This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves.

Welcome to the waves. Slates podcast about gender, feminism, and today are skin.

Every episode you've got a new pair of feminists to talk about the thing we can't get off of our minds.

And today you've got me, Shannon Paulis, a senior editor at Slate.

And me, Jessica Daphino, a freelance beauty reporter for Slate, The New York Times,

Vogue, and more, and the writer of the weekly beauty news letter, The Unpublishable.

Today we're going to be talking about skincare and why it's kind of a scam.

I've been interested in this topic for a really long time.

Before I came to Slate, I was a health reporter.

Wirecutter, The New York Times' product recommendation site.

And as a science journalist, I've spent a lot of time both there and at Slate,

digging into the science behind skincare and what works and what doesn't work.

And I'm really excited to talk to Jess today, who recently wrote a piece for Slate,

on why maybe the entire premise that your skin needs, all this additional and expensive care,

is mischided. Jess, why did you want to talk about this?

This is a topic that I can't stop thinking about because for most of my life, I was obsessed

with products and prescriptions. I've always had problem skin and tried everything,

acutane, birth control, antibiotics, retinoids, steroids, plus all the over-the-counter skin

care you could possibly imagine. I basically had a breakdown in my mid-20s and stopped using

skincare entirely because I was so frustrated and my skin was so damaged.

And lo and behold, my skin healed more in that week than it ever had before.

At the time, I was a beauty writer for the official Kardashian-Jenner apps.

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