Welcome to Unruly Season 2

A podcast from Flamingo and Audacy’s Pineapple Street Studios

At Flamingo, we know that women deal with a lot: the expected, unexpected, and everything in between. That’s why we created Unruly. Season 1 was all about navigating a world that loves to categorize, analyze, and discuss women’s bodies; Season 2 has the same spirit but a different bent. Instead of talking about regulation, we’re talking about conversation.

Because we believe that if women are talking about it, it’s important. Whether we’re discussing dating in a recession, the way TikTok is shaping girlhood, consumer capitalism, or how to survive that annual girls trip, we’re giving women the opportunity to be their truest, most flamboyant selves. New episodes drop on Wednesdays.

INTRO:

My name is Anna, and I work at Flamingo. We’re a brand that knows women deal with a lot: the expected, unexpected, and everything in between. That’s why we created Unruly. 

Season 1 was all about navigating a world that loves to categorize, analyze, and discuss women’s bodies. Season 2 has the same spirit but a different bent. Instead of talking about regulation, we’re talking about conversation. 

Because at Flamingo, we believe that if women are talking about it, it’s important. So on this season of Unruly, I’ll be chatting with your favorite writers, thinkers and influencers about everything from dating in a recession, to the way TikTok is shaping girlhood, to consumer capitalism and how to survive that  annual girls trip

We’re carving out a little space for smart takes, hot takes, and a whole lot of truth telling. Welcome to Unruly Season 2

For the first episode of Season 2, we wanted to explore a topic that feels very foreign and deeply familiar to me- modern girlhood. How has the experience of being a teen or a tween fundamentally changed, and what parts of it seem to stand the tests of time?

These are questions I’ll be diving into with our first guest, the incredible writer/reporter/podcaster, Elise Hu. 

Elise is the author of the book Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital. Plus she’s  written about a lot of other things like Sephora tweens, motherhood and the beauty industry as a whole. It’s an honor to have her kick off our season! 

INTERVIEW: 

Anna: One of the reasons why we're here is actually to talk about something specific, a phenomenon happening right now, which is this Sephora Teens. Right. Could you just describe what that actually means?

Elise: Sure, sure. Sephora Teens or Sephora Tweens is a way of describing the cultural recognition or the media sort of around this trend, a trend of younger people, Gen Alpha, girls as young as age eight getting really into taking care of their skin. And sometimes that means really expensive serums or multi-step skincare, which used to be the provenance of just. Women, you know, but now there's this creeping cultural effect of the internet and beauty culture that is reaching girls as young as elementary school. 

Anna: Yeah, so why do you think there's so much actual interest in buying these things suddenly? Like they're in the Sephoras, they're buying the retinols, they're buy the anti-aging, like the actives, if you will. Right. 

Elise: And the fact that they even know what actives are, I think, is a real difference between when you were a kid or when I was a kid. There's two kind of directional forces. There's the push factor and the pull factor. So the beauty industry is obviously constantly looking for new consumers. And that means you either creep into a different gender and get into like men's grooming, which we're seeing, or you creep into different demographics, like younger and younger age because the... I mean, this is capitalism, right? It needs to grow and these companies need to grow or want to grow. And so, so some of it is the beauty industry, just wanting to cannibalize more audience, the other more customers. The other is, um, the internet and the fact that so many young people are now growing up in digital culture. And what it can do is act as a huge sales force, right. And really create ideals to mimic and sell. And really sell a lot of products that maybe they would never have heard of before, like serums and pimple patches and all of that in a way that, it's like a new form of mass media, right? And it's not really that new. Social media has been around for like 10 years, but since you have elementary school kids getting iPads and in some cases getting iPhones by the time that they're in fourth or fifth grade, the access to social media just makes the sales of these kinds of products faster and at scale. In a way that we didn't really have when our mass media was in the form of like television and magazines. 

Anna: Yeah, I mean, I was just gonna say, I'm not gonna lie. I'm gonna pretend I wasn't influenced by brands and celebrities and things. I mean I was reading, not even my own Seventeen magazines, my sister's Seventeen magazine, cause she was six years older than me and I wanted to do everything she was doing. But trying to buy a lip gloss or something along those lines. I remember being almost terrified to buy foundation for the first time because I was like my mom's gonna like get mad at me or something like which she wouldn't but I think that there was more hesitancy to get involved in it that back then and also I don't know if this is an original thought of mine or not I think it's gotten from somewhere the idea that we used to be inspired by our older sisters and our friends' older sisters. 

Elise: Or like the cool cousin down the street or whoever. 

Anna: Yeah, and now it's just expanded exponentially because we have access to all these things.

Elise: Yeah, one thing that a lot of folks who I've talked to about this trend have noted is that, is the speed, right? Like what's so different about the way teen beauty culture is now is the quickness that something can spread as a trend. And so I don't think the fact that younger and younger girls are getting into skincare is something that's gonna be going away. So I don't even know if we should be using the term trend for it. I think it's just like a cultural shift. To younger and younger age groups. But what is trendy are the products that they use or what they happen to be into. One key example is Drunk Elephant. So Drunk Elephant was huge when a lot of media had trained their attention on this Sephora tweens and Sephora teens craze. And they sell the $80 Brazilian bum-bum cream and there were TikToks of young girls maybe in third or fourth grade like. Using up all the testers at Sephora for these particular products and getting their parents or their grandparents to buy these products. But now, because youth are fickle, especially Gen Alpha is fickle though, just kind of, and trends last for, sometimes a TikTok trend or trending sound will only last for like a day or two before it's quote unquote old, according to the teens. And so Gen Alpha's pretty fickle. And now. Because Drunk Elephant isn't cool among them anymore, their sales have dropped 65% year on year. And searches for Drunk elephant creams are now down 76% or something like that. Which means that there is a risk if you become a brand that's associated with very young girls. 

Elise: Because they don't have the same brand loyalty that you and I might have to something. Because once we find a product, we might not wanna keep trying more products.

Anna: Sure, sure. Yeah, once you find something that works.

Elise: Right, but if you're thinking of a skincare product as status, or you're thinking of it as play, like, hey, I'm just dressing up, which is the way that kids would think about toys, right? And now skincare is becoming a form of play, skincare and makeup. So if you think about it in that way, then there's no loyalty to the product over time. It's not like you're trying to remove your wrinkles and seeing some sort of effect of that. Yeah, because they don't have it. Right, they have the skin that everybody's trying to emulate. And so there is a risk, I think, for brands that end up getting associated with GenAlpha.

Anna: Yeah, and it's hard because, as you just said, these products aren't needed for people of this age. And their skin doesn't need retinol, doesn't needs vitamin C at this point, et cetera. But I think it's because at the same time, I want to make room for nuance. There are some things that are good, like girls doing, I love the pimple patches, and people are wearing them around. Like the star face ones, yeah. Like that's, I like taking that moment and kind of normalizing girls having, and I'm saying girls, but obviously this is applying to like a lot of different young people these days. I guess my question is how do you think we encourage curiosity without making these things be essential to like their everyday routines? Obviously, I wouldn't wanna shut down a question about something like that, but I also don't want to impress upon them that this needs to happen for you right now. You need to be using retinol. 

Elise: Well, that's a big question, because I agree with you in that we don't need to have a moral panic about girls caring about how they look or getting into lip glosses and lip oils and things, because that's as tale as old as time. There is something very human about striving to look a little better or feel more like ourselves when we are out presenting ourselves to the world externally.

Anna: I actually was thinking about this while we were talking and if you don't want to do it, we don't have to. But I was like- I kind of want to like go off and list the even just from like a facial face perspective. What have you had done or what have you done? 

Elise: Sure. I know. Yeah, I've tried all sorts of different things. I can talk about it. Yeah. Well, I tried starving myself when I was 18. Me too. Yeah, so that was not worth it. 

Anna: Not worth it, definitely. 

Elise: And I say it jokingly, but I really believe that so many of us did go through kind of disordered eating patterns or overexercise and now what is called orthorexia. And so much of that was such a waste of my valuable youth and my valuable time. 

So there's that. Now in Korea, I tried a whole bunch of things within a week. I tried real Botox, like where they actually injected into your forehead muscles and like the 11. That I didn't do again. It's like slightly painful, but not as painful as something else I tried, which is what they call skin Botox. Which is like the subcutaneous or baby Botox it's not into the muscle, but it's like, I think it was like 269 little injections into just under your skin with like hyaluronic acid and other great chemicals that are supposed to help your skin look really youthful and glowy and all those things. But it only lasts like two months. And then ditto with Botox, it lasts like three to six months and then they want you to return. So a lot of this, the filler and injectable culture is kind of a business model, right? It's essentially trying to get subscribers so that you come back and get it on the regular. Exactly, exactly. //  I did hydrofacials. I still love hydrofaciasl. I think that, you know, anything that you don't have to like, that doesn't really last or isn't botulism. I'm like, fine, whatever. Yeah, exactly. I get eyelash extensions. They kind of come out. Um, after like three or four weeks. So they get kind of like wonky, but I do like doing that because then I don't have to put on any makeup. Um, so I do things, I do think about like beauty procedures and products in the sense that if they can actually save me time, I'm down with it.

What I worry about is that... There's an over-conflation of our external, our outsides with our worthiness and our worth. And to the extent that caring about our skin reaches into like, I must do this, or I'm not worthy if I don't have flawless skin, then that's where it crosses over into a kind of real harm. And we saw that, I grew up in the 90s, And now. Upon reflection, the 90s were a very difficult decade for women, it was very misogynistic and there's actually a great book out right now called Girl on Girl about kind of how the 90's turned a lot of millennial women against ourselves. And the thesis is that what we watch and read and hear and listen to, we end up internalizing and then creating our sense of worth based on what we consume. And if you translate that to... today's consumption and the way that we read and hear and see everything on the internet, then what we're consuming is algorithmically driven. It tends towards a certain sameness. It tends toward these very exacting ideals or Instagram face or meta face. And these ideals are really only reachable with a lot of intervention, with a lot of money and spending and things that are just out of reach, right? And so I think techno optimization, reaching our bodies can become really dangerous. But then there's a flip side here where I don't want to eschew certain bodily rituals completely. I think it's wonderful that, as part of this craze, more and more girls are taking care of hygiene. 

Anna: You know, like, I love the- And some screen, like- Exactly. 

Elise: Exactly. I love that my daughter knows about sunscreen and wears it without making a fuss, where when she was like a little girl it was…

Anna: It was very annoying trying to put sunscreen on my nieces. They're so angry at me 

Elise: But then once they got into skincare, they're like, oh, sunscreen is part of my routine. And so I wrote a book about a lot of these topics.

Anna: But it's not a polemic. I just got so excited about something you just said. I was like gonna pull it up. Self-esteem in modern capitalist societies can come to mean positive self-assessment according to various external metrics. That doesn't necessarily mean self-respect or compassion, which you basically just said something very similar to that, and again, I'm sure everyone just saw me get so excited and I opened up the book, and I was like, I knew I bookmarked this earlier, but. That's so disheartening…

Elise: But it's really, it's been a project of my whole adult life to try and split, like, the link between my external appearance and myself. Like, that is a very big, heady thing, but we, from a very young age... As girls learn to be seen, right? And like learn to have to perform for other people. Whether that's even our parents telling us that we need to be ladylike or don't do that because it's not, you know, polite or whatever. Like we're constantly, we're at a very young age socialized to kind of present. And so learning to sort of be embodied and be in touch with ourselves at the soul level is something that we have to both, requires both undoing some of the things that we've learned culturally. But also the hard work of figuring out who we are, you know? And so the way to not have to undo a bunch of stuff, especially for young, impressionable girls, is to teach them that they are worthy flaws in all, like crooked teeth and all, like skin that's not flawless and all. And that's really hard when they are bombarded by media messages and algorithmic social media. That tells you this is the way to look. And the filters kind of teach us how we're supposed to look, right? Because filters automatically smooth your skin or make your chin more defined or give you a higher nose bridge or all these things. And in the way the filters kind of quote unquote improve. 

The way that we look, they are telling you like these are the things to aspire to. And so what I really see now is digital culture kind of dictating our physical standards. And that is worrying. 

Anna: Like how do we have these conversations with girls about like being free from the clutches of? Realistic beauty standards when we are not ourselves, right? 

Elise: Right so that's the thing and that's why and I've been thinking about a lot of this and working on a lot of this as my kids have gotten older and coming and come into kind of teenage-dom and Where I have feel I feel like I've effective or at least they're on a path that all offers them some alternatives is The work I've done on myself. Mm-hmm. So like modeling is really important because they don't necessarily do what you say. They follow what they see and what is shown to them. And I realized this with my own mom and with other millennials that I interviewed because a lot of our moms did the same thing. And they were like, oh, your looks don't matter, no, no, but then they weighed themselves constantly or they didn't like eat until they were full. Cause I think for my generation, it was a lot more like bodily issues and less skin. 

Elise: And so, and it was passed down from our mothers. In a lot of cases, but I didn't really realize that until I was in my mid-30s and I was like, wait a second, you know. Hey. We shouldn’t have had a scale in the kitchen. Right, like. Wow, in the kitchens was the next level. Yeah, my mom was like weighing herself, but then she was like oh no, you know. You're fine at any size. 

Anna: Same thing, and I think even my own mom, who I adore and love deeply, but she would see me and be like, oh, you're so skinny. Like those kind of things, and yeah. 

Elise: Even saying like making a note about your appearance, I think can be internalized the wrong way and can be taken the wrong away by a young impressionable person. And so there is a school of thought out of academia called essentialism and it is kind of an extension of body neutrality. So body neutrally is essentially like, bodies aren't good, there's no good bodies, there's not bad bodies, it's just bodies, right? And skin neutrality is the same, there's good skin, there is no bad skin, it's just skin. Mm-hmm. And... essentialism is an extension of that in that it focuses on what bodies can do and feel. And so, and that way it encompasses those of different ability, like different bodily ability. And so it's sort of like, how do you feel when you wear that piece of clothing? So when my daughter goes and tries on clothes instead of me saying like, oh, that's so cute on you. We ask questions like, can you move? Does it give you a wedgie? How is the material on your skin? And it helps them focus on their own bodily autonomy and embodiment, like actually just being in their bodies and trusting it. And so I've also really emphasized with the girls, trust your body. If you feel something is off, if you're itchy, let's go to the source of that. Because you'll know where it is better than me. And so it's just these little subtle things that focus on them sort of taking into account who they are in their bodies. And just being comfortable. And being comfortable in it. And my four-year-old was so instructive because when she was four, this was my youngest, she was so instructed because I loved her in rompers. I thought she was so cute in like rompers and this is just like externally, and superficially, right? I was like... 

Anna: You're allowed to think your kid is cute and around her, yeah.

Elise: I tried to put her in some, some new one. I like got one for her and she was like   she was like mama, I do not want to take off all my clothes to pee. Sorry. Which is true. You're right. It's like, yeah, it is cute to wear a one piece, but not if they're, you do, it requires kind of this whole rigamarole and she didn't like it. And so I kind of admired that. And I took that as inspiration. So. One is modeling, I think, that has worked. And it does require that we deal with our own stuff and deal with their own baggage, and that's hard. But it is crucial for the next generation. The other is diversity in what they see. 

Elise: I thought that I realized I was in the sunken place when I first saw Victoria's Secret models who were fuller-sized or normal size. 

Anna: I mean, they really took a pivot. 

Elise: And when they did, I was like, oh my gosh, it could have been like this, which means what I had been fed.

Anna: So I'm like, these women look fantastic. Exactly. Like, they look great. Why weren't we doing this before? 

Elise: But I realized what kind of horribly limiting place that we were in in terms of what we were seeing modeled to us when places and brands like Victoria's Secret and Target finally showed more diversity. So I do think media representation is vital and having more diversity in media representation is vital. Seeing various bodies and skin types in art is really important to me. I try to expose my girls. Just to seeing all sorts of art and books and just different bodies, that's vital because I realize, and a lot of this is coming from what I realized was missing in my own coming of age.

Anna: I also think too, it's so easy to say, when we're encouraging body autonomy and body neutrally, it's easy to just be like you do you, you go girl, all those types of things. But at the end of the day, like we're still being driven by the beauty standards. And…

Elise: So one of the themes of Flawless is this idea that came up again and again, choice, but not a choice. So when you are telling girls, and this was the problem with girl boss culture too, right? You're just telling everyone like hustle and you do you and feminism is this is like choice feminism, like feminism is whatever you define it. The issue is that it's highly individualistic and it doesn't like take into account that we actually need to support one another. 

And that if we are individually making certain choices, those choices aren't in a vacuum. They are often driven by the larger matrix that we're in, which is highly consumerist, and basically, none of our choices are kind of divorced from the context that they're in. And the context we're in is one that's trying to sell you stuff, and trying to tell you stuff based on telling you like this part isn't good about you, or you could fix this, or hey, you know, values like anti-aging matter and things like that. And so it's very difficult to make a choice that's purely like you. And my argument would be that it's more valuable to take into account one another. Like there's no self-care without caring for the community. And we are a community. That is being sold on a bunch of stuff that's predicated on not being good enough, right? And if that's the baseline, and we're all hustling to try and achieve a certain ideal, A, it's exhausting, but B, it is incredibly marginalizing for those who will never fit in, who will be never able to reach those standards or pay for the derm spas and the med spas in order to try to get closer. And so, it would be more supportive. If we, before we made some of these choices about participating in beauty culture, considered what it meant for the folks who could never afford these kinds of things or what it meant for those who are chasing it, you know, and get marginalized all the same. So it's like. 

Anna: Then people would have to be empathetic. 

Elise: But I mean, that's what we have to call for, right? Which is so. Embodiment is really important. By the end of my exploration, I found that kind of three main ideas. One is embodiment, which is returning to who we are on the most soul core human level. The other was worthiness that this project of dismantling really punishing beauty standards requires that we understand that beauty standards come from like techno optimism and techno optimism is forcing us to devalue our bodies and our worthiness that's like core to who we are, that has nothing to do with what we look like. So worthiness is another big idea that comes from it. And then the third is community and mutuality.

Elise: And I think about like COVID and how we were separated from one another and how coming together in real life was so nurturing and it felt like so meaningful to be together in Real Life again and we're in the middle of this loneliness epidemic and all of that. And the more we like compete with one another and look over our shoulders about like who has better hair and who's prettier and who skinnier and all those things. The more we're like ripping away our community and our mutuality. That actually is really vital to being human. 

Anna: Yeah, no, I really appreciated that, that moment. And I think to, to that point, like, how do you view girlhood differently, girlhood in general, differently from today versus how it was even like five, 10, 15, 20 years ago? Like what's changing? There's so much less play. So, I'm the big supporter of the free range kids book and free range kids movement that an author named Lenore Scanazzi is behind. Just because I think it gives kids so much more of a sense of ownership and embodiment if they're doing things for themselves and they're trying challenges and figuring things out on their own. So that's one way that girlhood has changed. The other is obviously the internet and social media. And now so much of that play that happened outside and without our phones is happening on phones, it's happening digitally. Skincare has become play, largely because changing our appearance. Has become normalized. All the filters and all the different effects that you see on Snapchat, that you see on TikTok are ways to play, too. And so that is driving some of this skincare teens thing that we're seeing. Obviously, the other kind of big one that I think is really important to remember is that we are in this really individualistic society. And that we've been pulled apart. A lot of kids have been pulled apart from in-person stuff as of COVID, as a result of COVID five years ago. And so you're also seeing this generation that's trying to figure out how to socialize again. And so my daughter's in sixth grade. She had her first sixth grade dance. And in a lot of ways, it was very similar. And I remember my sixth grade dancing. I remember coming of age, but their communication is happening so digitally now. And so a lot of the kids when they start. Going out or dating, whatever that means, just calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend, they actually have a lot less in real life communication. Like we started holding hands and things, but that would be like, whoa, for some of the kids in sixth grade now because their communication is happening over text or happening in Roblox.

Anna:  I fear that I may have been slightly a part of that because I don't, I remember having a boyfriend in the fifth grade and we did not speak. That's what I mean. It was exclusively like Yahoo messenger type of thing. 

Elise: So things have changed, like, generation to generation. So sorry. Sorry, sorry. 

Anna: So sorry, sorry sorry to my 5th grade boyfriend Tyler. 

Elise: Shout out to my sixth grade mixer date, Keith Vogel, you were so cute. But no, we didn't talk. So maybe that's the same. Maybe girlhood hasn't changed that much. But then, obviously, the skincare trend, and it's not everybody. Some people's daughters are super into skincare, like mine, which is so funny, given my politics, given that they're my daughters. Yeah. And then some people's daughters are totally not, and they're more of the outdoorsy, athletic types that don't care as much. So I think the kids are gonna be all right. Um, I just think that because of this digital visual culture that we're in and then AI driven generated filters, that means that there is even more burden and responsibility on those of us who are, who are older and who have come through it and who live in this, like very sort of under the technological gaze as I talk about, which is doing it for the algorithm, essentially a machine driven perspective, um, for those of who have experienced it and know it. All the more important that we talk about it, that we model coming to terms with ourselves and our bodies, and that we really emphasize diversity and worthiness. 

Anna: I had a come-to-Jesus moment, if you will, reading your book, and I'm actually really excited to shout out to my therapist, Meredith. We're talking at four p.m. today, and I am about to read this section, that's what I'm gonna tell her. Which was. 

Elise: That means a lot to me, by the way. 

Anna: I really, well I'll read it, but I want you to know how much it clarified something I was having so much difficulty defining for myself. It was when you were speaking with Heather Willoughby who taught at an all-girls school. 

Elise: In Seoul, yeah, she's at Ewha University in Seoul. Yeah, it's like the Wellesley. 

Anna: Yes. Yeah. Which I loved that, that reference. It definitely put it into like great context for me. Um, so she said to you, it seems, um, I was working with one of my classes to find the students' patterns of success. What are they good at? What are they accomplished at? And some of them at first had a really hard time thinking even of just like little things. And you, yourself said, I listened to Heather and thought doing the work to keep up, to fit in and to compete. Those are accomplishments, a series of them. They're just so expected that they don't count. And I think I have such trouble, even just in my day-to-day life, trying to think of things that like - I'm not good at taking a compliment. I'm no good, because I feel like those things are expected. Like I should, I should already be doing this. And I actually, to like really level set, doing this podcast, I was very, very. I was anxious about hosting and wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do it. 

Elise: We all have such imposter syndrome. 

Anna:  Exactly and my therapist had me my homework was to write down a list of things about myself that I liked. It was so hard.

Elise: That's not your fault. Give yourself grace because you are a woman who's come up in the U.S. or in like a highly developed country and I think those cultural forces are constantly telling us like that the expectations that we meet don't count like it doesn't matter or that's just because you should be doing exactly that that's sort of the bare minimum yeah whereas which is to say like the bar is too high, the bar for us to feel worthy is too high and then the bar's always moving and the goal posts are always moving and that's a really exhausting way to live. And so give yourself grace, know that you're worthy. I say that to everybody who's listening and watching. And that you don't have to do anything to be worthy, you know, and you don't have to change anything about yourself to be worth. I think that's really valuable. 

Anna: Thank you so much for being here. I feel like I'm just gonna go home and quietly reflect for the rest of the day, but I'm so excited that we had this conversation and I really appreciate it.

Elise: Thank you, Anna.

EPILOGUE:

Anna: So we did not get a chance to ask you this when you were here but I wanted to make sure I had a chance to ask you this question. And it is- what is the most unruly thing you’ve done this week?

Elise: This week? This week is tricky because I feel like I’ve been very rule abiding generally. 

Anna: There’s got to be something.

Elise: I can be kind of a chaos muppet but this particular week. I actually don’t know if this is unruly but it’s kind of just something that I did to protect my own time and headspace which is. I have three kids and the middle kid is probably my feistiest child. And another parent from the class texted me and was like “I was debating whether to bring this up to you but I was volunteering in the class today and I wanted to tell you something about your kid.” Because she was kind of being defiant. And she goes “but I don’t know if you even want to know.” And so then I was like well if you weren’t even sure, nah! 

Anna: Just say it or don’t!

Elise: No I was like nah. And she was sort of like-

Anna: Taken aback?

Elise: Right. I’m guessing it was an invitation to talk to me about how the kid was acting in a way that I could not have intervened. Like I did not witness and I couldn’t have intervened. And it was small enough that if I were to bring it up with her after the fact, it would blow it up into something that was probably nothing. So the unruly thing I did was just not care. Tell me if she hurts you or hurts somebody else. 

Anna: I need to pull that recording of you just saying “nah” and sending to voice to people. Sending that to people when I don’t feel like dealing with it. That is perfectly unruly and I respect it.

Unruly Rewind

Anna: What trends were you following as a middle schooler

Guest: The gaucho pants, do you remember those? Those were good.

Guest: I had the zip off pants that zipped off as shorts and capris. 

Anna: Who was your idol when you were 12. 

Guest: Very topical but it was Beyonce. Destiny’s Child as a whole.

Guest: The Olsen twins

Anna: Do you remember the first time you ever bought makeup?

Guest: Yeah, the pink and green Maybelline mascara

Guest: I think mascara actually, which is funny because I never wear it now.

Guest: One of those little smokey eye kits, that was for the color eye you have. Which is funny because I realize that wasn’t really marketed to me even though I had brown eyes.

Anna: Do you remember the first time you shaved?

Guest: I stole a Bic razor from my mom’s under the sink and I was trying to shave my legs and I nicked my legs and knees and I was trying to hide it from her because she would have yelled at me.

Guest: Probably middle school as well, I do remember using my mom’s hair removal cream first and learning quickly that I needed to only apply it in certain areas.

Anna: So you’re thirteen and you’re burning a CD for your friend, what’s on it?

Guest: Probably the whole Ice Princess soundtrack.

Guest: Missy Elliott, Destiny’s Child is on it. A lot of dance hall and reggae. I was having a moment. 

Anna: I’m gonna say a word or phrase and then you tell me the first word that comes to your mind okay? Limited Too

Guest: Amazing

Anna: Cute clothes for small children

Anna: Limewire

Guest: Hours and hours of downloading

Anna: Disney Channel Original Movie

Guest: Ooh the wand!

Anna: Seventeen Magazine

Guest: Not allowed in my house

Guest: Nick Jonas and Miley Cyrus

Guest: Nick Cannon

Anna: Boy Bands

Guest: One Direction

Guest: NSYNC, for sure

CREDITS

For a transcript of the episodes and more resources visit www DOT shopflamingo DOT com SLASH unruly podcast.

Unruly is a podcast created by me, Anna Wesche, and produced by Pineapple Street Studios in collaboration with Flamingo.

Our producer is Marialexa Kavanaugh. 

Our senior managing producer is Kamilah Kashanie. 

Our editor is Josh Gwynn. 

Our Head of Sound & Engineering is Raj Makhija . 

Our Senior Audio Engineers are Pedro Alvira and Marina Paiz.

This episode was Mixed by Pedro Alvira.

Our Executive Producer is Je-Anne Berry.

ALT: Our Executive Producer for development is Asha Saluja. 

ALT: Our executive producers are Asha Saluja and Je-Anne Berry.

Our Music is from Epidemic Sounds.

Our Project Manager is Abigail Juezan [HOO-weh-zun]

Our Video Editor and Sound Designer is Elliott Moe

Our Art Director is Chelsea Castro

Our Animator is Abby DeWitt

And I'm your host, Anna Wesche.