Doing It Right with Pandora Sykes

Jessica DeFino is not your regular beauty journalist. After finding her pieces were regularly rejected from newspapers and magazines for being too incendiary, or dissing beauty brands who advertised, she founded her newsletter, The Unpublishable, where, in her own words she “dismantles beauty standards, debunks marketing myths and explores how beauty culture impacts people”. It now has 40,000 readers.  The Huffington Post once described her as “giving the middle finger to the entire beauty industry”.    Jess and I discuss why clear skin isn't a health objective but an aesthetic one, the evolution of a tan, the explosion of celebrity makeup and skincare lines and why we're at a tipping point in beauty. Subscribe to The Unpublishable Follow Jess on Twitter and IG @jessicadefino_   Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes Production by Joel Grove

I'm so pleased to bring you this s2 bonus episode sponsored by Sage Appliances, with Cariad Lloyd, which we recorded in front of a live audience a month ago. Cariad is a comedian and writer and the creator of the cult podcast, Griefcast, where she interviews famous people (usually comedians) like Robert Webb, David Baddiel and Sara Pascoe about the human experience of death and grief, and which has won multiple British Podcast Awards.    I'm really interested in grief: why we fear it (especially other people's), why we expect grief to look a certain way, the lack of nuance in our understanding of grief. What I love about Griefcast is the way it democratises grief: there is no one way to grieve. Grief, as Cariad digs into, is not just very sad, it is funny, absurd, weird and life-expanding.   You can listen to a new series of Griefcast now, on all good pod platforms and find Griefcast on Twitter @thegriefcast. Here are some helpful resources from Cariad: The Grief Network Let's Talk About Loss charity Dead Parent Club podcast The New Normal charity Bereavement Room podcast   And some books I recommend: Grief Works by Julia Samuel, And Then We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene, It's Your Loss by Robyn Donaldson and Emma Hopkinson, Languages of Loss by Sasha Bates, Sunset by Jessie Cave and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

Helen Russell is a journalist, podcaster and author of How To Be Sad, a part memoir/ manifesto which argues that we can't talk about happiness, without making space for sadness. But why are we so scared of being sad? We discuss ‘warm glow giving', what we can learn about sadness from the Russians and why "money can't buy you happiness" isn't quite right. Buy How To Be Sad, here: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Helen-Russell/How-to-be-Sad--Everything-IVe-Learned-About-Getting-Happi/24958621

Pooja Lakshmin MD is a psychiatrist and writer, specialising in women's mental health. The founder of digital women's health platform Gemma, she is a regular contributor to The New York Times, where she writes about wellness and self-care (amongst other subjects) about which she is currently writing a book. We talk about what the business of wellness gets wrong, what real self-care looks like and the difference between burnout and despair.  Follow Pooja's work, here: https://twitter.com/PoojaLakshmin?s=20 Tickets for Pandora Sykes in conversation with Candice Brathwaite are available here: fane.co.uk/pandora

Noreena Hertz is an economist and thought leader and the author of The Lonely Century, a fascinating and sprawling study of the epidemic of loneliness. We discuss why loneliness is higher in cities where people walk faster, how robots can be a force for good in social care and how to reconnect communities. Buy The Lonely Century here: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Noreena-Hertz/The-Lonely-Century--A-Call-to-Reconnect/24115876

Arthur Brooks is a social scientist, Harvard professor and author of multiple books, who writes a column for The Atlantic about happiness. After his column on introverts and extroverts caught my attention (I am fascinated in personality theories), I rung him up to discuss why introverts fared better during the pandemic and what extroverts and introverts can learn from one another. Plus, we take a little detour into why 'more' isn't always better. You can read that column here: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/05/introverts-extroverts-happiness-gap-pandemic/618925/

Alexandra Wilson is a criminal and family law barrister, the founder of Black Women In Law and the author of Black & White: a young barrister's story of race and class in a broken justice system. We discuss the bar's diversity and access problem, Stop & Search, the over-representation of black people in prisons and what we get wrong when we talk about knife crime. Plus, she drops some deliciously archaic nuggets about the process of becoming a barrister. Buy In Black and White https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Alexandra-Wilson/In-Black-and-White--A-Young-Barristers-Story-of-Race-and-/25680126

Alex Pang is a futurist and tech consultant who has spent twenty years studying our relationship with work. In Shorter, he argues that you get more done, when you work less. We discuss the problem with open-plan working, why 90% of meetings are an absolute waste of time and how a 4 day week (which means, yup, a 3 day weekend) could be better for the climate, the economy and public health. Buy Shorter here https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Alex-Soojung-Kim-Pang/Shorter--How-Working-Less-Will-Revolutionise-the-Way-your/24502730

Naoise Dolan is the author of the best-selling novel Exciting Times, who explores through her journalism what it means to be neurodiverse and what allistic people often misunderstand about autism. We discuss hidden disabilities, the problem with 'likeability' and why it would benefit us all to live in an Ask Culture world. Buy Exciting Times here: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Naoise-Dolan/Exciting-Times--Longlisted-for-the-Womens-Prize-for-Fiction-2021/24617649

Amia Srinsivasan is the Chichele Professor of social and political theory at Oxford University and the author of thought provoking new collection of essays, The Right To Sex. We talk about incel culture, fuckability, dating apps, and why banning porn is not the answer. Buy The Right to Sex here: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Amia-Srinivasan/The-Right-to-Sex/24711982

Stacey Dooley is a broadcaster and presenter, known for making more than 80 documentaries for the BBC on subjects including spy cam sex in South Korea, child abuse in the Philippines, female suicide bombers in Nigeria and sex slavery in Islamic State. She is also the 2018 winner of Strictly Come Dancing and the presenter of a make-up competition, Glow Up. In short: you can't box Dooley in. In the season finale of Doing It Right, I interview one of the most famous women in British media about what makes a good documentary, the importance of trusting your gut and learning from your mistakes in the public eye. Thank you so much for listening to the series! I really enjoyed making it and I hope you squirrelled away some helpful nuggets about how to navigate and metabolise modern life, courtesy of my brilliant guests.How Do We Know We're Doing It Right is out now in both hardback and audiobook, narrated by Pandora.

Alain de Botton is a philosopher who has written on work, sex, leisure, architecture - and every other subject in between. I first discovered Alain's work in the early noughties, when I inhaled his debut novel, Essays in Love, which he wrote aged just 23 and which sold over 2 million copies. Whether you're a fellow fangirl, or new to his philosophy, you're in for his treat - Alain's pragmatism (and his vast bank of wisdom) are so extremely comforting and clarifying in these muddling times. We discuss the difference between interior and exterior progress, the perils of instant gratification and why no-one is Yoda, all of the time. Not even Alain.How Do We Know We're Doing It Right is out now in both hardback and audiobook, narrated by Pandora.

Raven Smith is a British Vogue columnist, an Instagram personality and the author of the essay collection, Trivial Pursuits. I have long admired Raven's ability to move between the trivial and the weighty, with ease: writing about IKEA meatballs one minute, and his inability to live up to his father's idea of a black man, the next. We discuss arrival fallacy, being in 'the waiting room of parenthood' and why the little things - the trimmings of modern life - make us who we are.How Do We Know We're Doing It Right is out now in both hardback and audiobook, narrated by Pandora.

Julia Samuel is a psychotherapist, the founder/patron of Child Bereavement UK and the author of two acclaimed non-fiction books, Grief Works and her new one, This Too Shall Pass. A book about why human beings find it so hard to navigate change, it could not have landed at a better time: when choice has been removed and major change forced upon us, by the pandemic. We discuss why resisting change only makes its impact worse, the impossibility of ever fully 'knowing yourself' and the scourge of comparisonitis.How Do We Know We're Doing It Right is out now in both hardback and audiobook, narrated by Pandora.

Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian with a radical new idea: what if human beings are not innately savage and selfish, but compassionate and kind? I talk to Rutger about his uplifting new book, Humankind; the difference between optimism and hope; and why we need to look beyond cultural myth to find the truth. I felt comforted and hopeful after speaking to Rutger - I hope you do, too. How Do We Know We're Doing It Right is out now in both hardback and audiobook, narrated by Pandora.

Ashley 'Dotty' Charles is a writer and broadcaster. The first solo female to host 1Xtra Breakfast for the BBC, she is the author of a new book, which lands at the time we need it most. Outraged: Why Everyone is Shouting and No One Is Talking is about how distracted we have become in our outrage. By shouting about the little things, are we neglecting to talk about the bigger issues in modern society? We discuss the difference between performative outrage, the role of the social media provocateur and the strange case of Rachel Dolezal. How Do We Know We're Doing It Right is out now in both hardback and audiobook, narrated by Pandora.

Sinéad Burke is a force for good. An educator and disability advocate in the field of fashion and design, she is solutions-driven in her desire to make society more inclusive. The first little person to appear on the cover of Vogue, to attend the Met Gala and to give a TED Talk, she is fast becoming one of the most important voices in conversations around social change. Her book, Break The Mould: How To Take Your Place In The World, is published in October and is available for pre-order, now.How Do We Know We're Doing It Right is out now in both hardback and audiobook, narrated by Pandora.

Doing It Right is a new podcast series that delves into the way we live our lives. My very first guest is the comedian and TV presenter, Joe Lycett. He joins me to discuss consumer activism, parking tickets, his BAFTA nomination and why comedy should "punch up" not down. In collaboration with Penguin Audio.How Do We Know We're Doing It Right is out now in both hardback and audiobook, narrated by Pandora.