Anita B on why the beauty industry wants us to fear ageing

The Shift with Sam Baker

Sam Baker Ltd

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.8 • 525 Ratings

🗓️ 28 March 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today’s guest, Anita Bhagwandas, is that rare thing, a beauty journalist who’s prepared to call out the beauty industry. Anita B, as she's known, is currently a beauty columnist on the Guardian. But throughout her career she has worked on some of the biggest names in women’s magazines and consulted for some of the most famous brands. It’s not exactly the CV of someone you’d expect to see campaigning to break free of prevailing beauty standards. But Anita’s new book, Ugly, does just that, by examining how women are trapped by the way we’re supposed to look, regarded as lesser if our face doesn’t fit the norm. If we’re not white with caucasian features and hair, if we’re not size 10, if we’re not 25. Anita joined me to talk about the first time she felt “wrong”, growing up in a world of Barbie and how her perverse inner masochist led her to end up working in the very industry that made her feel not good enough. Plus she takes us on a whistle stop tour of anti-ageing beauty advertising, tells us why otherwise smart women fall for the promise of “glow” (by which I mean me! And or probably you!) and why middle age is such an utterly pointless term. If you want to see off beauty anxiety, start right here! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Ugly by Anita Bhagwandas and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jamie Lang and Sophie Haboo have arrived on Disney Plus.
0:04.5	We're having a baby.
0:05.5	We're having a baby.
0:07.2	I've always wanted to be mom.
0:09.4	And we're bringing you on our journey through everything.
0:12.4	I have no idea what we're doing.
0:13.6	Thank you. I have more of an idea.
0:15.6	I think of it like a Tamagocchi.
0:17.8	At the end of all of this...
0:20.0	We're going to have a little baby. Raising Chelsea, a Hulu
0:23.7	original series streaming exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required T's and T supply.
0:34.9	Hello and welcome to The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds about our truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker.
0:45.0	Today's guest, Anita Baguandas, is that rare thing, a beauty journalist who's prepared to call out the beauty industry.
0:52.3	Anita is currently a beauty columnist on The Guardian,
0:54.8	but throughout her career, she has worked on some of the biggest names in women's magazines
0:58.4	and consulted for some of the most famous brands. It's not exactly the CV of someone you'd
1:03.6	expect to see campaigning to break free of prevailing beauty standards. But Anita's new book,
1:08.8	Ugly, does just that by examining how women are trapped by the way
1:12.7	we're supposed to look, regarded as lesser if our face doesn't fit, if we're not white, with Caucasian
1:18.9	features and hair. If we're not size 10, if we're not 25. Quite often there isn't the inspiration
1:24.8	to see that there's another way to do things or, you know, actually that's fine if you don't have that. You might have it a little bit later or you might not have it, but actually that's fine and that's all okay. You are just showing this one way to live as a woman in particular, whereas I feel like men get a lot more, you know, you could be this bachelor doing all kinds of things and whereas we don't necessarily get that choice.
1:48.8	Anita joined me to talk about the first time she felt wrong, growing up in a world of Barbie and how her perverse inner masochist let her end up working in the very industry that made
	...

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