I cannot think of another form of cancer where the prevention of it is such a personalized issue; that it's put on the individual to stop and individuals are shamed if they put themselves in harm's way. 

[It’s also] interesting to look at how the rest of our skincare routines increase our sun exposure and decrease our skin's own protective capabilities. Brands and influencers will be so moralizing about SPF [while] at the same time, they’ll encourage people to exfoliate multiple times a week, use retinoids, or subject their skin barriers to seven-step skincare routines. All of this increases sun sensitivity, depletes the skin's built-in sun protection, and compromises the microbiome's ability to prevent and heal certain types of UV damage. And a broken skin barrier makes topical sunblock less effective. 

At my age, you really start to see the effects of your life on your face. It's not what you think it will be. It's not just wrinkles. It's like my face is a different shape, or my face has lots of discoloration. You also start to see differences between the people who are not doing anything to their faces, and the people who are doing things to their faces (lasers, filler, Botox) – which creates another cost associated with age. The term you’ve used for this is “aesthetic inflation.” 

Aesthetic inflation is the normalization of all of these beauty behaviors that we didn't really have access to 10 years ago, 20 years ago. It's changing what is considered normal as we age, what a woman in her thirties should look like, what a woman in her forties should look like. What we're seeing in the media, or in movies, and even on social media with our peers and influencers makes aesthetic modification increasingly more normal. When it is more normal, it eventually becomes expected. When it becomes expected, it influences how women are treated in the world, in the workplace, in their social circles. It influences women to funnel their actual sources of power – their time, money, energy, effort, and thoughts – into the project of aesthetics.

So much of beauty, from SPF to injectables to surgery to topical products, is aimed at anti-aging. Anti-aging is the most enduring promise of the beauty industry and its most lucrative claim. 

There is a rise in younger women getting injectables or other anti-aging beauty treatments. I find that to be really depressing. What do we do about that, and what is the role for older women in this conversation? Because there is such fear being pedaled to younger women about looking older.

You are correct – we aren't making any progress in terms of beauty standards. That's reflected in the data of the beauty industry. Anti-aging in particular is growing at an alarming rate. In 2016, the US anti-aging market was worth $3.9 billion; five years later, it was worth $4.9 billion. A lot of that growth is made up of younger generations. Gen Z is being targeted with anti-aging products made specifically for younger skin. Injectables are being targeted at younger and younger audiences. It's a beauty issue, but it's also a larger issue. It's very hard to separate this from what's happening politically.

The world can feel very out of control, especially for younger people. And controlling your own body is a coping mechanism. Part of the solution, if there is one, is to educate about this. There's so much out there right now about diet culture, and no one is really talking about beauty culture in the same way.

At the same time, a lot of this would be solved by improving the social, economic, and political issues that face women today. We have to look at why getting older is so fucking scary. It's because we're being pushed into a world that doesn't have our best interests at heart and is not made to support us.

To me, the goal is women's liberation from all forms of culturally coerced control. I encourage everyone, when and where it is safe, to divest from industrialized beauty. There are different levels, and that goes back to just how different groups of people are treated in the world.

For instance, if you are trans, it's really hard to divest from very gendered beauty performance, because that puts you at risk. If you are older, you might not want to divest from anti-aging behaviors because you feel your job depends on it. There are obligations for women of color as well. There's so much racism and colorism tied up in ideas of cleanliness and how your hair should be worn. It's important to be sensitive to that and to also realize that there are little ways in which it is safe and healthy and maybe even good for you mentally, physically, psychologically, spiritually, to step away from a certain beauty product, procedure, or behavior and realize, okay, I'm actually fine without it. For me, it's all about finding those little moments. That line will be different for everybody.

You wrote something very clear-cut about the Martha Stewart Sports Illustrated thing, but I’m also curious about your thoughts on Vogue’s obviously photoshopped September supermodels cover. I didn't see much outrage over it, which felt weird. I guess we haven't gotten to the point where people are mad about the artificiality of the faces they’re seeing.

We're desensitized to it. Photoshop, filters, and cosmetic work has gotten more extreme over the years. I also think the beauty industry has done a fantastic job of framing all of this as a form of empowerment. If it makes you feel good, edit your photos. If it makes you feel good, get a nose job. If it makes you feel good, do whatever you want as long as it feels good. 

Then it's sort of hard to argue with, if they want to look younger and that makes them feel good, what's the problem? 

We can be a little bit more honest about how we talk about these behaviors. The Martha Stewart cover of Sports Illustrated [was] framed as a celebration of aging, a celebration of older women, empowerment for older women. We can look at that cover with common sense and say: Martha's not being celebrated for her age, but because she looks younger than her age. This is an equal but opposite glorification of youth. It is not in any way affecting the advancement of older women.

I wonder if some of it is from younger people who are like, this is how I could look at 80. When you're older, you're going to realize – not without millions of dollars and spending tons of time on your face. It’s the fear of being old. When you're younger, maybe you see these images and say, well, it's not that bad getting old. Look at Martha. 

It completely makes sense when you acknowledge that anti-aging and beauty in general is a fear-based marketing promise. Seeing older women still abiding by rules of beauty culture and being celebrated for it [can] alleviate some of that fear because maybe somewhere in the back of your mind, you're like, oh, okay, won't be that bad. That's a very human response. And if that is your response, maybe start to examine why aging is so scary and what systems and corporations profit from that fear. Because it doesn't really help us in any way. It steals from us.