Episode 287: Living The Dream with Jane Marie
I think we're all very concerned with that likeability and I think it's the patriarchy, it's religion, it's all of that. Behave and be good and you'll eventually in the next life reap some reward for that good behavior.
And I think it's killing us. So we should talk about makeup.
- Jane Marie
Kate and Doree welcome the first ever Forever35 guest back to the podcast: The Dream host, Jane Marie! She reveals where the name Forever35 actually came from, the experiments she’s currently conducting with a red light device, her deep dive into the world of wellness and coaching on this season of The Dream, and her current favorite beauty products.
Photo Credit: Jane Houle
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Transcript
Kate: Hello friends. Welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm 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: Hello. How are you? We have a guest today that we kind of just want to launch right into our chat with them. I think.
Doree: I mean it was,
Kate: and unless you object, Doree, you want to have give a speech or a que
Doree: No, no, I have no speech. I'm happy to just launch into our conversation because it was a great conversation. Not that I ever thought it wasn't going to be given who the guest is.
Kate: So one thing you might not know about Forever35 is that our first guest was Jane Marie, podcast producer and host journalist, stunning human,
Doree: former beauty columnist for Jezebel,
Kate: Host of the Dream. She's a Peabody and Emmy winning journalist. She was on this American Life. I mean,
Doree: Just, it goes on and on.
Kate: It goes on and on. And she was the first guest on Forever35 and other trivia fact about this podcast, she is the one who suggested the name Forever35. When Doree and I were like, what should we call this?
Doree: As we learn in this episode, someone else actually came up with it, but we're not going to reveal
Kate: a plot twist.
Doree: You're going to have to hear it.
Kate: Which shocked me because I think that was the first time I'd heard that
Doree: same. Yeah.
Kate: Well, we love Jane and it was a thrill to get to have her back on Forever35 after almost six years. She is a dear friend of the pod and a true innovator as a podcaster. We love the dream and we're just going to get right into it.
Doree: Alright, here we go. Here's Jane Marie,
Kate: Everybody please welcome Jane Marie to Forever35 for this second time because you are not only a repeat guest, but you were our first guest and you came
Jane: unbelievable
Kate: up with the name Forever35.
Jane: My dad did.
Kate: your dad?
Jane: It was not me. It was my dad. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's something he says already, but no one listens to him but me. So then, yeah, I gave it to you guys. I can't believe I was your first guest and people kept listening.
Kate: If anything, they were like,
Jane: that was years ago.
Kate: Yeah, it was years ago.
Doree: It was years ago, and we recorded it in your old
Jane: right here
Kate: studio
Jane: Right here.
Kate: And you brought out a tiny, tiny zappy device on your face.
Jane: Oh, wait until you see what I have for you today.
Kate: I'm so excited. I cannot wait.
Jane: If all we want to talk about is makeup and skincare, I'm fine with that.
Kate: Fortunately, there's so much more, but we can focus on that. But let's start with this. What is a current self-care practice fve that you have right now?
Jane: Okay, well, I guess I'm going to start with the big guns. Shameless self promotion, I wrote a book. Okay. And when you write a book, as you both know, when you write a book, you get paid three, four different times. You get the deal and then they're like, but just kidding. You can only have it if you jump through the following hoops. I signed my book deal three years ago, the month before the pandemic, February of 2020, and then I didn't turn my book in until this summer. So I got my second payment three years after the first one. And I'm saying all that as a caveat to what I'm about to show you was my gift to myself for finishing a book. And I now want to make 'em enough money to buy them for everybody. But I have the Omnilux Contour tour.
Kate: You are holding up
Doree: speaking Kate language.
Kate: I think I have that one. I have two LED masks, but I procured them through because I was writing about them, so they were gifted to me.
Jane: Oh yeah. I just bought this straight up. But I'm putting it all over my body because it's bendy, so I'm doing it once a day on my face. And also there's never too much red light I've read. And then I'm putting it on my chest like this for my neck, and then I'm putting it on my belly, and then I'm putting it on one thigh only, and then in six months, I'm going to see if that one thigh looks different than the other one. So I'll have to come back on your show.
Kate: Oh wow. You're experimenting with this. I like how you're putting a face also. It's so funny. It looks like just a melted face, so that melted face is just going up all over your body. It's just such a strange, the mask is so malleable and weird.
Jane: It is weird, but I like that it's malleable because you can put it anywhere. You can just, I don't know. There's thousands of dollars you can spend on a full body that looks like a tanning bed kind of thing for the red light therapy. But this is my current obsession and I do it every day and it gives me a half an hour of solitude.
Kate: I saw someone
Jane: Because my daughter doesn't want to look at me with a mask on.
Kate: I did see somebody in a red light like helmet for hair growth.
Jane: Oh, that's supposed to be great. Yeah,
Kate: I saw someone like some sort of,
Jane: well, couldnt I just put that on my head.
Kate: Yes, I think you could. I was going to ask if you're putting it on your head, because I did see that.
Jane: I probably should. I probably should. Do you do yours a lot?
Kate: I get into bed and put it on my face, but I haven't done it other places and I probably should do that. But I find that when people ask about gadgets, this is the one I've only ever been able to be consistent with because it requires the least amount of work. It's not laborious in any way. You don't have to put on a gel on certain parts of your body and you just sit there.
Jane: Doree, what have you been using lately?
Doree: Well, I have been using something called a nebue lift.
Jane: What's that?
Doree: That was likewise sent to me. It's the same idea, but it's a handheld thing. It's a multipolar rf radiofrequency anti-aging device. And this is how they describe it on their website. This patented nebula of gold electrodes delivers RF energy with sub-millimeter precision.
Jane: No, it doesn't.
Doree: Reducing daily treatment time. Right? Like what? To as little as 10 minutes. The nebulous system allows for progressively adaptive treatment for different skin types and various facial areas. It's an antigravity skin cure
Kate: antigravity.
Doree: What that means.
Jane: Well, I was going to say nebulas are in outer space, right? Aren't they?
Doree: Yes.
Jane: Yeah. Okay. That tracks,
Doree: it claims that it is effective for anti-aging, skin tightening, eye bags, erasing. I don't get this that close to my eyes. Wrinkle erasing and acne marks erase.
Kate: That seems like impossible. That's a, erase is a strong word.
Jane: It also, I was going to say that sounds illegal.
Doree: Erase is a very strong word.
Jane: That's illegal language. They're going to get fired. No, because there's structure function claims and erasing is not one of 'em. It's a, it's like a word that makes a medical promise that you're not allowed to do.
Kate: Doree. But I hope it works. If you see things getting erased, I'll be very curious.
Doree: I'll let you know. I'll let you know.
Jane: How much is the NEBU lift?
Doree: It's three. It's like 300 something.
Jane: Yeah. Same thing with this guy with the Omnilux thing. This is my cheapy thing I've been doing lately, and I don't know if it does anything, but TikTok made me look it up. It's not the TikTok one that you see everywhere, but I got it again off Amazon. Got it on Canal Street. So it's probably going to fry my skin off, but it's this triple power, I dunno what any of these things, well, I know what hyaluronic acid does, but then it also has Arline and matrixal 3000.
Kate: Matrixal.
Jane: I dunno, have you heard of that?
Kate: I hear about Matrixal all the time.
Doree: Yes. Yes.
Jane: It's supposedly moisturizing or something.
Doree: Matrixal is a great ingredient.
Jane: Oh, is it? Okay, good. This is only $8.
Doree: It's known to me. Yeah.
Jane: What is it?
Kate: I dunno.
Doree: I dunno. But this company Timeless, which is the one that made the coq 10 serum that I used to rave about, they are also big on Metrixal and have several pure Matrixal products and blah, blah, blah.
Jane: One of those dermatologists that's turned into just a TikTok ad, one of those guys that's like, I have a product now. It's all about Matrixal. So I was like, oh, I'll just look it up. And I got this really cheapy one.
Doree: Oh, interesting.
Jane: Been using it for a month or something. I don't feel any different, but it feels good to be doing something.
Doree: Wow.
Jane: It feels good to try. Yeah.
Doree: I mean, it's all about resting the control back from the broader forces.
Jane: Yeah, exactly.
Doree: Which is I think a good segue to talking about the new season of the dream.
Jane: Oh, good, good. you tell me what,
Doree: well, because I think people are always looking for someone to tell them what to do, I think.
Jane: Not usually me, which it made it a weird experience because it was a
Doree: You're a rebel.
Jane: Well, yeah, not anymore. You know what I mean? I have to come to terms with who I am now. Even on my drive over here,
Doree: I should say. a lot of people just want someone to tell them what to do.
Jane: And I think I wanted them now, but I have to remind myself that now I'm that person.
Doree: Okay. So Jane, for the benefit of our listeners who might not be familiar with the dream, can you give us just a brief rundown of the new season and how you came to it and what you did in the first couple of seasons?
Jane: Sure. So our first season's about multilevel marketing, which is legal pyramid schemes like Mary Kay and LuLaRoe and those kinds of companies. And it's like a deep investigative dive into that world. So we hear from people who sell stuff through these legal pyramid schemes and folks who've lost a bunch of money. And we joined one, which was kind of fun. And then we talk about the history, how these companies exist when absolutely no one makes money. And then the second season kind of grew out of that. We looked at wellness because a lot of the products that are sold through multi-level marketing are wellness and beauty products. The second season was not just an excuse for me to pick on Gwyneth Paltrow, but that was fun. That was a fun added bonus. And I also drove all over LA because LA Loves Wellness,
Kate: does it ever
Jane: collecting products and doing weird treatments and laying in infrared beds like we're talking about now and things like that. But I was really just making fun of most of it. But then we looked at why it's legal to sell all these hokey pokey treatments and stuff. And it's interesting because there just really isn't, with the first season, we focused a lot on the FTC. The Federal Trade Commission should be keeping us from signing up with pyramid schemes, but with wellness, it's more ambiguous. Who is responsible for protecting consumers in that world? Especially if whatever the treatment is you're doing or whatever product you're buying doesn't promise you that it'll erase stuff. If it just says supports or promotes or 98% of our customers saw a difference. Those aren't scientists. And so then, anyway, the third season, we are talking about life. Well, ostensibly we're talking about life coaching, but really we're talking about the American dream, the pursuit of success at all costs and optimizing oneself. And the constant message that I think us as women get in this country, that you need to be trying harder and working harder at everything and putting on the right attitude and having the correct mindset and having it all and wanting it all and leaning in and all of that shit. And then that's supposed to somehow make you happy and healthy and wise. And so I'm challenging that in this season. However, I started this season incredibly depressed and in a pretty dark place in my life. And I did want someone, I have a therapist and I love her and she's great, and I'll never leave her, but I felt like I wanted someone to move my feet for me almost. I wanted someone to tell me what time to wake up or what time I had to leave my bedroom. What time do I just needed, I was already having the feeling before the pandemic that there were no edges to my days. And I think that's partly motherhood. And I'm a single mom, so really if my child is home with me, which she was for two years, there isn't a, I guess mealtime kind of bookends your day sort of, or bedtime. You just, I'm always being a mom and always working when I'm not being a mom. That's my two zones. And both of those are a job. And there I needed someone to come into my life and be like, okay, we have to get you back in to the program here. And I always say, you see that everywhere. You have to prioritize self-care and make sure you're taking, put your oxygen mask on before you help others and all of those kinds of things. And you just think that sounds selfish and frivolous when there's so many more. I have to pay the rent and I have to raise a child by myself and there's no time for me. But I did start just having an out-of-body experience in life in general, where I was just doing my tasks. And that's the other thing that I think people don't talk about very much, which is high functioning, depressive, and I can make it look like everything's fine. I have never lost a job because of my depression. And that's not to brag, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it that does happen to you, but it looks like things are great and fine, and keeping up appearances is important, unfortunately. So that's kind of one of the things we're looking into is like, can we stop? Can we, can everyone just relax? Can everyone just, can I just have, I wish the world worked or I wish our country anyway worked in a way that I could make a good teacher's salary and be okay. And instead the Cheryl Sandberg used to instead, I have to be Sheryl Sandberg or I'm poor. And that's just like, what the fuck? So it's all of that, and we're talking about how it's killing people. It literally is killing people, people of color, striving and ambition and really working over time and trying to escape you're station in life or whatever environment you were born into. And I am saying people of color, because that's what the science says. It leads to hypertension, coronary artery disease, all these things that bring about early death and it's sick and it's not good for anyone. I can't even say that I think it's good for Sheryl Sandberg or Jeff Bezos or we're all suffering.
Doree: It just feels like, yeah, and it feels like there's no, no way out.
Jane: And there's no end.
Doree: There's no end. It's not like if you do this, then it'll be fine. It's like, no, there's,
Jane: As soon as I could afford to rent a home, that was not gross, people would say to me, older people and wealthier people would say to me, oh my gosh, you're paying that much for rent. Why don't you just buy? And I'm like, you have no fucking clue what's going on.
Doree: You paid $150,000 for your Los Feelers mansion in 1981,
Jane: or you paid $150,000 down payment and no one else was coming in all cash and waiving the inspection. I did try to buy a house for a hot second, and I put seven offers on seven different houses, and people with cash outbid me and waived inspections and just did everything they could do to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more than what I had. Because if you pay in cash, you're actually saving money. You're not paying your interest compounding. So if I had 2 million lying around, I would have a house, but who has 2 million? I don't have money. So I can scrape together too much rent every month. But when I sit down and do the math, I'm like, okay, I could move into a cheaper apartment. I'd only have to live there for 10 years to save enough money to buy an equivalent space. I would be saving up what, a thousand dollars a month?
Kate: It's crazy.
Jane: So for 10 years I could do that. And then by that time, my child's in college and why I just, I'll just move into a fucking retirement home in Miami. I'm not going to
Kate: take me with you.
Jane: So anyways, this grind that we're all making each other do is gross. And that's kind of what we're looking at. But also looking at the origins of how 150 years ago, where did this idea of American exceptionalism and this being a meritocracy, I think most of it's rooted in racism. I think that after the Civil War, people wanted to put the blame. White people wanted to absolve themselves of any responsibility for what they'd been doing for hundreds of years to black people. And they said, that's where bootstrap thinking came up. Okay, now you're free and you have to do it on your own. This isn't our problem, and we're going to keep some obstacles up too, just to see if you can figure out how to knock 'em down. And that idea is what we're all living under all of us, and we haven't gotten rid of it. And it's so stressful and irritating and very interesting to research.
Doree: Jane, when I was talking about the Nebula, I noticed that right away you were like, they can't say that.
Jane: Yeah, they can't.
Doree: That is illegal. But this feels like something that now you are an expert on all this stuff. You know what these companies can say and what they can't say. And I'm just wondering how has that sort of changed the way move through the world
Kate: Yes and like buy product? Or had experiences?
Jane: Yeah. Well, I will say I use mostly prescription skincare now. I don't spend, I was on a La Mer kick for a while there. My friend Edith gave me a sample of La Mer. I've never actually taken beauty samples. I know you guys have, but I've never done that. But I did get into La Mer because I thought it was not contributing to my breakouts or whatever, and it's super expensive, and it was a crazy bad habit for me to be spending that kind of money. And I would try to replace it with Nivea, whatever. But now I'm, after doing all this research, I'm just like, I'm just going to do Retin A and hydroquinone and leave it at that. And then I'll just put Vaseline all over my face if I'm feeling dry or whatever. Or this $8 Matrixx thing, this I'm goofing around. I don't know what, same thing with the red light thing. I'm dicking around with that. I don't know. That's why I'm doing an experiment, putting it on one thigh and not the other. I just want to see what happens. But I'm less susceptible, I would say. Also, it also though, did make me more interested in supplements and stuff.
Doree: More interested,
Jane: Something more interested, because I never thought about them before doing the research. Never. We weren't a multivitamin family, but we also weren't a snack family. We had Whole Foods at every meal kind of thing, it on a farm and ate vegetables at every meal and that kind of thing. So becoming an adult and going out on my own vitamins until I had a kid really, I never thought about supplementing my diet with anything. And now I'm like, oh, I wonder what NAD plus does or what they say it does or whatever. That's a big one is that people are trying, it makes me more curious. It makes me curious about them. I'm not taking any of it, but I am clocking it more that I've done all this research into that. And then wellness treatments, I still don't do any of those. I don't even really get facials. What are facials? Like a good scrubbing?
Doree: Yeah. I mean, I feel like sometimes with these things, a facial, it's like if you enjoy the process of the facial, you enjoy the experience of going to the spa or salon or whatever it is, lying there and having someone put creams on your face and do the extractions, great. But maybe don't think this is going to change your life.
Jane: No. And you have to go back every week if you want it to feel like the day of. There's no lasting effects from a good scrubbing, but I'll give myself a good scrubbing.
Doree: So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back.
Kate: Jane, one thing that is interesting to me, kind of had mentioned this, I can't remember which episode, but just the way in which you can scroll through TikTok and all of a sudden everybody is offering life advice, not even people who have taken some sort of life coaching course, which there's no regulation when it comes to life coaching or accreditation, but even just like, I'm a mom of four and here's how I got my life together. I do this and I watch those. I consume those videos.
Jane: Me too. Me too.
Kate: Obsessively.
Jane: Do you know the lady with the face tattoos? She's gorgeous and she has the pen.
Kate: I don't
Jane: Pentagram on her hand.
Kate: I've had to take all social media off my phone, but I still watch reels via Facebook.
Jane: I should do that.
Kate: They will come up as ads. They're content creators marketing themselves with life advice, but their expertise is through their own lived experience, which is not to say that that's not valuable, but we're all just kind of sharing tips and getting tips from anybody right now. Thanks to the ways in which, especially a platform like TikTok, but also Instagram, the ways in which it works, and I don't know, where do we go from here? It just feels very kind of open-ended and a bit like a free for all.
Jane: I think we're going to get sick of it. I think that, well, this is just my hopeful wishful thinking, but I think in the same way that after I was saturated with all this bullshit, I was like, I'm just going back to the basics. I'm going to go to my doctor. I'm going to do what my doctor says, period, the end. I'm not going to, again, that's kind of asking someone else to think for me. And I think that there's a lot of people that believe in wellness who don't believe in doctors, which is two different things. You do have to believe in wellness because it's not evidence-based. Most of it. I don't have to believe in my doctor. I'm fairly certain that if my arm needed to be removed for some reason and we removed it and I got better, that that was probably the right thing to do. So I think we're all going to get tired of this. I think it's already starting the De-influencing stuff that's happening. People are, thank God I've gotten in trouble in the past for pit talking a certain brand or whatever at places that I worked and wrote about beauty, and that's all changing, which is great. Yeah. I think that collectively, I think the kids are smart, and I think especially the kids coming behind Gen Z are very smart and very conscientious, a little world wary in a way that I think makes them very thoughtful. I'm talking like anyone in elementary or middle school or even early high school right now have grown up and during dark times, those are
Kate: My kids and your kid, right? Yeah.
Jane: Yeah. Dark shit. And they don't like it, and they don't think it's okay.
Kate: Yeah.
Jane: I mean, I feel like as an eighties baby seventies, eighties baby, we were taught that Reagan was awesome. And then it wasn't until as adults, we were like, what was trickle down economics? What the fuck? What was 13% interest on mortgages? And everyone was just like, yeah, it's great. Isn't the cocaine good? And you're like, whoa. But I think the kids now, I think they understand, and I mean all kids, I mean all over the country. I have little sisters who are 13 and 15 and live in the boonies in Michigan, and even them and all their friends are just like the jigs up. So I'm excited for that. And they all totally believe in climate change. Thank God these boomers are going to die. And I think with them will go a lot of antiquated ideas that we explore in the show and in my book about what it means to be an American about what it means to be industrious, about what it means to be seen as a positive, helpful person in the eyes of the Lord. All that shit is going to stop, hopefully.
Kate: Well, you mentioned people not believing in doctors, and it was so fascinating. I listened to the first episode of this season, and you talk about this life coach influencer who came out of an MLM named Jesse Lee, who gained infamy for misleading people on a retreat about a walk and people falling ill and then Googled. I had heard that story when it happened, and then I googled this person, and she died literally the day before this season came out.
Jane: Wait until episode nine.
Kate: Okay. So you talk about it in
Jane: I talked to her, I to her.
Kate: Oh God.
Jane: Yeah. It's harsh, man. We're doing a bonus episode about it. Yeah. I've never had anything like this happen in my reporting before. This isn't about me. I mean, she's dead, so it's about her, but it's been a puzzle, is what I mean. I've, I mean, I've been working in documentary for 20 years, so of course I've done stories about people who are dying or I've had people die, but I've never had such a nasty exchange and experience with someone truly cruel and just weird. And then they're gone, and you, I don't know what to, I was so anxious even going,
Doree: Did you know she was so sick?
Jane: you know, was, yeah, I talked about it on the episode. So that episode was all done. She died the day before the season came out, so it was all done, but she was trying to cure her cancer through her narcissism essentially, and just by believing she could and not listening to any doctors and going to alternative medicine only. And she not only had stage four colon cancer, but she had all of those end stage cancers. Once you get something that bad, and you have, what's it called when your abdomen fills with fluid, when your liver shuts down, that thing, it's got a name. I forget. She had to get that drain and stuff.
Kate: I can't remember what it's called.
Jane: She had to get dozens of lymph nodes removed that were all cancerous everywhere,
Kate: It metastasized all over her. Yeah.
Jane: And she knew this. She knew this, but she still thought she was curing it herself. There's even what I can't say, but there's alternative stories out there among her followers about how she really died.
Doree: Oh my God,
Jane: That it wasn't cancer after all of that. It wasn't cancer according to these folks. So it was bad what she was doing and telling people they didn't have to get mammograms and don't get ultrasounds and don't get MRIs. Meanwhile, she's getting MRIs, and then we have this really gnarly experience with my interview with her and her bullying me for days on the internet and going into the interview, I was so anxious because I knew she was super sick and I didn't want to be me. I didn't, it seemed like she was dying and she'd been losing a lot of weight and stuff. And I figured out halfway into the interview that she had not looked me up at all. So she didn't know what, and we'd given her all the information, or her assistant, I guess maybe her assistant didn't relay the information correctly, but I think they just saw like, oh, you're, whatever. You have this many listeners, and okay, we'll do it. So she figured it out halfway through. And what I figured out halfway through the interview in addition to that, was that she was live broadcasting the whole thing without my permission. Yes. On all of her channels.
Doree: Oh my God.
Jane: She didn't tell me I wasn't using my camera. I was at my mom's house in the middle of nowhere in Michigan, and I was using my phone and my camera was off, and I started getting text messages toward the end of our interview from people that I'd interviewed on the show who knew her or had worked with her, like Erin, who's in the first episode saying, do you know that you're on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok right now? And I was like, what?
Doree: Oh my God.
Jane: It's still on her Instagram. She's dead. And she didn't remove it. So it's there if you want to watch it. It's really nasty.
Doree: Holy crap.
Jane: Yeah, it was an experience. And then she fucking died an asshole. She was already an asshole, but then she went and died, and it's just been like, I don't know how to feel about it. I feel terrible about it. I feel like I wish she was only 34, you guys.
Kate: Oh God, seriously,
Jane: 34.
Kate: Oh God, that's so awful.
Jane: And essentially what she told herself was like, I'm ready to be done now. You know what I like what mean? It's a subconscious thing, but it's so depressing. It's so depressing. So I talked to Erin again for the show, and I talked to my friend Megan, who's a death doula about what people do when they have mixed feelings about a loved one who's dying or who has died. I think we do not speak about that in this country. That's for sure. You're not getting points in heaven if you do, but I did want to talk about that. I have friends who behind closed doors will say, oh my God, the Jeanette McCurdy book is the loudest. I think anyone's ever been about that. And that was just this past year. But people, you're not allowed to say you're happy somebody died or that it's better for the world without them in it and that kind of thing. And I don't think that about Jesse Lee, but I know that I have complicated, I've had complicated feelings about family members passing. I had a really abusive, creepy grandpa who died and got me and my daughter's names taken out of his obit, and it was this huge hull. I was like, just absolutely not. But then his wife called me and said that she was envious, so that was nice. But yeah, so we're talking about that. Yeah, sorry. But you're just going to have to listen to the rest of the season.
Kate: I can't wait. And I mean, I think it just makes such a great point that
Doree: can't wait.
Kate: This permeates so many. It's not just like our life coach is good or bad. There are so many ways in which kind of the larger cultural narratives that we hear impact so many things. I mean, that is just truly,
Jane: And the cult of personality, the fact that people just continually, blindly follow Gwyneth is so irresponsible and scary and dangerous, and nothing sticks to her. She's like Teflon. She pays fines regularly for trying to do people and for making illegal health claims on products and things like that, but she never really suffers, and no one blames her because it's packaged in ambition and girl power and all this bullshit marketing, and she's like killing people. You cannot get rid of your cervical cancer with a jade egg. I'm sorry. You can't. And if you don't know that yet, I'm telling you right now, you cannot cure your cancer with a jade egg that you shove up your hoo-ha. She told people that might be a possibility and somebody might die from that. Same thing with Jesse Lee telling people, don't get mammograms. It'll kill you. Like, no.
Doree: What is the antidote to all of this?
Jane: Talking about it? I know that's the boring journalist answer or historian or anyone who's an academic and whatever. Knowledge is power. But I do think there's something very unlikeable about me, and I know that I know people. There are parts of my personality that people really don't like. And I think a big part of it is that I am not polite enough. I'm not protecting everybody's feelings or I don't, nice is boring, I think, and that kind of thing. And I'll talk about stuff and I'll say, an asshole died. That was an asshole who died. And I have mixed feelings about it because on the one hand, I think it's better for the world that someone isn't telling other people to die and convincing their flocks to die the same way that she did. On the other hand, I think it's so devastating and horrible for her friends and family, and you're not supposed to say that stuff out loud. And I have to understand why people don't like that about me and be okay with it and feel like I don't like everybody. But sometimes the people, I don't make a good point. I think we're all very, and this also kind of comes up in the season. I think we're all very concerned with that likability, and I think it's the patriarchy, it's religion, it's all of that. Behave and be good. And you'll eventually, in the next life, reap some reward for that good behavior. And I think it's killing
Doree: dark.
Jane: I know. Yeah. We should talk about makeup.
Kate: Okay, Let's talk about makeup. That is the antidote.
Jane: Oh, wait. First, lemme show you my book. Lemme show you my book. It actually came my
Kate: when does the book come out?
Jane: Oh, yes. In March. In March. But I'll send you both copies. I have the galley.
Doree: Yes, please. It's a book.
Kate: Jane's book is amazing.
Doree: Congratulations. The dream.
Jane: Look at this. Why did they make me write this many words? I don't understand. That's the thing when I got it.
Doree: It's a lot of work.
Jane: And I was like, this is a book. This is a thick book. I didn't need to write a thick book.
Doree: Jane, briefly what is in the book that is maybe not in the podcast?
Jane: Oh my God. I always tell people
Doree: Anything you can share.
Jane: Yeah, totally. I'll share all of it. I always tell people that if the dream was just about MLMs, we would never run out of seasons. We could do that topic forever. It would become very niche, but we wouldn't run out of things to talk about. That's what the book is. It's the rest of the stuff that I couldn't talk about. There's a whole chapter on Deanne Stidham from LuLaRoe and her parents, her mom was a anti-feminist activist, friends with Phyllis Laffy and wrote a book about femininity that I got my hands on, which was out of print. And so I dissect that book and look into where LuLaRoe really came from. There's a lot of character studies about the people who created the world of multilevel marketing and sort of the girl boss origins with Tupperware and Avon and that sort of thing. So it's just a deeper dive and it gets dark, but it's funny, I hope, I dunno. And new original reporting too. There's characters in here that weren't in the show, so we hear other people's stories.
Kate: I can't wait. I mean, I really appreciated.
Jane: I hope you like it.
Kate: I know. I love learning about how the white Mercedes are acquired in the Arbonne world because that was, I knew you got a white Mercedes at a certain level, but the way in which it's a done is so scammy. It blew my mind.
Jane: She's still paying for it. She doesn't even, she has to pay a thousand dollars a month or something for this fucking car that says Arvon on the side. They didn't buy her Mercedes is so, so embarrassing. It's so embarrassing. And she's in this tiny town. When we went mushroom hunting, we went morere hunting up there and we got a bunch of 'em, but we would pull over and climb around in a forest or whatever, and every place we went, somebody would stop and be like, Jennifer Riley, because her car is like a white Mercedes with an arbon thing on the side, and you can't leave your house in that without everyone in this small town seeing every move. Yeah. Poor thing. It was funny though. She's so sweet. I love her. We've kept in touch. I really like her a lot.
Kate: Well, before we let you go, what are some products that you have brought to the table?
Jane: Okay, One, I accidentally bought a product from a woman who had a partnership with Lime Life.
Kate: I love where this is going.
Jane: I forgot about that.
Doree: Oh my God. Okay.
Jane: I forgot about it when I bought this. And it's like everyone loves this thing and I just need to tell people that you don't need it. I mean, I do a couple of the things in here, but have you seen this Nessa Myrick groundwork palette?
Kate: No, it's huge.
Jane: Okay. No, it's like a wallet. Oh, it's pretty. It's cream. Do you see how there's two sides? There's a cream and a powder of each color?
Doree: Yes. I see.
Kate: Oh, wait, but I do want this.
Jane: It's cool.
Kate: I do want this.
Doree: Okay, cool.
Jane: I know, but okay. But it's supposed to be all over face. First of all, palette you can use for covering blemishes and things. And Janessa iss black, so she made this a very inclusive color palette. Then there's the powder. I'm still trying to work out how they work in tandem, the cream and the powder, but at the end of the day, it's just a neutrals palette. You're like, oh, there's a Korean, but then it's just a neutrals palette and the lady really likes MLMs, and so, whoops. I'll give it to one of you guys
Kate: On my way. Literally driving over now to get it.
Jane: My next favorite thing that I got recently was this, and I don't know where the other blush went, but I like samples. We all do. I buy sample size things or just try to get free samples as much as possible. But this was a sample size thing that just came out. It's the rare beauty highlighters and blush. You get two blush and two highlighters for like 30 bucks at Sephora. These things last forever. Have you ever used the Rare Beauty Blushes?
Kate: No. but my teenager wants one. Keeps talking about it.
Jane: It's great. You know what it reminds me of a little bit is you're probably not old enough for this, either of you, but do you remember Bonnie Bell, the cheek stain from Bonnie Bell?
Doree: Yes, of course.
Jane: It's like that.
Doree: I'm 46.
Jane: It's like liquid. Well, I'm 45, so take that
Kate: Well, Doree is 46.
Doree: I'm 46.
Jane: Fuck you guys.
Kate: You're right in the middle. Okay, Jane, we remember,
Jane: This is my other favorite thing because I'm old and I have to wear only greasy stuff now.
Kate: Yes. What is up with that? The creases?
Jane: Yeah. Yeah. You got to go to West Minelli. I'm sorry. It's expensive, but you like it. But their foundation is oil. This stick right here is, it looks like nothing. It's just shininess. It's just smooth out your, I just put it every, it's kind of like Vaseline a little bit, but it's got a shimmer, not a shimmer. It's got an opalescence to it. And when I'm feeling like things are creasing, I just throw that in there.
Kate: And this is called their Vital Skin foundation stick. Is that correct?
Jane: No, this is their, oh God. See how old I'm look at this lit up highlight stick.
Kate: Okay. Just want to make sure the lit up impulsive buying. I know what I'm getting lit up.
Jane: Highlight the lit up highlight stick. It comes in colors too. There's a pearlescent kind of beige and pink, but those were, they're greasy like this, which I like, but they are kind of similar to that NARS orgasm stick in color. And this is just very, I don't know, it's really pretty. It's my new favorite thing. And then the last thing I wanted to talk about is this fucking, well, no, this mascara Cali Ray tubing mascara. You guys, do you use tubing mascara? I did not know that. This was such an amazing thing.
Doree: I use,
Kate: I love Tubing mascara, but I've never heard of this brand.
Jane: Callie Ray. It's this one. I love it. I got it in a free thing. Okay, the last thing I was going to say is pillow talk. I'm like, this never worked on me because I got a sample
Kate: Pillow talk.
Jane: No, it's never worked on me. That's what I've been telling people. It's not right for me. It looks brown. Okay. The problem with samples is I can't read that on the bottom, but what this really is is pillow talk medium.
Kate: You need the lighter one or the darker one.
Jane: I know, but I need,
Doree: the medium is darker than the regular one pillow talks.
Jane: There's one darker than this,
Doree: and then there's a darker intense or something.
Jane: I didn't know.
Doree: There's three
Jane: This whole time I've been using this and telling people pillow talk garbage. I have no idea what talking about, No one should listen to me.
Doree: A few years ago, they came out with darker versions of the OG pillow talk.
Kate: It's confusing because they're all called pillow talk.
Jane: Right?
Kate: It's truly is confusing.
Jane: Do you think there's a pillow talk mascara?
Kate: Is it pink? Is it like a dusty rose pink?
Jane: I don't know. They just have a whole line called pillow talk now. But it started as a color. But now it's just like everything is pillow talk.
Kate: I mean, good for them,
Jane: Whatever. So I apologize to Charlotte till very for turning about 10 people away from pillow talk by saying that it's brown, which isn't a bad color, but not when you're looking for the nude lip.
Doree: Jane, where can our listeners find you? Listen to the new season of the dream. Tell us all of the news.
Jane: Okay, great. So you can listen to the new season of the Dream on Apple podcast. It's called The Dream Hosted by me, Jane Marie. If you sign up for Pushkin Plus, you can binge the whole season right now you can binge one through nine. It's actually not the whole season because I'm doing some bonus content. Three more episodes are coming out in a month or two.
Kate: Oh yeah.
Jane: Oh yeah. And one of them's a listener episode.
Kate: I can't wait.
Doree: Oh, cool.
Jane: Yeah, the phone number is in the episodes, so it's in the credits. I should have had it prepped here, but so that's all on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your shows. And then I am, I got lucky because I'm old. I have the same handle on all social medias, which is See Jane Marie, like See Jane Run. So SEE, Jane Marie. And you can find me on all the places. I think I'm on all the places. There might be a place or two I'm missing, but I think I'm on Most of 'em.
Doree: I know, there are too many places.
Kate: What are the places even anymore,
Doree: there are too many places.
Jane: This is the thing I'm talking about. When people are going to get sick of this stuff, the kids are not going to like living like,
Doree: Yes, there's fatigue. Totally. Jane, this was so fun. Thank you.
Jane: Super fun
Doree: Thank you for everything that you do and for coming on our show.
Kate: Yeah, We love you.
Jane: Hopefully not too depressing. I love you too. I love you too. And I love your listeners, and I love your show and I'm so excited that its still, its here with us
Doree: Yea, Thank you
Kate: I realized we didn't do any of our visit our website stuff. So if you're new here and you do want to visit our website, learn more about Jane Marie or anything we mention on the show. That website is Forever35podcast.com. We are on Instagram @Forever35podcast, and we are on Patreon at Patreon.com/Forever35 with bonus content, video content, discord conversations, recapping the OC, we're doing it all over there. And it's a very fun space for us to just kind of explore our podcast selves.
Doree: We are our truest podcast selves over on the pateron,
Kate: and we do love to hear from you folks. So if you want to leave us a voicemail or a text, that number (781) 591-0390. You can always email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. And I was so moved and inspired after our conversation with Jane Marie. I've been loving the season of the dream. A lot of what she is talked about has resonated with me as a fellow middler ager. So I love her work, and it was just a true pleasure. Maybe in another five years we'll have her back on the show.
Doree: I know. We need to send her a calendar invite for five years from now.
Kate: Exactly. By decade. Is that a term?
Doree: Well, no, but
Kate: Doree, it's not. Well, I made it one. I've made it one now. So I wanted to just lean into our intentions for this coming week. Last week, I had just had the intention of collapsing and crying.
Doree: How did that go?
Kate: I don't know if I had a really big cry, but I did just kind of give into the emotional and physical exhaustion and just try to just sat. There was one day where I just did nothing. I just kind of sat and that felt good. So I kind of could do it for a whole other additional week, but I'm not going to make that my intention. I'm traveling this week, and my intention is to pack light. Now, I am a master packer, but I'm excellent at stuffing things to the brimm, which results in me sweating through my clothes, running through various airports. So I am going to try to be very sparing in my packing, meaning not a big carry on. I don't need to pack two scarves. I just am going to try to really, I want to be, because I get so exhausted from the lugging and I'm traveling with my two kids and just me, and so I'll be helping them lug, and I just want to be light on my feet.
Doree: Okay. Do you want to talk at all about what you're packing or not really?
Kate: Well,
Doree: I love talking about packing, so, okay.
Kate: I do too. I feel like I could do 45 hours unpacking. So we are traveling for, let's see, do we have two travel days and then three on the ground days in New York City. One night I have to dress up, so I have to bring a dress up outfit. And then there's a couple other, we're going to some shows, but I can probably wear regular pants. I, I'm bringing my dress shoes, my Hoka sneakers, and then a pair of casual sneakers. Plus there might be rain for a jacket. I'm bringing a Steve Madden trench coat I picked up at Nordstrom Rack yesterday. That is the shit.
Doree: Oh, wow. Okay.
Kate: I have been hunting for a trench coat. I have tried on expensive trench coats. I've tried on non-expensive trench coats. Steve Madden, I walked by and I was like, oh, hello, Steve. And
Doree: Hey, Steve,
Kate: This trench is, Hey, Steve, what's new in the cool knockoff shoe industry? The trench coat.
Doree: Did you know that I profiled Steve Madden when I worked for BuzzFeed?
Kate: You know what, now that we're saying this, it's vaguely familiar that you did.
Doree: I did.
Kate: Well, this coat. It's the fucking perfect trench coat. Now I'm going to try to find not a link. I'm going to try to find a link,
Doree: This does not surprise me.
Kate: So I think it was about $60 at Nordstrom Rack. Again, we'll try to find a rink, a link to share, because I can't keep this one to myself. This is a good, affordable trench. Everybody.
Doree: Don't gate keep this trench.
Kate: I'm not gatekeeping. I'm not. I'm not. Here it is. I found it. Oh gosh. See, it says I can't find it online. $69 and 97 cents. It's 49% off. You might have to go to your local Nordstrom rack if you have one.
Doree: Okay. All right.
Kate: Red alert.
Doree: Well, this is a good tip. Thank you, Kate.
Kate: So that's kind of what I'm trying to do. And then for my carry-on, I am bringing a Kayana Kayana tote, And then I have a wallet on a chain that I bring as my wallet slash nighttime bag. And I might shove my Uniqlo cross body bag in there too, if I can fit it.
Doree: Oh, Okay.
Kate: You just need a variety of bags. I feel like that is, as long as you can stuff, you're okay.
Doree: Yeah. I feel like the last few trips I've taken, I have brought more bags than I actually ended up using.
Kate: I have done pretty well. I feel like I need my big carry on a day bag. And then unfortunately, I need a nighttime bag, but that can be double as my wallet, and I just wear it on the chain. I have hyper fixated way too much about traveling, and now I'm a little too obsessed with it. Maybe I'll share a photo of how I'm packing. Maybe I'll share a photo.
Doree: I feel like we didn't travel for a long time because of Covid, and I don't know. It does feel different now.
Kate: Well, I also err on the alike anxious side as a packer, so I go overboard. I need to bring two different kinds of water bottles. Why? There's no need. I'm going to a metropolis where if I need something in a pinch, I could get it. But sometimes I kind of pack like I'm going to the ends of the earth.
Doree: Listen, Kate, as someone who has forgotten underwear.
Kate: No.
Doree: And then also on a separate occasion, forgotten shirts. Brought no shirts.
Kate: This is both within the past like five years, right? Or the shirts one, Isn't the shirts one from when we were doing this podcast?
Doree: The shirts one, I think was when we were doing this pod. No. Yes. Yeah, they both were when we were doing this podcast. But the shirts one I think was pre pandemic.
Kate: Okay.
Doree: So that was a long time ago.
Kate: That was a while ago.
Doree: But I think the underwear one was last Christmas time. I think.
Kate: that's rough.
Doree: Was that when it was whatever, or two Christmases ago? Anyway, so yeah. I mean, look, I approve of being an anxious packer because sometimes when you're not anxious enough, you forget underwear.
Kate: I always bring extra pairs of underwear too.
Doree: I brought no underwear. This is what I'm saying.
Kate: I hear you. I'm telling you, I swing away to the other end.
Doree: I'm just saying it's good to be overly anxious about it because then you don't forget crucial items. Underwear.
Kate: Well, I appreciate that, Doree. I appreciate that.
Doree: So yeah. Now, well, last week I was trying to find a get rich quick scheme.
Kate: How did it go? Are you rich? Now?
Doree: Well, as we're recording this, there is another Powerball drawing tonight, so I don't know when this airs. I might be a billionaire.
Kate: Are we going in on a ticket together, or some tickets?
Doree: I think we should.
Kate: I honestly will. We'd always do Powerball, Anthony and I, we always do it because we know the odds are good.
Doree: And the goods are odd. So yeah. So that is the ultimate get rich quick scheme, right? Winning the Powerball.
Kate: Yes. But I feel like that is the longest of long shots.
Doree: Look, I played poker the other night.
Kate: Did you win?
Doree: No, I basically broke even. I lost a couple dollars, which is fine. The point is, there was a person there who told us a story about her sister who had, I'm going to keep this vague because it's not really my story to tell, but it has to do with the lottery. Her sister was getting divorced and they had filed the papers, and a month later, her ex won 5 million in the lottery. And she only found out because the woman who I played poker with got a call from someone who was trying to track down the ex-husband to be in a reality show about lottery winners. And they had somehow found her.
Kate: Oh my God.
Doree: And she called her sister and was like, did you know? So-and-so won the lottery.
Kate: No,
Doree: And what's crazy about this too is that according to this woman, this guy had always said he was going to win the lottery.
Kate: What?
Doree: Yes. Now, my question was how many lottery tickets was he buying? Had he spent,
Kate: right? Was he buying one
Doree: thousands and thousands of dollars over the years on the lottery? Although then he won 5 million.
Kate: Oh my gosh.
Doree: Maybe it's just that I need to manifest this.
Kate: This episode is sponsored by Powerball
Doree: And The Secret,
Kate: Oh gosh, boy, you would think that we haven't just listened to the most recent season of the dream.
Doree: I know
Kate: Jane Marie tackles all these kinds of things.
Doree: She really does. But look, I get
Kate: What's your intention for, oh, sorry.
Doree: I get why people get drawn in by this stuff.
Kate: Of course.
Doree: I understand it.
Kate: Yes. Also, I mean, she talks about this, the whole kind of culture of American exceptionalism and bootstrapping and the individual, all this shit is inherited messaging that we just take with us. And so of course, we want to win Powerball.
Doree: Yeah. Well, Kate, this week, the world news has been insane, and I need to just not get so wrapped up in it because I'm doing the thing where I'm staying up late looking at news. I need to just shut that down. So that's my intention this week.
Kate: I totally hear you and honor that. I will say that I was feeling today, I just had CNN just going and going and going. And finally started. I tried to start a new podcast that has nothing to do with the news or anything, just to give my brain some sort of break because it's really intense and I know it is. I'm sure. Especially intense for you. So I think that is a great intention.
Doree: That's my intention.
Kate: I love it.
Doree: Thank you. Well, Kate, this has been a delight. Let's remind everyone that Forever35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrir and you, Kate Spencer, and produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager, our network partner is Acast. Thanks everyone. Bye
Kate: Bye.