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Flawless
- Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital
- Narrated by: Elise Hu
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
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Publisher's summary
One of Porchlight's Business Books of the Year | One of Vox's Best Books of 2023 | An NPR Book of the Day | Required Reading from New York Post | One of Nylon's 13 May Books to Add to Your Reading List | One of PureWow's 14 Books to Read for AAPI Heritage Month | One of W Magazine's 14 Books to Dive Into This Summer | One of Betches' Best Summer Reads of 2023
An audacious journalistic exploration of the present and future of beauty through the lens of South Korea's booming "K-beauty" industry and the culture it promotes, by Elise Hu, NPR host-at-large and the host of TED Talks Daily
K-beauty has captured imaginations worldwide by promising a kind of mesmerizing perfection. Its skincare and makeup products—creams packaged to look like milkshakes or pandas, and snail mucus face masks, to name a few—work together to fascinate us, champion consumerism, and invite us to indulge. In the four years Elise spent in Seoul as NPR’s bureau chief, the global K-beauty industry quadrupled. Today it's worth $10 billion and is only getting bigger as it rides the Hallyu wave around the globe.
And fun as self-care consumerism may be, Elise turns her veteran eye to the darker questions lurking beneath the surface of this story. When technology makes it easy to quantify and optimize ourselves—from banishing blemishes, to whittling our waistlines, even to shaving down our jaws—where do we draw the line? What are the dangers for a society where a flawless face and body are promoted and possible? What are the real financial, physical, and emotional costs of beauty work in a culture that valorizes endless self-improvement and codes it as empowerment?
With rich historical context and deep reporting, including hours of interviews with South Korean women, this is a complex, provocative look at the ways hustle culture has reached into the sinews of our bodies. It raises complicated questions about gender disparity, consumerism, the beauty imperative of an appearance obsessed society, and the undeniable political, economic, and social capital of good looks worldwide. And it points the way toward an alternative vision, one that's more affirming and inclusive than a beauty culture led by industry.
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"A must [listen], Flawless is much more than a book about culture’s obsession with youth and beauty. It provides an urgent metaphorical societal mirror and context for why we spend so much of our time in the quixotic pursuit of perfection. Flawless helps us ask hard questions and reclaim our agency in a world that wants to deny us our power. Hu’s journalism shines a light on what is broken and provides optimism for what can be instead.”—Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play
“Like a trip to the beauty counter with your most discerning friend, Flawless deftly redirects us from the individual choices we are bombarded with (so many serums, so little time!) and focuses us instead on the transnational systems that sell consumption as the key to wholeness. Well-researched and funny, it is Hu’s own vulnerability and keen observations on the endless project of female self-improvement that make each page sparkle.”—Alicia Menendez, MSNBC Anchor and Author of The Likeability Trap
“The host of NPR’s “TED Talks Daily” shines a bright light into the shadowy world of manufactured beauty and endless “self-improvement”…Hu’s study of Korea’s beauty cult is fascinating and disturbing, woven with threads of dark humor and personal experience.”—Kirkus (starred review)
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Black women have never been more visible or more publicly celebrated. But for every milestone, every magazine cover, every new face elected to public office, the reality of everyday life for black women remains a complex, conflicted, contradiction-laden experience. An American journalist who has been living in London for a decade, Kenya Hunt has made a career of distilling moments, movements, and cultural moods into words. Her work takes the difficult and the indefinable and makes it accessible; it is razor sharp cultural observation threaded through evocative and relatable stories.
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Inspired
- By Amazon Customer on 01-29-21
By: Kenya Hunt
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We Were Feminists Once
- From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement
- By: Andi Zeisler
- Narrated by: Joell A. Jacob
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, feminism is no longer a dirty word, and women purporting to stand up for women's equality now include high-powered names like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Emma Watson. Hip underwear lines sell granny pants with "feminist" emblazoned on the back. In every bookstore, there are scores of seductive feminist how-to business guides telling women how to achieve "it all".
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Fantastic book despite shoddy narration
- By Seth H. Wilson on 05-19-16
By: Andi Zeisler
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More than a Body
- Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament
- By: Lexie Kite, Lindsay Kite
- Narrated by: Lexie Kite PhD, Lindsay Kite PhD
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Our beauty-obsessed world perpetuates the idea that happiness, health, and ability to be loved are dependent on how we look, but authors Lindsay and Lexie Kite offer an alternative vision. With insights drawn from their extensive body image research, Lindsay and Lexie—PhDs and founders of the nonprofit Beauty Redefined (and also twin sisters!)—lay out an action plan that arms you with the skills you need to reconnect with your whole self and free yourself from the constraints of self-objectification.
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Good Intentions; Questionable Message.
- By Lacquered By Bec on 05-03-21
By: Lexie Kite, and others
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Viral Justice
- How We Grow the World We Want
- By: Ruha Benjamin
- Narrated by: Ruha Benjamin
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.
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Fantastic book!
- By Avie Kearney on 05-21-23
By: Ruha Benjamin
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White Feminism
- From the Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind
- By: Koa Beck
- Narrated by: Koa Beck
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Addressing today’s conversation about race, empowerment, and inclusion in America, Koa Beck, writer and former editor-in-chief of Jezebel, boldly examines the history of feminism, from the true mission of the suffragists to the rise of corporate feminism with clear-eyed scrutiny and meticulous detail. She also examines overlooked communities - including Native American, Muslim, transgender, and more - and their ongoing struggles for social change.
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Visionary!
- By J. F. Beck on 01-06-21
By: Koa Beck
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Cinderella Ate My Daughter
- Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture
- By: Peggy Orenstein
- Narrated by: Peggy Orenstein
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source - the source - of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.
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No solution just worry
- By Marie on 06-28-12
By: Peggy Orenstein
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The Culture Code
- An Ingenious Way To Understand Why People Around The World Live And Buy As They Do
- By: Clotaire Rapaille
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert Clotaire Rapaille reveals for the first time the techniques he has used to improve profitability and practices for dozens of Fortune 100 companies. His groundbreaking revelations shed light not just on business but on the way every human being acts and lives around the world.
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Mapping cultures
- By Eric on 08-04-08
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Fat Girls in Black Bodies
- Creating Communities of Our Own
- By: Joy Arlene Renee Cox Ph.D., Ta'lor Pinkston - foreword, Jill Andrew Ph.D.
- Narrated by: Gwendolyn Carter
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Structured into three sections - "belonging," "resistance," and "acceptance" - and informed by personal history, community stories, and deep research, Fat Girls in Black Bodies breaks down the myths, stereotypes, tropes, and outright lies we've been sold about race, body size, belonging, and health. Cox's razor-sharp cultural commentary exposes the racist roots of diet culture, healthism, and the ways we erroneously conflate body size with personal responsibility.
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AMAZING
- By Amazon Customer on 03-21-21
By: Joy Arlene Renee Cox Ph.D., and others
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Aesthetic Intelligence
- How to Boost It and Use It in Business and Beyond
- By: Pauline Brown
- Narrated by: Vivienne Leheny
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking audiobook, Pauline Brown, a former leader of the world’s top luxury goods company and a pioneer in identifying the role of aesthetics in business, shows executives, entrepreneurs, and other professionals how to harness the power of the senses to create products, services, and experiences that stand out, resonate with their customers, and create long-term value for their businesses. The power is rooted in Aesthetic Intelligence - or "the other AI", as Brown refers to it.
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Good but too surface level.
- By gil nevo on 04-28-20
By: Pauline Brown
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Brainwashed
- Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority
- By: Tom Burrell
- Narrated by: Sylvester Brown Jr.
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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"Black people are not dark-skinned white people", says advertising visionary Tom Burrell. In fact, they are much more. They are survivors of the Middle Passage and centuries of humiliation and deprivation, who have excelled against the odds, constantly making a way out of "No way!" At this pivotal point in history, the idea of Black inferiority should have had a "Going-Out-of-Business Sale." After all, Barack Obama reached America's Promised Land. Yet, as Brainwashed testifies, too many in Black America are still wandering in the wilderness.
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Guidance against the odds.
- By Henry Lee Faulkner on 01-05-21
By: Tom Burrell
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Beauty Sick
- How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women
- By: Renee Engeln
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Today's young women face a bewildering set of contradictions when it comes to beauty. They don't want to be Barbie dolls but, like generations of women before them, are told they must look like them. They're angry about the media's treatment of women but hungrily consume the very outlets that belittle them. They understand that what they see isn't real but still download apps to airbrush their selfies.
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No conclusion
- By Amazon Customer on 01-15-21
By: Renee Engeln
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Empire of Things
- How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First
- By: Frank Trentmann
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 33 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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What we consume has become the defining feature of our lives: our economies live or die by spending, we are treated more as consumers than workers and even public services are presented to us as products in a supermarket. In this monumental study, acclaimed historian Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary history that has shaped our material world, from late Ming China, Renaissance Italy and the British Empire to the present.
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An exhaustive attempt to get the story right
- By John on 03-09-16
By: Frank Trentmann
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Buying In
- The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are
- By: Rob Walker
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Marketing executives and consumer advocates alike predict a future of brand-proof consumers, armed with technology and a sophisticated understanding of marketing techniques, who can effectively tune out ad campaigns. But as Rob Walker demonstrates, this widely accepted misconception has eclipsed the real changes in the way modern consumers relate to their brands of choice. Combine this with marketers' new ability to blur the line between advertising, entertainment, and public space, and you have dramatically altered the relationship between consumer and consumed.
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Lets you in on the secret...
- By Jeff on 07-06-08
By: Rob Walker
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Wanting
- The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
- By: Luke Burgis
- Narrated by: Luke Burgis, Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Gravity affects every aspect of our physical being, but there’s a psychological force just as powerful - yet almost nobody has heard of it. It’s responsible for bringing groups of people together and pulling them apart, making certain goals attractive to some and not to others, and fueling cycles of anxiety and conflict. In Wanting, Luke Burgis draws on the work of French polymath René Girard to bring this hidden force to light and reveals how it shapes our lives and societies.
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One of the most important books you'll ever read
- By chris boutte on 06-14-21
By: Luke Burgis
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Pure Invention
- How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World
- By: Matt Alt
- Narrated by: Matt Alt
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon, online imageboards and emojis. But as Japan media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation, these novelties did more than entertain. They paved the way for our perplexing modern lives.
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great book ruined by ending
- By Grant Holder on 06-07-22
By: Matt Alt
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Labor of Love
- The Invention of Dating
- By: Moira Weigel
- Narrated by: Kyra Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Weaving together over 100 years of history with scenes from the contemporary landscape, Labor of Love offers a fresh feminist perspective on how we came to date the ways we do. This isn't a guide to "getting the guy". There are no ridiculous "rules" to follow. Instead Weigel helps us understand how looking for love shapes who we are and hopefully leads us closer to the happy ending that dating promises.
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Not Meant To Be Useful, But Quite Fun
- By Gillian on 02-14-17
By: Moira Weigel
What listeners say about Flawless
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- H. Rhee
- 06-01-23
Great book!! You will not be disappointed by this book
This is a fascinating story told About the beauty culture in South Korea which extends throughout the world. Couldn’t put this book down until I finished it!!
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- Kenneth S Davis
- 11-10-23
Very interesting info with unique perspective
I had no idea any of this was a thing. Really interesting. A lot of information.
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- Sonja Halvorson
- 06-05-23
Important thoughts for our time
An antidote to the beauty obsessed narrative of modern journalism. Well written, thoughtful cultural exploration. Highly recommended!
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- Conor Cox
- 05-28-23
Eye opening
As someone who has generally not thought much about these issues it was great to see the nuance and sophistication of this exploration of a culture that has dived deep into the world or beautification. The author does a great job of digging into the history and empowerment of the makeup and plastic surgery industry and it's potential external negativities. She manages to explore the culture through the lens of her own life while not overly centering her own story over that of the culture she's profiling.
My eyes were really opened to the idea of a world where our appearances could be as fluid as our careers or lifestyles. But at the same time it's frightening to imagine a culture or world where we are mandated to look a certain way to satisfy others or a vague culture norm.
I think the most fascinating part by far was the discussion of how Korean high school graduates are pressured to get plastic surgery before entering the job market, or are expected to compete not just on talent but on looks. It was also cool to see how the new generation is embracing and reshaping those cultural norms and rebelling against them,
I also really liked the exploration of how Westerner's have tried to claim the beauty standards of other countries as trying to look more like them and how that's probably just a weird projection instead of a reality. The author does some brilliant cultural exploration there to dismantle that.
Also her chapter on how 70 year old's present a clever path forward for beauty norms was absolutely brilliant and a delight.
The book convinced me to maybe look into doing more than just a some lotion in the morning because plastic surgery and beautification is so broad and complex and safe relative to what I've heard. But to only focus on getting things done that make me happy and help push towards the vision of myself I want instead of some broad cultural standard.
I don't always like when author's read their own book. But in this case the author did an amazing job. Their pace was perfect, clarity was strong: I listened at 2x and it was still completely understandable, and they put a lot of emotion that a reader would not have. It made the story more rich.
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- David A. Koch-Weser
- 06-07-23
A great dive into the culver of beauty
This book explores the culture of beauty, using South Korea as a focal point to explore global trends and issues in beauty. Taking a nuanced look at what defines beauty and how external beauty norms have been used (and subverted) to both uplift and repress women, Hu explores how beauty intertwines with notions of womenhood, gender equity, power and economics. Hu questions the institutions and systems that create a sort of beauty industrial complex and offers a strong critique of its impact on women and society at large.
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- Kindle Customer
- 06-16-23
Clear vision of where we don't want to go
Revealing look at a culture as seen from a four year journey to the future.
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- Anonymous User
- 06-12-23
Great read
Really enjoyed diving into this conversation. I have recommended this to my friends to listen.
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- Elizabeth
- 05-24-23
Illuminating
As a skin care junkie who has adhered to the Korean 12-step regimen for years, I assumed I’d finish this book with a deep appreciation of the R&D put in by K-Beauty manufacturers to keep my skin glowing and pores tight. What I did not expect was the self-reflection that came with understanding South Korea as a bellwether for beauty standards around the world and what impact it’s already had on my own self-esteem (beyond the existing US cultural/general patriarchal expectations), not to mention where we might be headed if the nonpareil standards of K-Pop stars becomes our new norm. Would also never have thought there was a connection between Confucius and my sheet masks, but it speaks to the depth of research Hu did to put together a thoughtful, multi-faceted book about a seemingly superficial topic such as beauty. And as Hu is a broadcast journalist/podcast host, the performance was great. Highly recommend.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Teegs
- 06-07-23
Great conversation started on Beauty Culture
Love Elise’s look at beauty culture in Korea and coming back to the US and the effect on society as a whole. If you enjoy her reporting you will love this book.
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- Sandra Peterson
- 07-28-24
Eye opening industry report
It was fascinating to get the inside scoop on the obsession of skincare that might be the highest level of over-the-top on the planet. I think the same sense of it could have been conveyed in half the time or less easily. Also, if you’re looking for a story with characters, this is not it. This is a straight up report on an industry from personal experience.
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