Jessica DeFino’s face literally had to peel off before she gave up on beauty products and turned a critical eye on the beauty industry. As a journalist covering the industry, she had been inundated with free beauty products, which she enthusiastically accepted. Then she developed dermatitis and had a bad reaction to the steroids she was prescribed to treat it.

“My skin started peeling off of my face in chunks,” she says. “For months, my skin was just oozing red. I couldn’t put makeup on. I couldn’t use products. I could barely splash water on my face without being in immense pain.”

She fell into a deep depression and had a crisis of self. “It really made me examine who I was when I didn’t have this armor of beauty products,” she says, “because when I felt like I was ugly, I felt absolutely worthless.” 

Today, Jessica writes The Unpublishable, a cult-favorite newsletter with the tagline “What the beauty industry won’t tell you, from a reporter on a mission to reform it.” In it, she critiques obsessions with Botox-like injectables, the sleight of hand behind “no-makeup faces,” and the social implications of nose jobs, among other exceptionally hot topics. This unapologetic coverage, unusual in the beauty space, has helped The Unpublishable grow from 2,000 subscribers to more than 50,000 last year, with boosts from a viral Twitter thread in which she exposed what it was like to work for the Kardashians and a shout-out from Dua Lipa. 

In this episode of The Active Voice, I talk with Jessica about the effect social media is having on how we think about beauty, her struggles with writing a book, and why her death-and-redemption experience with beauty culture is definitely just like Jesus dying on the cross for his followers. If you, too, want to see the light, I encourage you to listen to her testimony. 

https://jessicadefino.substack.com/

Jessica’s recommended reads:Back Row by Amy OdellHow To Cure A Ghost by Fariha RóisínHEATED by Emily Atkin

Show notesSubscribe to The Unpublishable on SubstackFind Jessica on Twitter and Instagram[04:15] Anti product, pro people [06:12] Participating in beauty pageants [07:30] Working on the Kardashian-Jenner apps [09:34] Developing dermatitis [13:17] Beauty as religion [14:45] Going viral on Twitter [17:52] Working harder than ever before [20:15] The reality of attention [21:18] Getting death threats from nail artists [25:19] Writing a book[29:19] The mind of an online writer [32:08] Instagram face [40:16] Beyond beauty[51:40] The Unpublishable audience

The Active Voice is a podcast hosted by Hamish McKenzie, featuring weekly conversations with writers about how the internet is affecting the way they live and write. It is produced by Hanne Winarsky, with audio engineering by Seven Morris, content production by Hannah Ray, and production support from Bailey Richardson. All artwork is by Joro Chen, and music is by Phelps & Munro.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit read.substack.com