Episode 248: It’s Written All Over Your Face with Paulina Porizkova
CW: This episode contains discussions of sexual harassment.
Kate calls for Forever35 moments in honor of the upcoming 5 year anniversary of the pod and Doree announces their new Giving Circle. Then, model and author Paulina Porizkova sits down with them to talk about her new book No Filter: The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful, why she keeps buying creams knowing they can’t do what they promise, and what stories her face tells
Photo Credit: Jill Greenberg
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Transcript
Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I am Kate Spencer,
Doree: And I am Doree Shafrir.
Kate: And we're not experts.
Doree: We're not. We're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Kate: You can visit our website Forever35podcast.com for links to everything we mentioned on the show. You can follow us on Instagram @Forever35podcast. You can join the Forever35 Facebook group where the password is serums. You can shop our favorite products at shopmy.us/Forever35, and you can also sign up for the Forever35 newsletter at Forever35podcast.com/newsletter.
Doree: And if you wanna reach us, we have a voicemail and text number (781) 591-0390, and our email is Forever35podcast@gmail.com.
Kate: We love to hear from you. And I actually, on that note, would like to make an ask if I may of our listeners, if you are listening in January, we will be celebrating five years of making this podcast, which is
Doree: Wow.
Kate: An absurdly long time. An absurdly long time, right?
Doree: Yeah. That is wild.
Kate: So if you are so inclined, if you're a listener of this podcast, if you have listened once in the last five years or many times in the last five years, and you have a favorite moment, a favorite product recommendation, guest conversation, quip, a Doree-ism, what have you.
Doree: A Kate-ism?
Kate: A kate-ism. I feel like I have a few, but you really come in hot with the lines.
Doree: Do I?
Kate: With the moans and the groans. Yes. You've got so many witty sayings that are yours. I feel like mine are just stolen from pop culture. I'm always going, my wife. Yeah. I'm always referencing the Borrat movie.
Doree: You have never said that.
Kate: I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But I was just hoping that if you have a moment, listeners, if you could text or call or email or voice memo us with anything that you have enjoyed or anything that's made you chuckle or think over the last five years. So we could put together a little retrospective
Doree: That is really going to be fun
Kate: Just to remember the times. Remember the times. I mean, remember when we recorded this podcast in person and then remember when we had to stop because there was a pandemic, which there still is. I mean, what
Doree: Yeah. Mean? We've been through a lot.
Kate: We have been through it. A child has been born,
Doree: A child has been born, sometimes thinking of guests that we've had on. In my mind I'm like, oh yeah, they were just on a year ago. And then I'm like, oh wait, we recorded with them in person. So oh, the absolute latest they could have been on is February, 2020. And then it's usually like, oh, we had them on in 2019. Or like, oh, it's been a minute.
Kate: It's been a beat.
Doree: It's weird. It's weird. Yeah, it's weird how time just gets sort of flattened in that way.
Kate: It is weird. I have that experience when I go on our website to look something up and I scroll through all the episode recaps and I see all the guests we've talked to and it's like. Oh, who's who of amazing people. And I am just like, I have this moment of like, oh my gosh, we're so lucky. This is amazing. Not to tune our own words, but I'm really proud of the work we do and I'm really honored that we get to talk to those people and our listeners. I include you all amongst that group.
Doree: Toot toot,
Kate: Toot toot. I mean, we've talked to somebody who puts serums on their butts.
Doree: Yeah. Yeah. So that is going to be coming up soon. So please reach out to us. We also have an update on our Giving Circle, which I mean you all just crushed it as we've mentioned. And hello, we flipped the Pennsylvania House Senate legislature. We flipped, we the flipped Pennsylvania legislature, which no one thought was going to happen this year. Everyone was maybe 2024. But I'm just going to credit the work of Forever35 podcast listeners in flipping that legislature,
Kate: Doree.
Doree: But here's the problem.
Kate: Doree. Wait, quick question, Doree, for someone who, let's say just tune into this podcast for the first time today, what is our Giving Circle?
Doree: Our Giving Circle is run through an organization called the State's Project whose explicit goal is to hold democratic state legislatures, or as the case may be, flip them or build more of a majority. And everything is at the state level and not governorships or secretary, it's just state legislatures. The idea being that this is where a lot of the actual shit goes down, those abortion bans, those are done at the state level. So the idea of these Giving Circles is that people raise money for these state races that often get overlooked and they're not propping up one specific candidate. We're giving money to help democratic candidates in certain battleground states get elected to the state legislature, and we selected Pennsylvania as the state that was going to be the recipient of all the money that we raised. We raised over $50,000
Kate: I mean, which is, what?
Doree: Which is amazing. And the States Project put that money to really freaking good use in Pennsylvania. They were able to hire people to, they were able to knock on over a million doors. It made a difference. I think that's the most amazing thing, is the efforts paid off. We see that the efforts paid off. It's very cool. Now, you may be wondering, Doree, where are you going with this? Here's where I'm going with this.
Kate: Someone might be, okay.
Doree: So unfortunately the game is not over yet. Pennsylvania, that sneaky, sneaky, little commonwealth is holding three upcoming special elections that are going to determine control of the chamber. And we need to hold these seats. Period. End of story. If we lose any of these seats, Republicans are going to have a majority in Harrisburg. This is a very tenuous majority that we have here. As I said before, no one thought that we were going to have the majority. So just the fact that we have it is amazing. But now we gotta keep it. So the State's Project team is working very closely with their Pennsylvania partners to make sure we hold the chamber. And we don't know exactly what the candidates for these seats are going to be. But we do know that special elections are going to happen in the first quarter of 2023, which is right around the corner.
Kate: Yeah, it's lurking.
Doree: And I think the thing about special elections is people don't vote in them. They tend to be very low turnout elections. So it's basically whoever can get out the most votes is probably going to win. So these districts are heavily democratic, but anything could happen. And we think that the races are going to be very heavily contested because the margins in the chamber are so close. So in other words, we are raising money for these special elections. Now, a lot of you were amazing and did recurring donations in our Giving Circle, which is the best. Thank you so much. If you maybe made a one-time donation or you didn't donate at all and you're like, oh shoot, I meant to do that, now is the time. Get on in there, get on over to our Giving Circle, we'll post the link in the show notes. And any amount helps, literally any amount a dollar helps. If you can give more than a dollar, great. But if you can't, you can't. Now Kate and I donated money to our initial effort and we're going to donate additional money to this effort and we'll match the first thousand dollars of donations to the special election Giving Circle. So your money is doubled
Kate: Let's do this.
Doree: As they like to say on the NPR pledge drives.
Kate: Oh, I love an NPR pledge drive.
Doree: We're doing a Giving Circle pledge drive.
Kate: There we go.
Doree: That's essentially what we're doing,
Kate: Just you and me two Terry Gross's just doing a pledge drive.
Doree: Yeah. Yep. Look at us. Kate, is there anything else about the Giving Circle that I missed?
Kate: No, I think you nailed it. It's been such a wonderful experience. We're so grateful to Melissa Walker and her team for helping for navigating this with us and being such an incredible group of people to work with. They're doing amazing stuff over there. We're so proud to be working with them. And if we might have, we'll try to get you as much information as we can as we learn it too about these PA elections.
Doree: Alright, Kate, you have a prop rec.
Kate: Okay, so yesterday you and I and some friends gathered to write together some writer friends, and I put on a touch of makeup. I just felt kind of like how you put on jeans when you're like, I, I'm leaving the house, I think I'm put on some jeans, which I also did yesterday. I put on some makeup and I grabbed this thing that Pixie sent to us that's was sitting in my little drawer by my very cluttered bathroom counter. And I was like, oh right, this stuff, I'll just throw this on. And I was reminded how much I like it and I just wanted to give it a little holler. And I will tell you what I put on the rest of my face just if anyone's curious because it was fun to be like, oh, I remember, I'm going to put this on. This is what, okay, I like this. Feels good. You know how sometimes you're just, I don't know, it's just fun to kind of revisit things that have been sitting there forever that you forget that you own.
Doree: Yeah, totally.
Kate: it's essentially, I'm saying I shopped my closet, but what I did instead of my closet was I shopped my skincare. I put on the tinted face oil by Kosas, which I had put on a ton of oak essentials face oil first. And then I was like, oh, put some of this on. It's a very light skin tint, but it's also an oil. Okay. Threw that on. Then I schmeared some of that Jones Road balm all over my cheeks. That's not the name. Okay, let me get the name right. The Jones Road Miracle Balm. I kinda smeared that on my cheeks. Then I gave myself some Jones Road mascara cuz that was sitting there. And then the star of the show was this Pixie and Hello Kitty lip tone. It's called a reactive tint Doree. It goes clear, but then it kind of turns into a shade on your lips. It adjusts to your own lip color and kind of enhances it. So I've used it that way. But then what I did was I wore it on top. I had thrown on a lipstick and then I put this on top and it changed. It enhanced the color of the lipstick and provided a delightful gloss. And it's was very, it felt really good. And I'm looking here, it says it has rose, rose seed, hip oil and mango seed butter and tangerine peel oil. And it felt very nourishing. So I was pleasantly surprised and I was just reminded of what a great little workhorse this is. And I think Pixie only, this is only a Pixie and Hello Kitty collab product. You can get it at Target. It's there. But I just wanted to draw some eyes to it. It's a good one. It's sitting there on a shelf, flying under the radar right now.
Doree: I, I liked all of the, I think they sent us a bunch of that Hello Kitty collab and I liked all of it.
Kate: They sure did. Yeah. Yeah, they did. Yeah. And it reminded me too, of the glossy days of the early s remember how glossy lips were in like 2002 and three?
Doree: Well, do you remember Mac the lip glass?
Kate: I don't think I owned it. Hold on.
Doree: Oh, I owned it.
Kate: Mac lip glass. Okay, tell me about it.
Doree: First of all, it was so sticky. It was like putting rubber cement on your lips. it's just like. It was so sticky. It was gross it but it was that look, it was that super, super, super high gloss. Look, I had it in clear so you could put it over anything. And then I think I had it in a color also.
Kate: I mean, is that cool again that look,
Doree: I wonder if they still make it Mac,
Kate: It's called mac lip.
Doree: Oh yeah, they do. They still make it. And here they have the clear,
Kate: Ooh, maybe might bring it back.
Doree: Maybe a unique clear lip gloss that can create a glass like finish or a subtle sheen. I found it very not subtle. I mean it's a good product if that's what you're looking for. But I found it very shiny.
Kate: Well, and it was sticky. I mean, I don't know if I used sticky, used this exact product, but it was our lips were fly paper. They could attract literally bugs could stick on them and die.
Doree: Yes. That is such a good way to describe it. That's a hundred percent what it was.
Kate: It was such like a tacky, like you said, the rubber cement feeling.
Doree: It was tacky. It was tacky. It was,
Kate: And we don't mean tack acky tacky, we mean the actual texture, the feeling, not the description of the adjective.
Doree: Yes, yes, yes. That yes. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. Thank you.
Kate: Yes, yes. Now I just wanted to also, while we're having a little bit of a reminisce fest, did you use DuWop lip venom? Because I remember this was a 2004-5 product.
Doree: Oh My gosh, I have not thought about that in so long. But yes I did.
Kate: It would tingle your lips and essentially claimed to plump them up and give them Yes. Bee-sting lips.
Doree: Bee stung lips. That's right.
Kate: I can still kind of taste the flavor of that lip venom.
Doree: Well Kate, we need to take a break, but before we do that, let's introduce our guest. I mean, I know that saying someone as an iconic guest has become kind of a joke since Zwei says that. But we truly had an iconic guest on this week.
Kate: We did. This was wild for me in terms of someone who grew up in the eighties. And also our guest today is Paulina Porizkova.
Doree: I mean.
Kate: Do you know who that is? Listeners? Are you dying Paulina's first Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover was in 1984. Yes. She was the face of Estee Lauder. She was one of the highest paid models in the world. And yes, you probably know that when she was 19, she fell in love with Rick Ocasek, the front man of the Cars. And they had also an iconic relationship. They were married, she experienced motherhood. She wrote novel.
Doree: He was 40 when they met.
Kate: And most recently in the last few years they separated and he passed. And she experienced a deep betrayal in which she discovered in that moment that she had been removed from his will. And she has written about it in an incredible memoir called No Filter which we both had the pleasure of reading. And she was just a really open, vulnerable guest. It was fascinating to talk to her. It was so fascinating. So her book, which is out now, is called No Filter, the Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful. It's a book of essays about grief, about anxiety, about her experience as a model, misogyny, sexual harassment, love, relationships, beauty, participating the beauty industry. I mean, it's just fascinating. And
Doree: She has seen some shit. Yeah, she has seen some shit. And the eras that she experienced as a supermodel, I, it was very interesting to talk to her. Very interesting.
Kate: Yeah. So we're going to take a break and when we come back we will be joined by Paulina Poriskova. We both loved your book. I telling Doree, I was crying, I was having so many feelings. It's really lovely. It's such a great book. Was a great read. Oh,
Paulina: Thank you. So many feelings that hits me where I choose.
Kate: Well I'm glad your vulnerability throughout the book is, and also in your public life. And I know you talk about this with social, but it's much appreciated To get started, we love to ask our guests about a self-care practice that they have in their own life. So is there one that you would be willing to share with us and our listeners, something that brings you calm, joy or just something you do on a regular basis that you really rely on to get through the day?
Paulina: I think, well there are two things actually. One, probably the most self caring thing that I do and have done since I was probably five years old is reading. That to me feels like self care. It's always a slight luxury to me to read. So I, it's, I never see it as something that I'm doing that's good for me brain wise or studying. I just love reading so much. And I read, if I have the time, I read in the morning when I wake up a little too early, I read and it'll sometimes put me back to sleep for a little while. I always read before I go to sleep. I can't think I can go to sleep without reading a book. And so books to me is my favorite. It's a my escape. It's my escape from when I'm feeling sad or overwhelmed or lonely. I can always escape into books. And so that's my biggest self care. Plus I learned something about the world, about about something else. So that's one thing that I really love. And then I guess another self-care thing that I only started doing fairly recently that has really saved my life to some extent is meditation. And I used to make fun of meditation and I used to make fun of people that meditate. It was almost sort of a religious adherence to you must meditate in order to make your life worthwhile. And so I resisted it cause that's what I do. I just need to rebel until I got so, until I was so messed up. And so in such a dark space, I thought I tried everything else. So I'm going to try this meditation thing to find whatever. And it turns out that it is actually something that is really good for you. But it got me through some really dark times. And so that's my other self care.
Kate: So you talk a lot in the book about your experience of grief which we will get all into, but you also talk about suffering from anxiety and panic attacks your whole life. Was the meditation in relation to either of those things or something else that was going on? Or was it kind of just the cumulative effect of life that you were looking for something to really looking for a remedy or a tool?
Paulina: A really good question. And I to say, I think it was one of those perfect storm things where I was just so outta other options and sure anxiety and anxiety attacks. And I've been told my entire life that I should meditate cause of anxiety and my panic attacks. And I've been told that I should do yoga and I've been told many of things that I should do. And then I would try them out in intervals and go, well this is boring. And then fall off the wagon and not really do it. Cause I don't really enjoy it all that much. And with meditation, I really had to learn, see there's people that there's a lot of meditation that that's taught to you by breathing. And for me breathing is panic attacks. That's how I get myself outta a panic attack. Panic attack by breathing, by paying attention to my breathing. So oddly enough, when I tried meditation with the breathing techniques, it would put me into a panic attack because my body muscle memory would respond to it as though I was in panic. So it wasn't working for me at all. And I tried it for years and I kept thinking, well this meditation thing just sucks. I mean they're, I dunno what talking about. And it wasn't until I took a meditation class, actually I think it was Kenya or something fancy. But we sat around and they told us to breathe and breathing and on great panic attack. And teachers teacher said, so how did you all feel? And some people were like, I was bored, my brain was wandering. And I said, well I just got a panic attack because of the breathing. And she went, well that's easy. Don't do the breathing stuff. Why don't you just sit and listen for noise? Take the noise in and let it go away. Why don't you just do that? And that changed my life. Finally, I was able to take in the meditation practice. But whenever I do it with any visual visualization meditation where they tell you to breathe, I'm like lalalala cant hear you, until to the good part.
Doree: When in your day do you meditate and how long do you meditate for?
Paulina: In the last year, because I was pretty rickety I started off doing an hour a day and I would do an hour a day.
Doree: Wow.
Paulina: Yea, Religiously for seven or eight months. And now I feel like I'm feeling a lot better about life. I'm feeling better about myself. And so sometimes I just do five minutes, it's enough, sometimes it's enough to just give me a little breather and kind of, oh God, I hate what a, I sound like such a cliche. It centers me does it centers me. So I'm two and a half minutes is good if nothing else. And now I do a little meditation while sitting in a car or on a train, just close my eyes, listen, listen for sounds, let them pass and voila. Bingo, I'm centered.
Kate: Youre done. Everything is fixed.
Paulina: That's right. World's a better place.
Kate: So we both really loved reading your book and I guess a good place to start is where you begin your story in being recognized as the Crying Lady on Instagram, which I thought was a very funny anecdote. But throughout the book you talk a lot about your own childhood and becoming a model but also it's time before becoming a model, which was fascinating. I didn't know your life story in that way. And you have this wonderful quote where you said, just as when I was a child, I discovered that when I was the most seen, I felt the least heard. And this seems to be a theme that comes up throughout your life and as something that you've kind of in recent years really, really changed. So I think we would both love to know just about your experience with finding your authentic voice and how that has transformed you in the last few years of your life.
Paulina: Well see, here's a great misconception is that I found my authentic voice as though I didn't have one before.
Kate: Oh this is a good point because you talk about this too.
Paulina: Yeah. It's not that I didn't have a voice, it's just that nobody cared to listen. My authentic voice was buried underneath all of other people's assumptions. It had nothing to do with me being authentic or inauthentic or anything. It's just that I was looked at, I was seen as there was a Paulina shaped space wherever I was that was clearly seen. But nobody really cared to listen. I guess I didn't seem interesting enough to be listened to.
Kate: What do you think changed?
Paulina: I got older and my husband died. Wee fun. Yeah. Yes. I'm being a little sarcastic here. Tragedy humanizes one. And the fact that I now no longer am seen necessarily as in my prime, which I'm told repeatedly, you're no longer in your prime. And I'm like, well I think I'm so fine. You can think whatever you think, but I think I'm in my prime. But I really think that unfortunately the tragedy of my husband, and unfortunately that's what humanized me enough to people to start paying attention to what I said. It's like, oh look, this enchanted life can also have cracks, can also have problems. And I think once people tuned in, once people gave me a chance, then they realized that, yeah, I'm human just like all of us. And as for being authentic, I've always been the same freaking person I am, as far as being honest and as far as being authentic I'm like smarter now and I have a lot more to say, and I'm better at saying it. But I've never been anybody else. I've always been this person.
Doree: I wanna ask you, you mentioned your husband's death and this is theme of betrayal and grief is one that kind of runs throughout the entire book. And you write very eloquently and honestly about the betrayal you felt from your husband who surprised you after his death with a will that you were not aware of that basically cut you out and said that you had abandoned him. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you have reconciled betrayal and grief and did writing this book help bring about any kind of healing for you?
Paulina: Alright, so that's kinda a multifold question there. Reconciling grief I don't think is possible. I think you just greive. there is a stage of acute grief where you can't do nothing else. And then there's a stage of grief where I'm now, which is going to make me get teary-eyed right now, just thinking about my husband and thinking about time passed that, I don't know how long that takes to go away, but there's no way to reconcile with grief. There's only living through it chewing your way through it. At first it's really chewy and then it gets a little bit easier to swallow. But that's grief, anger. Anger is a different beast. It's in the same side of bad as grief, unfortunately. So the two of them together were not the world's best combination but the anger, because I can't, I can't talk to my husband and I can't ask him why and what possessed him and I can't get answers. So the way to reconcile with that I think for me at least, is gratitude. Gratitude for the love that we had, gratitude for the wonderful times that we had, for the love I had. As much as it went to shit. There was years and years and years of the kinda love that I really needed and wanted. And I think being grateful for that allows me to not be so angry anymore. And then there is the wait and then was, what was the end part of that question?
Doree: Sorry. Well I was just wondering, I guess I'm just wondering more how if writing this book
Paulina: Oh that's right.
Doree: Helped bring about any kind of healing for you. Yeah.
Paulina: So the thing about the writing the book, it was written in three months. I had a super tightest deadline of all time. So unfortunately everything that I write about was, it was all stacked up to my chin. It was like the pages were all just already stacked up in me and I was like, I a copy machine. It was just coming out. Yeah, one after another. So talking about my grief, talking about the shock of finding him dead, talking about the betrayal and how hurt I was and even about my heartbreak and this man that I fell in love with that left me at the world's best moment that oddly enough that was not what was cathartic what was the hardest essay that I wrote, which was falling in love and going back to how I felt about my husband when I first met him and how much in love I was with him and how much he meant to me. And trying to pull the reader into why was I with this man for such a long time and why did I love him so much? Even though some people now say, well it sounds like you had a horrible toxic relationship, and you think, no, no, the marriage eventually turned toxic as marriages that don't work will. But first there were years and years of love and that I think is what allowed the gratitude to come to lessen my anger. So yes, that was the cathartic part. Not to let the bad stuff out, but to let the good stuff in.
Kate: I love how you are describing this the idea that gratitude is the kind of antidote to anger, but not how it never sounds like you were forcing gratitude because I found in my own experience when I do that it doesn't have this kind of positive impact, but it sounds like it was so, it was organically part of your experience. And I just find that really moving
Paulina: yeah, Cuz everybody says forgiveness. Forgiveness and compassion. I couldn't muster forgiveness and I couldn't muster compassion. I couldn't do it I didn't know how. And I'm not even that sure that I've forgiven yet. And I don't think that I even need to necessarily forgive. Yeah, I don't think so. What it was terrible idea that people, not just me up our family did. It did a lot of bad to a lot of other people who loved my husband and it wasn't fair. But again, to just repeat myself, being able to writing about, remembering the good times and why it was so good and what was my part in needing to be loved in this way and what did it do for me allowed the gratitude to filter in.
Doree: So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back. Okay. We're back.
Kate: You have this really lovely chapter called Nude, not Naked, talking about the difference between being the two and the ways in which we're especially Americans are conditioned to believe that to be either is to instill a great deal of anxiety upon ourselves. Can you talk about, break down the difference for our listeners and share your point of view and what you kinda talk about in that chapter about being seen and being comfortable in your own, not even just comfortable at ease and powerful in your body.
Paulina: Well that was a gift from Sweden. So of course this was fortuitous for me. But as reading the book from the age of nine to the age of 15, I grew up in Sweden. And it turns out, this is kind of when you're coming into your sexuality as a young woman. And it was the best time ever to be growing up in Sweden in the late 1970s, one of the most gender equal countries in the world. where girls bodies belonged to themselves and you never felt like you were a victim because you had full choice of what to do with yourself. It's amazing what happens to women when we feel like we get to make the choices and the choices of partners say of romantic partners, the choice of where we want to go, what we want to do, when we wanna bear children, when all of those choices are yours. It really, it makes you believe in your femininity in a much different way. I thought I was super powerful cause I was a woman, this is what I learned in Sweden. I'm as good as any man, but I can also carry a child when I feel like it. So that put me a step above. And I remember in when I was a kid in Swedish nightclubs it was the girls that would make the choices of dance partners. The boys would line the walls and the girls would go and pick the guy and they'd go, okay, you. And the guy would be like, okay, yeah. And all the other guys are going like woo woo, you know, lucky you, lucky you. And it just instills a different kind of, it's different moral code about who you are as a woman. And of course, and in Sweden also nudity was, it's a healthy great thing. Sex was discussed very frankly in school. I think grade four we had sex ed and we were taught about masturbation and we were told it's a really good thing to do, figure this out and go off and have fun. You kids, this is healthy for you. It wasn't just STDs, it was like, no, this is your body and you can use it and you can have fun with it. There's like Nevea ads for just whatever bland creams fully naked in magazines and on tv. Nobody thought of as of an unclothed human body as something that was shameful. There was no shame attached. There was no shame attached to a woman wanting to have sex. There was no shame attached to a woman choosing her partner. There was no shame in a woman revealing her body the way a man always has. So with that history of growing up, I then moved to France where everything turned upside down and I went, oh wait. Oh no, it works totally differently here. And in France it was far more about the sexual mystique that keeping things covered was sexier. Not being fully naked was fine, it was acceptable. Nobody would really frown, but they would go, that's not sexy, that's that's kind of athletic. And again, Europe had a much better, or much different take on what nudity and being naked is. Then I came to America and things certainly changed. Like, oh here being naked was shameful, was bad. You don't show off your body because your body is really for your man. It's not your own. It's for your husband. Your uterus belongs to the government and the rest of you belongs to your social groups. I mean just like new rules, I had to learn a lot of new rules and though I obeyed them and follow them, it's not how I was raised. And therefore to me, I still cannot seem to see nudity and sex as a bad and dirty, shameful thing. I think it's great. It's a very long answer. Short question, sorry
Kate: No, I want to clap. Stand up and applaud.
Doree: In one of your early chapters, you write about how, I can't, it was one of your first photo shoots and the photographer put his penis on your shoulder.
Kate: Oh yes.
Doree: And I'm wondering if you have thoughts on whether the Me Too movement actually has affected the modeling industry in any way.
Paulina: Oh my God, yes. Oh my God. I mean it's a completely different ballgame now. Now, mind you, even though I've done a couple of campaigns in modeling, I used to work probably 250 days out of the year and this year I've had six jobs. So it's much different from when I was actually a full-time model.
Doree: Sure.
Paulina: And also, I'm a woman so nobody's going to do anything to me anymore. So I'm not super well equipped in talking about today's modeling because I'm not really a part of it. But what I do know is that because, and again, the goods and the good and the bad of social media, the model ticket booked today are models that have the most Instagram followers. And if a photographer puts a penis on her shoulder, guess what? She will have millions of followers that she can announce this to. She has a voice that we never had. And that does keep you safe to a certain extent. You just can't do the kinda stuff that was OK in the dark and the silence. There's no more silence.
Kate: I just wanted to note, this isn't really a question more just as a thank you, but your chapter on height. I'm a fellow tall person. I'm 5 foot 10.
Paulina: Yay.
Kate: And it was the first time I've ever read the way I have always felt as a tall person. I've seen it put into words and you talk about the connection between height and femininity and how you kind of grew up. You said that they couldn't, you grew up believing when you were younger that they couldn't coexist. And this idea of diminishing your physical stature, I, it really rocked me because it just connected with how I have always felt and have been working to kind of eliminate from my head space this feeling about my height.
Paulina: Diminishing yourself right?
Kate: Sorry?
Paulina: Of diminishing yourself of being a little less
Kate: This my whole life. Yeah, yeah.
Paulina: Cause you can't like being a little less intelligent or a little less something else doesn't show quite as obviously. So yeah. So we diminish ourselves, stats, whatever you call it, phys physically. I'm so happy. I know that essay was written for the tall girls because the short girls are like, I don't really know what you're talking about.
Kate: Yeah, well it's this idea of like, oh you must love being tall and I have tall daughters and I love that you talk about your son getting approached about playing basketball. Cause it's the same thing with me and the same thing with my kids. But the perception of what it means to be tall versus what my lived experience has been has always made me feel like I've missed something. And I just was so grateful that you put that into words so beautifully.
Paulina: Oh, thank you. Yeah, that was because it was a big thing in my life. It was that moment when that actor said, don't diminish yourself for me. And I realized in the flash, I was like, wait, I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for myself. And then how messed up is that. I'm diminishing myself for myself in some way even worse. So yeah, it's, it's so sweet because I have a lot of, there's women that have been reading my book and they will come with, there's little underlined, this really resonated with me and this really resonated with me. And it's all from all over the book. And you're the first one that has referred to the height.
Kate: Really?
Paulina: Yeah.
Kate: Oh. I mean, I'll show you my own highlights with a heart. I was like, oh my God, this is my tall, the tall experience. Finally it's captured. So I'm glad to be the first. Very proud. I won't be the last, I'm sure.
Paulina: Well I hope there's some other tall girls that read the book and then they can feel good about their heights too.
Kate: Yes. Calling all talls.
Paulina: Is true. We sort of invade the main domain with our heights and everybody else thinks, see it's again, it's being seen as pretty or being rich. Height is seen as well, are you so excited that youre tall? and like, Well, it does have its drawbacks.
Kate: Yes it does, I can vouch for that.
Paulina: Thank you.
Kate: You very honestly talk about your participation in beauty culture, which is something we hash out a lot here on the show. I mean, not just being in the fashion industry for yourself, but still going and buying a cream, even though you're like, I know this is not,
Paulina: I know it is not going to work.
Kate: Right, right.
Paulina: But spend 250 bucks on it,
Kate: But still. So I guess have two questions for you. One is like, where are you with that? Are you just at a point of acceptance of just like, yeah, I am going to buy the creams. That's kind of personally where I am right now, my age. And two, we always love asking guests for skincare product recommendations. So if you do have creams or anything else that you wanna share with our listeners, we still love to hear it.
Paulina: So the one cream that will totally give you a full face lift is nonexsistant.
Kate: I was literally like, I know I shouldn't want this
Paulina: And I'm writing it down right now,
Kate: But
Paulina: I doesn't exist, ladies doesn't exist. Thank you
Kate: Shout it from the rooftops.
Paulina: Well at least for the time being, it sure as hell doesn't exist. So first I'm going to admit to, I'm the Dumbo that will still buy every new cream on the market that says it's new technology and it's do amazing new things to your skin. And yes, I will try out every gadget and every gizmo, because why? I don't even really, why? I guess I'm hoping that somehow it will do just that tiny, tiny little bit that's going to make me feel better about my aging. Even though I really am proud of aging and I'm really proud of my age. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't love to have just a tiny bit less forehead wrinkles. But again, I don't wanna Botox them away. Cause I really do love how much I can express with my face. And I feel like now is finally the time where I get to speak. I get to be heard and my face can carry so much of the conversation for me without even forming words. It's such a gift to be able to use your face to express yourself, to connect. And so I don't wanna kill that. I don't wanna erase that. Even though Botox make you, makes you look prettier. It does, but I don't wanna exchange prettiness, for connection. So I'm hoping that somehow I will somehow fall upon the cream that will make me tiny, tiny bit prettier without the actual deadening of expressions. So yeah, I know I'm going to keep on doing it and I think I just have to, this is self-acceptance.
Kate: Yeah.
Paulina: Yes. I will keep on doing it. I will buy the cream and that cool bottle that tells me somehow something is going to improve, even though I very well know that it won't. hope is enough. I mean, hope is worth putting out money for, right? Because that's what we're buying. We're buying hope in the bottle that will then be thwarted. But what you got for it is that little spark of hope. That's what you've paid for. And this is why I also like to buy, for example, creams that don't cost an arm in a leg. Because that hope can be really freaking expensive and it does only turn out to be hope. So. But why not make the hope a little cheaper since it all does the same thing anyway. I mean there was times where I used my kids' diaper rat cream as my moisturizer worked perfectly fine. I mean it didn't do anything differently than the stuff that I use now. But I really love, I did sign up for this company called Beauty Pie for a while because I really
Kate: Oh yeah,
Paulina: love their product. So I'm not anymore, but I still use them because I can buy a lot of bottles and they're not very expensive. So I just love having the platitude of all these little colored bottles of hope. I don't have to pay through the teeth for it. So that's cool. The one thing that I do know actually does work, it's a little late for me, but sun protection spf, like screw Botox in your face when you're 20 because then you won't develop any character in your face. But do you yet use spf? Cause then you know, will look a little bit less like a whatever leather handbag when you are in your sixties. Not that there's any, Hey leather handbags are very sought after and very expensive. So maybe that's a good look that we should strive for. I'm not even being sarcastic.
Kate: No, you get nice Chanel bag face. There's so wrong with that.
Paulina: Wouldn't that be cool. Like, oh my God, your bag looks like a brick and bag. I mean your face looks like a birkin bag. That should be a compliment.
Kate: Well you do say the history of your life is written in your skin. That's something that I just quoted from your book. And I do think that's a lovely way of just reevaluating how we view our faces. Do you have a story that you see in your own face when you look at yourself? Do you see your life lived?
Paulina: Yeah, totally. I was actually just looking at myself in the mirror the other day and I thought, oh, look at what this is telling so you guys can see me. Cause we're on the monitor, so see the wrinkles on my forehead. I don't have a lot of thoughtful ones, so maybe I didn't think very much. Maybe hopefully those are coming, but I have a lot of surprise wrinkles. Like, whoa, isn't this amazing? And I thought about that the other day. I was like, oh, the wrinkles that I have on my forehead say I have been opening my eyes wide in some sort of happy surprise, like joy. This to me is joyful wrinkles. Like, whoa, look at that. Cause see that's how I got them. So I think those are really cool. And the cords on my neck I, I've decided those are actually really like, I think those are super cool. I think you get them from holding your head up high when your head is really heavy to carry and it just makes me look strong.
Kate: That's pretty badass.
Paulina: Yeah, it's badass. I've like, I've carried a lot of weight and I have this to show for it. that I have ancored that weight to the rest of me. And I am so proud of it. Crows feet smiling. Of course. Smiling and yeah, okay fine. Squinting cuz I'm really nearsighted. But that's a part of it. It's like I'm a reader. I squint, that okay, these guys over here on the sides of my cheeks, not sure where they're from and I don't love those because I can't figure out where they came from.
Kate: That's like a smile maybe a smile laugh line. Yeah.
Paulina: Is it laugh? Is it laugh?
Kate: Sure, Yea.
Paulina: So yeah, I mean the wrinkles on my face seem like I've had a kinda joyful life. Yeah, that's nice, isn't it?
Kate: That's very nice.
Paulina: And it's not entirely true, but
Kate: Listen, it's a good story though. It's a good story you can tell yourself.
Paulina: Yeah, I'm totally going with a story of it.
Kate: Paulina, this has just been so lovely to get to talk to you. No filter is your book, your most recent book? It's their memoir and it's out now. Where else can our listeners find you or hear from you or find your work?
Paulina: Well, I mean this book is also an audible narrated by me, which was really fun to do. I was like, oh, I get to read my book the way that I meant it to be read. But then I listened back to it and thought, God damnit, I could have done it better. So always my own worst critic. There's a novel that I wrote about 14 or 15 years ago now called Model Summer, which is sort of coming of age of a young model in Paris. Yes, it's very much of what I knew, but it's not autobiographical. I think it really confuses people, including my friends that would then refer to certain characters in the book, like so when you hung out with such and I'm like, dude, that's a character I made up for the story. Thanks for giving me very little credit for any kinda imagination. But, and yeah, I mean writing hopefully after the new year I'll start writing some more, but I don't really know what, what's next in my life. I have no idea. I never expected for this to happen. I never knew this year was coming up in my life. I never knew last year, but huh. Last three years have been nothing but surprising. Yeah, not in best of ways, again, I could have done without, I would be fine without those surprises. Thank you very much. But hey, I guess that's what was intended for me. So trying to remain flexible and that's what I'm doing now. It's like remain flexible. Don't say no to anything because you never know where the next thing is coming from, where the next opportunity lies, where I still keep going out on shitty dates and hope that I'm going to find that one. You're not going to find it by not doing it. Right.
Kate: Yeah, that's true. We have talked about this. You're right. Like with dating, it's like you, Doree has done this in dating. You just said yes to everybody because it's, yeah, it's the only way you're going to,
Doree: well, not everybody. Not everybody.
Kate: Sorry. Sorry. You did have some Yes, but I you were open.
Paulina: I I've literally done everybody. I'm like one date for everybody, second date only for those I don't hate.
Doree: Right.
Paulina: And that's like my expectations are obviously fallen quite low when you go second date with those you don't hate. I'm not even saying those you like
Doree: Right?
Kate: It's hard out there.
Paulina: This is my newest description of the dating pool for middle-aged women. Breakfast buffet at a hotel that starts at seven. Middle-aged men get let in at about nine and middle-aged women at 10, 55 minutes before the buffet is closed. So we get the soggy eggs, the limp sausages, croissants are gone. There's a couple of pieces of slimy fruit.
Kate: They're changing everything over to lunch. It's like they didn't even leave anything.
Paulina: Not much for you go on. Everything good was nabb up right away. But my big discovery is those things that are good for you at a breakfast buffet, like brand muffins, they always just sit. They're sitting on the side and nobody really goes for them. Maybe there's a brand muffin out there for me. I am now looking for a brand muffin. Thank you very much.
Kate: Anyone knows a single brand muffin in the New York area.
Paulina: The good for you may be overlooked because they were not shiningly displayed. But they're the ones that I
Kate: You're open. Those are the good ones. Those are the one you wanna keep having. Yep.
Doree: Well Paulina, thank you again. This was really fun and wonderful to get to talk to you.
Paulina: Gosh, thank you so much ladies. It was really, really fun to talk to you too. And thank you for the really interesting and indepth questions. So nice to hear them from a different point of view and I really, you guys had a different perspective on it was really fun.
Kate: That's an incredible compliment. Thank you. Thank you
Doree. One thing I didn't get to say but I actually might shoot an email to her book publicist is that one thing I found really moving about Paulina's book, and I found a lot of it really moving and insightful, but she writes about finding her husband and he's died and how she handled it in those moments immediately after for her kids. And I have never read because I talk a lot about losing a parent. I lost my mom, but I have never read really anything from the point of view of a person losing their spouse who then has to show up for their adult kids. And it in the moment gave me such a glimpse into what that experience must have been like for my dad. And I'm embarrassed to admit this. I've literally never thought about what it was from his, how he must have felt having to show up for me and my brother. I, I've literally never given it much thought. I'm a shithead. But anyway, so that was something that really struck me from her writing and the way she writes about that moment and her grief and anger. And I love what she said about forgiveness. I just thought, I don't know, I just thought she was a fantastic guest.
Doree: Well, Kate.
Kate: Yeah.
Doree: How did walking go?
Kate: Well, unfortunately, you know because I texted you yesterday, I did my first, I tried out the Jeff Galloway app to see if I wanted to run, walk, train for this 5K that I signed up for. The short answer is that I just wanna walk it. The whole time was, every time I was running I was like, eh, I hate this. And then I would walk and I'd be like, I love moving my body so I'm just going to walk this 5k. But I also was sexually harassed while I was doing this training run walk. And so that has just left just a lingering reminder of the life we lead as women showing up in the world. A man just pulled over on the bike path that I was on and the 10 in the morning and started hooting at me about my body. Fuck that guy.
Doree: I'm sorry. That sucks.
Kate: That's okay. It's happened before and it's going to happen again. Doree. That's fucking reality. But it sucks. It sucks, but I am going to keep walking. It feels great. It's cool here in la It just feels lovely to be outside this week. My intention is to go fill up and add items to the little free pantry that's located a five minute drive from my house. If you're not familiar with a little free pantry, it's kind of similar along the lines of a neighbor, a community refrigerator. It's a community pantry for neighborhoods so anyone can go and give to it or take from it. And the intention is to support, especially folks who are dealing with food scarcity or food insecurity. And so I drive by often to check on it and I noticed there was some space on the shelf, so I'm going to just try to go and see what's needed and try to stock it up.
Doree: Love that. That's so thoughtful.
Kate: How about you? What are you up to?
Doree: Well, so last week I said I was going to figure out this half marathon thing. I did, on your advice, I did download the Jeff Galloway app and started it
Kate: oh my gosh,
Doree: For $3.99 a month for his plans, trainings.
Kate: Can we just, have you done one? Because he has the a gentle southern voice and then he uses royalty free music.
Doree: So you're like, you can use your own music.
Kate: I couldn't figure out how to do that with the App I kept trying to turn the,
Doree: I'll show you.
Kate: Okay, you'll show me,
Doree: I'll show you how to do it.
Kate: Oh my gosh, thank you. Because I literally did a training run to like,
Doree: No, yeah, I know. what is this?
Kate: Voice beats. And then I was like, voice beats.
Doree: Yeah, no, no, no. You can connect Spotify, Apple Music, like, whatever you use.
Kate: Oh, Okay. Well then I wanna stay with Jeff because he's just got a soothing tone.
Doree: So I did do one of his runs this week. Here's my thing is I do really enjoy, I really, I've enjoy playing tennis and that's kind of become my main exercise. And it's kind of social, it's with other people, it's outside. I really like it. And then I've found a strength class at my gym that I like. And so this all sort of came up at a point where I felt like I'd kind of figured out I was feeling good about my exercise situation. So I don't know, I'm still a little bit on the fence. I did find out that, and I don't think I knew this the last time we talked about this, but I can defer my acceptance or whatever I will have to pay again. But I have a guarantee if I defer, I get a guaranteed entry to next year's New York City half. So that is an option that I am considering. I'm going to have to see how I feel like the next couple weeks are going to be kind of crucial if I don't get in any of my long runs. And I feel like it's not next week, but it is kind of soon if I'm going to do it, I need to step it up. So I really need to have a real talk with myself. So I haven't quite figured that out yet. This week we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas. They're around the same time this year. Hanukkah starts on December 18th. Christmas starts on December 25th as everyone knows. I dunno why I said that.
Kate: That was weird.
Doree: Ok. And we're going to be with my parents for a lot of Hanukkah, which I'm excited about. And just trying to get stuff ready for Henry and just trying to get pre-holiday stuff, just sort of settled make sure I have gifts for people. I wanna have gifts for these last couple weeks before people LA kind of be shuts down for two weeks I feel like are a little frantic. So trying to just wrap things up and you and I are doing a couple of extra recording, there's just because I'm not going to be here, there's just a lot. So I'm trying to just keep my head above water.
Kate: That's it. That's a great intention for all of us. I think this time of year is, no matter if you celebrate holidays during this time or not, it's, there's a frantic energy that comes as the shortest day approaches. I think it is also the seasonal energy of the solstice. I'm into the solstice. That's another podcast. That's another podcast. Well, Doree it was great to talk to you and listeners, thank you for listening. Friendly reminder that Forever35 is hosted and produced by Doree Shafrir and Kate Spencer and produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager and our network partner is ACAST. Bye.
Doree: Bye.