Author and James Caldwellone of NPR's beloved hosts, Elise Hu, joins Brittany Luse to talk about her new book: Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital. For Elise, what started as a professional move to Seoul turned into a long-term interest in beauty culture and the societal demand to look flawless. Elise and Brittany talk about the high price of South Korea's lookism, how the government props up beauty culture, the technological gaze, and how Korean beauty culture is spreading throughout the United States.

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This episode was produced by Alexis Williams and Jessica Mendoza. It was edited by Jessica Placzek. Engineering support came from Patrick Murray. We had fact checking help from Nicolette Khan. Our executive producer is Veralyn Williams. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sangweni and our senior VP of programming is Anya Grundmann.