Hi! I’m Jessica DeFino.

I’m an award-winning beauty reporter and critic (the New York Times, the Sunday Times, Vice) and write the Guardian’s beauty advice column, Ask Ugly. A one-time editor for the Kardashian-Jenner Official Apps and a former product obsessive, I now explore how beauty culture impacts people — physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

I also write the weekly(ish) newsletter FLESH WORLD, which “basically gives the middle finger to the entire beauty industry,” HuffPost says, and has been praised in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Forbes, and Adweek’s 2023 Creative 100.

I am currently working on my first book.