04/08/2026
This quote is from Jessica DeFino. She’s a reporter, critic, author of the Flesh World Substack, co-host of the “Mess World” podcast, and the writer of the Guardian’s beauty advice column Ask Ugly.
I heard this quote when Jessica was on the podcast of “It’s been a Minute,” an NPR culture podcast hosted by Brittany Luse. The episode was called “The Beauty Industry has an Epstein problem.”
Here’s the full quote:
DEFINO: So that is so important to keep in the conversation, especially when power or empowerment, or even the concept of, like, adhering to beauty standards as survival is part of the conversation. We really have to weigh all of these different factors because it’s never just an economic boost. It’s like, you know, when we seek power through beauty, we have to give up our power to beauty. Give up our power in terms of, like, time, money, attention, energy. Like, these are finite sources of power that we hold. And we have to sacrifice them to industrialized beauty in order to reap the so-called rewards of being a beautiful person.
I’m struck by the fact that to reap this power of being beautiful, we have to use some of our power, aka our life force, towards the pursuit.
Awareness is important here to make sure we’re not making any bad deals and giving more than we’re getting.
