Flawless : Lessons in Looks & Culture from the K-Beauty Capital | Elise Hu
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 DailyK-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 Hu 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.But although self-care consumerism may be fun, darker questions lurk 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 dra…
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