'Flawless' provides a deeply reported look into Korean beauty standards

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 7 June 2023

⏱️ 5 minutes

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Summary

Elise Hu moved to Seoul, South Korea to set up an NPR bureau and report on the geopolitical tensions of the mid-2010s. But her new book, Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital, focuses on a different, albeit inescapable, part of life there – beauty standards and the industry driving them. In today's episode, Hu speaks with NPR's Brittany Luse about the consumerism, gender politics and technological advances that drive the booming beauty culture, and explains why the rest of the world should be paying attention...for better or worse.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Linda Holmes. Welcome to NPR's Book of the Day.
0:05.4	Elise Hugh went to Seoul in 2015 to report for NPR, mostly on geopolitical stories.
0:11.3	She ended up fascinated by something else entirely.
0:14.2	Korean standards of beauty and the things women are encouraged to do, skin care, sure, but also injections and surgeries to meet them.
0:22.8	Elise talked to NPR's Brittany Luce, host of one of our other podcasts,
0:27.2	It's Been a Minute, about the book, Flawless, Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital.
0:33.4	They consider the economic costs of failing to be what other people consider beautiful,
0:37.7	and they talk about the future in both Korea and the United States.
0:42.0	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:46.8	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.
0:53.4	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
0:57.1	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:00.7	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:06.7	When Elise moved to South Korea in 2015 to set up the first NPR Soul Bureau, her reporting focus was quite clear.
1:15.2	A pretty busy time for geopolitics and a lot of missile provocations from North Korea.
1:20.9	But in the midst of geopolitical tension, she noticed that at every street corner, in every magazine, TV show, and even from other people,
1:29.6	that there was an expectation she wasn't meeting.
1:32.7	I saw so many before and after signs and so many advertisements of what to look like and
1:38.7	skin care places and face shops across from face shops and across from face shops.
1:43.3	A few years later, she found she was still thinking about Korea's vision of beauty.
1:47.9	After exhaustive research and many revelations, she brings us this new book, which lays out
1:53.0	some pretty high stakes for beauty.
	...

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