Real Beauty Talk with Carlota Rodriguez-Benito

Carlota: [00:00:00] Beauty doesn’t start until you learn how to be yourself. And that is so true because we can’t fake it that long. Life is short, but it’s also long, and we can’t fake it. 

Hope: Do you want to wake up feeling like you’re stepping into who you’re meant to be? Into the best possible version of you? What if I told you that the key to your best life, health, and happiness are all around you?

You just have to find what works for you. I’m Hope Pedraza, and I believe that there isn’t just one way to live a healthy and meaningful life. And that all you need is a little inspiration to Make changes that last from the inside out. Each week I’ll be sharing tangible tips and inspirational interviews to help you on your journey.

These are the steps to take to improve your life and live with purpose. This is hopeful and wholesome. Hey y’all. Welcome to Hopeful and Wholesome. Today I have on Carlota Rodriguez Beni. She is a writer who’s fluent in four languages, has lived in six different countries, and traveled the world. She really has an extensive and unique multicultural background.

She’s [00:01:00] a super cool girl. Today we talk about her new book, Beauty As It Is, which is on the shelves now. And how beauty is different, but yet the same, in all different parts of the world. She talks about the fact that beauty is a choice, how we have to untrain the mind to false perceptions of beauty, and how to be a conscious consumer when it comes to beauty products.

She also talks about the only thing that we have in common, no matter where you are in the world, as she would know from all of her travels. Y’all enjoy my chat with Carlotta. Her story is just so unique, and she has so much to teach the world about what beauty really is. Y’all enjoy. Okay, y’all. So let’s get going.

I’m really excited to bring on Carlotta today and me and Carlotta are going to be talking all things beauty and about the beauty industry. So thanks so much for joining today from Spain. 

Carlota: Of course. I’m so honored to be here and to be able to talk about my favorite topic. Thank you. 

Hope: Yeah, for sure. Totally. So, let’s start with that.

So, Coletta has a new book out right now, and it’s on the shelves. So, can you tell us a little bit about kind of the premise of [00:02:00] the book, and kind of your, your purpose, your mindset behind the book? 

Carlota: Of course. This book kind of initiated because I had this curiosity about how people felt beauty and how they perceived beauty and how they, how their relationship with beauty had developed throughout life and different regions of the world and in different places that I had lived in, moving from, from one place to another, since I was little, beauty had always been something that was in my mind and, Not only beauty and what it looked like, but how beauty projected itself and why some people were considered beautiful.

And maybe they weren’t the most aesthetically or symmetrical person, or what they call sex appeal, you know, some people just had that something that you can’t really explain it’s an aura, it’s a, that je ne sais quoi that they say in [00:03:00] French, it’s that feeling that you see someone and it makes you want to smile and that to me, Was what beauty was and and I wanted to know if that was just my perception if that was everyone’s perception It was just a curiosity that that spent time Swirling in my head while I moved throughout my childhood and at one point when I was in college I decided to go further and Interview certain people in the beauty industry and see what it was all about And so I ended up writing this book called beauty as it is And as you said, it’s on Amazon right now.

And it’s a book that encompasses really all facets of beauty in many different ways. There’s 11 chapters to it and every chapter is a standalone chapter that you can read alone. It’s kind of like a consultation book that you can go back to and refer to whenever you need help. And [00:04:00] the big premise is that beauty is a choice, and the big picture and the big umbrella is that once you choose to feel beautiful, you are beautiful, and that’s just something that goes for all genders, goes for all ages, for all generations.

No matter if we were born in the tech world or if we weren’t, or if we are in one region of the world or another, it’s really important to keep that in mind. And I think that this book really encompasses that idea and really promotes your ability to feel beautiful in all ways. 

Hope: Yeah, and I like that about the books.

I read the book and I liked that each chapter was, like, covered a different, like, perspective, I guess, and a different, like, part of beauty. And I find it really interesting that you had one chapter that where you talk, because you’ve been to so many, you’ve lived in so many places, and it kind of talked about the different views of beauty and different countries, and I found that really fascinating.

So, from your perspective, from your travels, and just from your [00:05:00] life experience, I How does it differ from country to country? Like, what was kind of your biggest, the biggest thing you learned from that? 

Carlota: Well, I actually, I was born in the U. S. and my parents are originally from Spain. And I, I would move a lot.

As you said, I moved nine times throughout my life. And yeah. Have lived in a lot of different countries and have been able to perceive different ways that people see beauty. But like I was saying before, there’s two paths to this. There’s one path where you say, wow, everyone has such a different perception of beauty, you know, because you look at people in Asia, they really admire a bright skin with a very long neck and, and the neck is something, a symbol of beauty that is, that is very important and profound to them.

Then when you go to Latin America, for example, [00:06:00] there’s people that do, people usually wear more makeup, want to, they have more accentuated facets of their face that they want to feature than if you go to, for example, in Europe, they’re a lot more on the natural side. They like looking more natural and that’s what is more beautiful to them.

In Spain, people like to be tan and if you’re tan, you’re immediately, you went on a vacation and people say, wow, you look so good. The only thing that happened is that you got tan. And so there’s, there’s such different little nuances that can make one region or another have beauty facets that are more pronounced than others.

In general, what I have found after interviewing all these people is that there is a very, very similar thread that they all stem off of, and it’s what the other person makes you feel. And so it’s what [00:07:00] is beauty in the chapter you’re talking about it was so interesting because that was the actual chapter that it was the same question that I asked to every single person I interviewed.

Obviously when I was interviewing people they had different jobs and in different positions in the beauty industry and some people I would ask about one thing and others about another, but the same, the only question that stayed the same was this one and it was what is beauty to you how do you perceive beauty.

And so the answers. Varied, but also we’re all the same. And what I found is that they all said, you know, beauty is something you feel and that they, it’s someone else transmits to you. It can be in your passions and your intellect in how you view life and in what that person it. When you want to sit next to someone and keep talking to them, your best friend, your mom, your dad, people, you have a lot of.

Of emotional connection with there’s never a moment where you wouldn’t think that they’re not, [00:08:00] that they’re not the most beautiful people ever. And so that is really what, where beauty stands. And I think that it’s a message that has to be propagated a lot more and really talked about because now we were very much obsessed with.

Online, social media, comparison, seeing other people, seeing models, and this quick fix world we live in, this very much copycat world we live in, where we all want to look the same. And, and the thing is that your differences, and, and I talk about this too, Dr. Shambam, Coined this term, your signature feature.

Some people don’t even know what their signature feature is, but their signature feature can be something so endearing that to them maybe is not that charming, but to other people is what it makes them want to keep talking to them, or maybe that glimmer in their eyes or. Or that difference in the way that they smile and that is [00:09:00] where beauty stands.

Beauty is something that is so much more internalized that you need to learn how to radiate. And unfortunately, in the world we live in, I don’t think we’re taught how to radiate it enough. And I think we’re taught how to look at it and try to seem like we look beautiful and Looking at beautiful is a term that is used a lot.

Where I think that beauty is not something you look like, it’s something you feel like. 

Hope: Yeah. 

Carlota: So that’s kind of the thread that they all talked about. So, yes, there’s different visual perceptions of beauty around the world, but really, the essence of beauty is all the same. It doesn’t matter what place you live in, you are perceived as what you radiate.

And so that’s very important. 

Hope: Yeah. No, I agree. And how would you, with all the people, because that is one thing I really loved about the book is that you had so many different perspectives and that you really, I mean, you interviewed a ton of people and so it [00:10:00] was really interesting to get all those different perspectives.

How would you suggest someone like learn how to radiate that? 

Carlota: I like to always take the, the term of beauties in the eye of the beholder because I think it’s a, You can go two ways with this, and I think this is a good way for someone to learn how it is that you have to radiate your own, your own beauty, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yes, someone can, beauty is subjective, beauty is subjective to the person that is looking at you, but you are not subjective, and the way you radiate that is not going to, is obviously going to impact the way someone receives that radiation.

Connection, right? So, for example, if I am just standing there and looking very serious and not very empathetic, someone will look at me, and that will be their choice to determine [00:11:00] if they Think that I would be someone beautiful to them or not, but if I choose to radiate what I feel like I’m worth, and when you know what you’re worth and what, you know, who you are, it’s when that person will receive that and then they have no choice, but to know, and, but to see that beauty.

So. In other words, I think that in order for you to learn how to radiate that beauty, you need to learn how to really love yourself. And I, that’s something that people always talk about and it’s, it’s kind of cliche, love yourself, express yourself, be yourself, but really, and I mean, there’s a really famous quote by Coco Chanel.

And she said that. Beauty doesn’t start until you learn how to be yourself. And that is so true because we can’t fake it that long. Life is short, but it’s also long, and we can’t fake it, you know? 

Hope: Right, totally. 

Carlota: You can fix your face up as many times as you want. [00:12:00] You can do, and you know what? People have very big insecurities.

And if you have an insecurity, and fixing whatever insecurity it is that you have, you can fix it. Will make you radiate better and will make you feel like more beautiful and will make you feel more like yourself. Yeah. 100 percent go ahead and I think it’s amazing that we have that opportunity nowadays to fix anything that makes us really feel uncomfortable or feel ashamed and that is so incredible.

But to the point to want to Look like someone else that you’re not. And that is just making yourself more distanced to what you are and to who you are really. And I think that that is something that we’re starting to do because of technology. We’re starting to compare ourselves a lot. And since we can change ourselves a lot on different apps and, and all of that, that it’s training our mind to think that it’s okay to want to change what we look like, and I think that [00:13:00] appreciating.

What we like and owning what we look like and owning what we are like and what we feel like 

yeah. 

Is doing things we love. Being with people that do things that we love as well. Surrounding ourselves with the right people. All of that makes us nurture and give us value. And that value is what you then express.

And beauty, as I said before, can be. Shown in passion, intellect, in what you love doing in the way you treat the way you hold an elder person’s hand to cross the street, the compassion you have towards others, the amount of sharing you want to do for your life of people’s lives. And there’s just so many places you can find beauty.

And I think it’s important to remember that and to not confine beauty to what we look like. On a selfie, on a story, on an [00:14:00] Instagram post. And yeah, I think that that’s just basically how we can learn. It’s hard. It’s one of the hardest things that you can ever ask someone is to learn how to feel beautiful.

It’s 

Hope: for sure. 

Carlota: It’s a very hard. And at the same time, it’s something that we’re born with, but that we’re kind of taken away from while we lose it, we lose it 100%. 

Hope: For sure. I think it’s like anything else. I mean, I think I always I mean, my, like, my motto is always, like, happiness is a choice. It’s just like anything else.

You can choose to be happy. You can choose not to be. I think beauty is, it’s the same thing, right? 

Carlota: Honestly, I think that my motto is beauty is a choice. And I think that our mottos are actually essentially the same. 

Hope: Yeah, totally. 

Carlota: Once you’re happy and being happy implements so many things that Feeling beautiful implement for sure that I think it all goes hand in hand in the end and understanding yourself [00:15:00] is what is going to Allow you to understand what you like and what you don’t like what you appreciate what you don’t appreciate what you like to do what you don’t like to do what you like about yourself and what you want to work on and what you want to improve on and once you Realize all those things.

You can realize how to more internally appreciate yourself and more internally appreciate others. I also think appreciating others and appreciating others beauty allows you to appreciate your own. Yeah. And it’s a very much social, a social experiment, I think. To understand how you can appreciate your own beauty, especially in my own case, I think that moving so much and having to introduce myself to so many people every time I was a new girl so many times in school, I was the person that had to kind of re not reinvent themselves, but tell my life to others.

For them to understand what my life was like, because they didn’t know me. They, they hadn’t, for example, I went to a new school and they, everyone [00:16:00] knew each other and, and there was obviously the group of popular kids, the group of non popular kids, you know, the cliques that middle schools have unfortunately, and.

How it all unfolds and you really need to radiate a certain type of empathy and understanding towards them, but also keeping your own character alive while you do that. And that really teaches you how to. Appreciate yourself and appreciate what others start appreciating about you. And I think that you can, you can attest to this too, being a ballerina.

You also learn that there’s so much to work on all the time and you can never do it right 100 percent of the time you have to. learn To accept it, although we are all perfectionists, everyone that has gone through ballet, um, you have to learn that perfection is unattainable and it will never, it will never be attained.

But yet every time you go on that stage, although you know that it could have [00:17:00] been always a little bit better, it just feels like you were the only person being watched in that second. And you give it your all and you give all your energy and that is. So empowering and I think that that is something that has really helped me understand my own beauty And really wanted to to help others understand their own 

Hope: Yeah, no, I I loved that premise of the book and since you interviewed so many different like companies how are Companies kind of because they’re having to kind of change right their approach to beauty now because I think more people are kind of Finding this like this path that you’re kind of leading people on.

How are they having to change? What they’re doing like for the consumer 

Carlota: So it’s actually very interesting because after a lot of the me, me, me, uh, generations, which are the millennials and generations, these, they really care about themselves, their space, their wellbeing, their everything [00:18:00] before the companies, before companies could outwork you, but a lot of burnouts.

And now it’s very much like. They care a lot about your well being and your own head space and they they give you Space to do things that will make you better and this is all a calling from a generation This is all a calling from the people to the companies and the companies have And okay, yes, we understand that this is something that is a need for these new generations.

And so we’re going to open up with it. And you see the Googles and you see the Facebooks and their lounges and the ways that now you can work at home and everything for which we’re adaptable to our lives and for us to be able to do things that we love and before that was not a thing. Well, the same thing is happening in the beauty industry.

And so now there is so many niche markets and so many niche brands and indie brands that basically are captivating the [00:19:00] different wants and needs of different generations, different societies, different demographics around the world. There’s, there’s a lot of companies focusing on inclusive beauty, which is incredible.

And that’s a huge part of my book and that’s, It’s a huge part of, of beauty being something you radiate and not something you see. And so beauty has no color, beauty has no ethnicity, beauty has no gender, has no age really. You can, there’s beauty in everyone and it’s very important to see it. And now it’s where, when we’re starting to see all of this.

And in terms of businesses, now that there’s so many niche brands everywhere, people caring about clean products, people caring about personalized products, people caring about very result and results proven and very much like clinical products. There’s people caring about how inclusive a brand is and how many color ranges they have and or what their CSR is behind all of the [00:20:00] brand.

There’s all of these niches and at the same time. There are the same conglomerates that there have been forever. There’s the same conglomerates that are buying all of these niche brands. And so. We are changing and moving in the right direction, but at the same time, we’re all being engulfed in, in these, like, they’re all being bought out by these and being kind of shifted.

And, and in my opinion, they lose a little bit of that magic that they used to have when they were, When they were not owned by these huge conglomerates. And so I think it’s very important right now to be a conscience consumer. And that is huge, huge emphasis on the book as well, which is. Being conscious about what we buy and why we buy it and why we consume certain beauty products, let it be a face serum, a cream treatment, a face [00:21:00] mask, makeup, anything.

It’s very important to always. Take a step back and ask ourselves different questions before we’re going to consume something and ask What who is this brand? Why am I buying this? Is it because I saw it on this ad on Instagram? Is it because my favorite influencer talked about it? Is it because I asked my friends what they use as a serum and they said Recommended this for me is the serum for me.

Is it for my skin? What does my skin look like? What do I want it to look like? What is my health right now? What why am I trying to look a certain way? there’s so many questions that we don’t ask ourselves right now and That we just kind of jump on the bandwagon right? This is the trend and so I’m going to do it And I think that companies are very much going with the trends and very much taking advantage of that.

And that is just part of business. That is not at all frowning upon businesses. I mean, [00:22:00] that is, that’s how businesses work, you know. There’s a trend and they hop on it and they say, great, this is how consumers are trying to act. Let’s go with it. Right. And so I think that the power and the beauty in all these niche brands being out there now and all of this.

Awakening of inclusive beauty of clean beauty of what it is that products are starting to do how smart our technology is now how innovative some technologies have gotten that we can, we can see so many things we can predict so many things and we can help ourselves. But if we’re not informed, I think it’s very hard to help ourselves if we’re just jumping on these bandwagons of trends and, and following people that maybe aren’t as knowledgeable as we think they are.

I think there’s a danger in that and Niche brands are very interesting and conglomerates are [00:23:00] buying them out in a very interesting way as well. And I think that everything is, it’s the best time ever to be in the beauty industry because we have a bird’s eye with all the information that we have online.

We have all the capacity to be fully aware, fully knowledgeable. Now it’s not only your doctor that can tell you what skincare regime you need to have. You can find it out very easily, but you also need to find it out from the right sources and, and do your own diligence before you jump on bandwagons.

And I think that that’s the best way to go about it. 

Hope: Think so too. And I liked, cause I wanted to ask you a little bit more about that too, because the education you provide in there was really interesting. And I think, you know, I talked to a lot of people about nutrition and I find if people would go about like how they pick their beauty products, like they do nutrition, like it’s, it’s really the same thing.

Like, right. What’s going on, your skin is going in your body. And so I think if people like took a little more, bit more time to educate themselves, like you’re [00:24:00] saying, it would make a world of a difference. So I really liked, there was a couple chapters where you talked about, you know, the clean beauty and all the new products kind of come because that’s kind of where, you know, people are looking for that, right?

So I found really fascinating that you talked a little bit about the FDA and kind of the role they have in cosmetics. So can you talk about that and kind of what you found and the discoveries there? 

Carlota: Yeah, yeah. I think that’s a very interesting topic as well, because a lot of people are trying to go towards clean beauty now, but there’s a lot of controversy with clean beauty and a lot of brands are getting away with saying that they’re clean when they’re not, and also we need to be careful when we look at clean beauty and we want all natural products and we obsess over this natural only natural, because.

If we think about it, natural things go bad. And so if you want all natural products, there’s preservatives that have to go in there and there’s different things that aren’t so natural that have to be put in [00:25:00] to preserve these products and to not be putting something on your face. Maybe that is. Going to be molded or going to have all other type of secondary effects.

So I think it’s good to be a little bit informed when we obsess over things, like when we want to go to, to a supermarket because it’s all organic. So what does organic mean? And. Why am I paying this added value, right? Like, is this added value actually an added value? Yeah, what it does organic mean that they’ve been in XYZ, right, etc.

So the FDA right now is it’s it’s very interesting because in the US right now We have this type of Legal system with beauty products that is easier to kind of maintain in this hidden, unknown gray area because a lot of beauty products, as you say, it’s not as easy. As buying food products, because when you buy food products, you look at the back, you [00:26:00] look at the ingredients, and most of the time, you know what the ingredients mean.

And then, in the beauty industry, you look at the back, you look at the ingredients, and you see a bunch of really long words, and you’re like, ah, what is this? And so, it’s, it’s a lot easier to, to slip in there some things that you may not know what, um, what they are. And, and a lot of times, Ingredients are listed.

The first ingredients are listed from the maximum amount of product inside to the minimum. So if like the first few ingredients will be what most of the quantity of the product is and some products people go in and look at it and let’s say like with retinol is not The first, second or third ingredient in there.

I don’t want to buy it because it’s not potent enough or I’m not getting my money’s worth, but there’s very big research and investigation done behind all of these products that maybe retinol is not supposed to be the right, that, that potent, and maybe it’s not good for you to have that [00:27:00] much of the ingredient.

So that’s also something that. We need to kind of have a little bit of research done on your end because no one’s really going to tell you that and there’s a lot of marketing in order for you to buy certain things that maybe aren’t so good for you anyway, so it’s like you kind of always have to play devil’s advocate and look up, um, everything that you can to make sure that you’re making as well as a, like the best educated buy that you can, that you can make in terms of the FDA.

We kind of have a, it’s like the legal system, I think, in the U. S., where it’s like, you are innocent until proven guilty. 

Hope: Mm. 

Carlota: And, That’s kind of what is happening right now with with beauty products. There was one person I interviewed in the book called Dr. Olga Lawrenson. She is very, very famous because of her skincare and masks.

She does a lot of masks for Hollywood [00:28:00] before Golden Globes before. She’s very well known in all that sphere and she has incredible products. But she was telling me, you know, if my daughter right now wanted to tell me that she wanted to make a skincare line, I could take her to the lab where I do my own products.

She could talk to the scientists there and to the researchers and tell them what she wanted and she could have her own line on the market in the U. S. by tomorrow. And that’s how simple it is. And so. Obviously, not that simple, but very, very, not very paperwork sensitive and not very, there’s obviously a big load of ingredients that are completely banned and not okay to use in, in skincare.

But then further than that, you’re allowed to have a, a line out there. And then until someone comes back with [00:29:00] something that was a reaction to your products, you Is that that’s when the FDA will intervene and we’ll, we’ll see what was going on with the, with the ingredients or with the formulation. So the beauty in having products from the EU, I think that a lot of, of the legal system in the EU and in, in some of the Asian countries like South Korea, they have very, very, very high, strict policies they have to follow in their legal systems.

And so another person I talked to for the book was telling me that. She’s the owner of a, of a very big laboratory here in Spain. Her name is Maria Calderon, and she has a cosmetic line called Cosmetai. She was telling me, you know, facial cream that costs 30 euros in Europe can be just as effective as A product that [00:30:00] costs maybe 80 in the U. S. Because. They have gone through such high extreme legal and formulation kind of documentation and screening that their products are very, very, very result oriented and proven to be good for your skin. And so there’s a lot of controversies right now with the legal system in the U. S. with beauty products, and I think this is going to change soon.

And I really hope it does because it really hasn’t been. Looked at in, in a really long time and I hope that it does change in the near future and I know that beauty counter is doing a lot of steps towards the right direction in order to, to get this moving, but it’s really. Good to kind of follow this if you’re into what you put on your face and [00:31:00] you’re interested in How it affects you because it really affects you just as as you were saying before as what you put inside your body What you put on your body almost as much as what you put inside so people Always look for skincare kind of on what you put on your face, but really skincare also goes in what you put in your mouth Because and what you breathe, you know The toxicity levels in the air you breathe how well you breathe how well you you breathe in oxygen What you drank, there’s so many things that are linked to what your skin care regimen or what you, what your glow and what that energy in your face and how you radiate because that also has a lot to do with, with how you feel and how your stomach feels and, and how your body feels.

It’s all just so connected with each other that It’s something to be looked at as a whole, and I think that Ayurveda does that very well as well, [00:32:00] and Ayurveda is a very interesting way to look at beauty in another sense that is also talked about in the book, and I think very, very talked about in general in the beauty industry right now, so many Ayurvedic brands are coming out. 

Hope: Yeah, and so can you touch on that just a little bit? You don’t have to go into detail because there’s more in the book But can you touch or just kind of explain to people if maybe you don’t know what our beta is like how? Our beta kind of plays a part in beauty and kind of where it’s going with 

Carlota: Ayurveda? 

Ayurveda is a life science that is very, very, very ancient life science that started in India and it’s a sister science of yoga.

So we all know yoga very well and a little bit less Ayurveda and it has, it’s like a, it’s the science of life and the science of how to live your life and attacks problems more from the root than from the symptom or the cause of everything. So, for example, if you were If you had [00:33:00] rosacea or if you had acne, the question wouldn’t be, the goal wouldn’t be let’s treat your acne, the goal would be let’s treat what is causing you to have acne.

So that’s kind of the science behind it. And so Ayurveda is based off of the five elements, ether, air, water, earth, and I can’t remember. Air, water, I can’t 

Hope: remember the other one either, earth, fire, air, water. 

Carlota: Fire. There you go. Fire. Yeah. Thank you. And there’s a lot of different techniques that they use and different sciences, but basically to channel it to beauty.

There’s a lot of things that we are already implementing in our, in our life, in our daily life that we don’t really realize that are coming from Ayurveda, but they are, like eating probiotic foods and probiotics are very fermented foods that bring probiotics that is very much pulled from Ayurveda, like oil [00:34:00] pulling, cleaning our tongues.

Massages with oil and drinking copper water in the mornings, there’s a lot of different things that you can do with Ayurveda, but it’s very much the science of using naturopathy on how we treat beauty and how we treat ourselves and how to use the times of day to treat your, the way you eat, the way you take care of yourself, the way you take care of your skin and the way you take care of your health.

In your day to day, and it’s a very, very much like a global way of looking at beauty that can help you. When going back to the question that you asked me, how can you radiate your beauty? How can you learn how to radiate that beauty? Ayurveda, for example, is a very some parts of Ayurveda Of course, you don’t have to like go full on on Ayurveda because it’s very extensive and big but it’s a way to start learning How to maybe [00:35:00] connect with yourself connect with what goes with your body with what goes through your skin With what resonates with you and with your own experience Means and why certain things are happening to you like certain things are happening to your skin and not always revert to antibiotics 

Hope: Yeah, 

Carlota: to these really really harsh chemicals that we put on our face and harsh Medicines that we take to get rid of some skin diseases that are very And I think that’s really common right now because of so much stress that we live in.

I think that Ayurveda is a good start, is a good place to start if you don’t really have a place to start. How can I start thinking of my beauty and thinking of me and knowing what my body reacts to and not. That’s a good way to start. 

Hope: Yeah, that’s a good tip. That’s it. That was actually my next question I like that because then on the other side of that Looking like what to avoid you talked a little bit about green [00:36:00] washing and what so can you tell explain to everybody what that is and kind of what we should look for because Their cosmetic companies can be a little tricky, right?

When they’re advertising like their products and what’s in it. So what are things we should look out for or avoid? 

Carlota: So greenwashing is this term that is being used right now where all brands are using the marketing of natural, organic, clean, green, all of these words and their target words for our eye to go to it and say, I want to buy that.

Because um in our brain we we think we’re it’s kind of sad because we think we’re doing something good for ourselves For, for the environment, for everything. And really there are no regulations or things that need to be proven for a brand to put those words on their packaging. 

Hope: That’s crazy. 

Carlota: So it’s crazy.

And it’s also very, I think, sad for consumers to know that because you’re trying to be the [00:37:00] best consumer you can, and then it’s kind of being, it’s It’s backfiring on us, right? And so this is why I keep intent in putting emphasis on Be a knowledgeable consumer be a conscious consumer Know who is behind this who made this possible?

When you’re about to buy something and it’s so fast it can be it can be a five minute Research on a product that you’re going to be using for let’s say I don’t know two months three months How much can a product last you right so you can take five minutes to get to a store? I don’t know if you go to your local Natural store to get because a lot of people are going to through the natural path Or if that’s what you want to look for, right?

Because normally we talk about green washing when we’re assuming that the consumer wants natural organic green makeup or green natural organic [00:38:00] Cosmetics, skincare, and honestly, I hate all those words because I don’t think that any of them actually give you what they’re telling you they’re giving. 

Hope: Yeah.

Carlota: But I think that there’s certain questions that you can ask yourself that are so key and so good for buying any product. And so when you get there to the store, you look at the product and you say, okay, who made this? Who’s behind it? What’s the laboratory? Who’s the doctor? Who’s a researcher? Who is the conglomerate that’s behind this?

Right? Sometimes it’s, I don’t know, you, you look at a brand and you find out, Oh, it’s this conglomerate that we all know about. Are they using the same laboratory to make everything? And then just, yeah, they change the sense and smells and textures. Of what you’re buying, then also look at the price because sometimes the active ingredients are just as expensive as texture ingredients.

So what you use to [00:39:00] formulate different types of formulations, for example, for skincare or for, or for makeup, the texture, it’s just as expensive as the actual ingredients. Active ingredients. So the texture is very luxurious or very interesting and very nice to the touch. And it’s not that expensive. You can make an inference and okay.

So they spent a lot of money in this texture and it’s not that expensive. There it’s not to the value that I would think that it would have to be The texture and the active ingredients are just as good as each other So that’s something to think about when you’re about to buy a product but you can think of that you can think of behind this you can think of What is green about it when they were they’re telling you it’s green.

It’s organic. It’s natural Okay, but what about it is green organic natural if it is so natural? How long is this gonna last me? What is the shelf life because that’s something else we don’t look at [00:40:00] normally when we buy products because in We have the shelf life and everything we eat But then in cosmetics, we just kind of put in our In our cupboard and then use it once in a while or use it for a month because it was the craze and everyone was using that glow serum on Instagram and so I bought it and now it’s there and then I use it once in a while, but we’re not sure what that life is that shelf life and and what is it that it’s doing to our skin and and really treating our skin like we’re treating what we ingest.

And I think we’re, we’re getting really good treating what we ingest and we’re getting really good at calling people out and calling brands out when they’re not doing their job. But I honestly think that we’re not, it makes it seem that all brands are trying to, are out there to catch us and are trying to lie to us.

But actually there’s so many brands right now. We’re so lucky that we have all of this competition because every [00:41:00] brand wants to be better than the other and are pushing each other in this way to research more, to have more investigation, to find different alternatives. For example, retinol has so many alternatives right now.

One of the extract of alfalfa, they realize that the extract of alfalfa is just as potent as retinal and actually has none of the side effects of ol no, like no photosensitivity. Pregnant women can use it, and there’s no redness for people that are sensitive to retinal. There’s a lot of people that can’t use retinol for that reason.

Hope: Yeah, right. 

Carlota: And retinol is. If you ask me the best ingredient, I would never, ever, ever lose that. It promotes self turnover and it’s. If you have one thing, or actually two things that you can use in your skincare routine, it’s one skin, some SPF, some protection, it’s the most important, and then retinol. And so for me, to know that all of these brands are trying to get the next big thing [00:42:00] is so good for us because we’re only getting more and more of the best, more and more of the best

technology to find the best extracts of the best ingredients of natural and not natural. Also, there’s some chemical ingredients that are very good and that do no harm to us. And that also we, we can’t scare away from things that are on only brand is not natural because some chemicals are really good for us and they have nothing that’s bad.

And some natural ingredients, like if you think of poison Ivy. There’s nothing more natural than poison ivy and you can’t put that on your face. 

Hope: That’s a really good point. 

Carlota: So I think that there’s, there’s a lot to step back with all this craze and social media and people talking and saying, I only use natural things.

I only use organic things. There’s a lot of extreme. Behaviors, extreme, I want to do Botox [00:43:00] here and lifts and lip injections and this and that or extreme, I’m all natural and I don’t use any chemicals. And I think there’s a lot of extremism and we are in a moment in life in every aspect, not only in beauty, but in politics and in all of these spheres in life, there’s a lot of extreme polar opposites right now.

Yeah. And. I think it’s good in every aspect of life, but in when you think of yourself and you think of what you want for yourself, what you want for your skin care, for what you want for your makeup, what you want for what you feel inside and what you want to look at, what you want to perceive as beautiful.

Some people. Honestly have had the inconvenience of being trained since they’re young to believe that there is an image of beauty. And it’s really hard when you’re 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 to untrain yourself. [00:44:00] It’s really hard for some people that are elderly people to train themselves that they can still be beautiful, even if they’re elderly women or elderly men.

Why do people think that beauty only stems in youth? Right? You know, there’s a lot of things, but it’s hard to untrain. 

Hope: Mm-Hmm. 

Carlota: that. And so I think there’s a lot of stepping back and there’s a lot of space to think. And now that we’re all at home and that we’re all kind of constraints from life and, uh, we’re not on the go, go, go because we just can’t be right.

We have a lot of time to think of that and I think it’s interesting to step back for a second and to, to think of what, what it is that have made all of these people that I interviewed, for example, get to where they are, what is it? Because obviously they have so much beauty to radiate that people have wanted them to get up there and to be the CEOs and founders of all these great, great beauty [00:45:00] conglomerates, beauty niche markets, innovators in beauty.

People that have changed and revolutionized beauty, made beauty more inclusive, made the beauty industry somewhere where we want to show and showcase ourselves and, and show difference and show inclusiveness. And, um, I think it’s really our, our duty as people and as women and men that are interested in beauty and perceptions of beauty and what we look like and what we feel.

And what we want to see in other people to just step back and know that kind of understand how conscious we are as consumers, how conscious we are as, as consumers of media, social media, of consumers of what we see of, of just of citizens and try to, to be those advocates for all the people that have [00:46:00] not been, been shown in the beauty industry before and, and kind of help them be shown now. 

Hope: Yeah.

So with all of these, you interviewed a lot of really interesting people. So what was, let’s kind of go back to how this started. Like what kind of got you on this path where you wanted to, to make the book and how did you get there? 

Carlota: Okay, great. I, i, It’s kind of a long and very short story, because short it started about a year ago when I decided to write this book, a year and a half ago now, but long because it really started what, since I was little, it started since I was very little because I would move so much every two to three years, my family and lived in a lot of different areas of the world, regions of the world, and always went to international schools and always had a bunch of different faces, my best friends.

Um, We’re from Norway, Italy, Nigeria, the U. S., everywhere in the world, [00:47:00] really. So, I wasn’t ever trained to think of an image as beautiful, always thought that my friends were very, were beautiful as they were and never really thought twice about it and didn’t really think twice of color when I thought of beauty, um, didn’t really think twice of shapes and sizes when I thought of beauty and didn’t really think of beauty as something that you could kind of draw or, or pinpoint or what nose was beautiful or what aspect of your face could be beautiful, you know?

And then also I was a ballerina since I was little and, and since I moved so much, my parents decided that it would be the best option that everywhere I moved, they would put me at Russia Ballet Academy and I did Russian ballet throughout my life until I tore my meniscus when I was 17 years old. And there’s where kind of my ballet career went down, but ballet was [00:48:00] something that taught me another aspect of beauty that was incredible because I learned what radiating beauty meant.

And that I learned on stage, as I was saying before. There’s a certain thing that you realize after living in so many different countries and so many different cultures. Every culture appreciated ballet in a certain way and, and every applause was the same after you were on stage and every pose and every position was still the same.

And your aura and energy from the stage was perceived in the same way. So I was convinced that there was something that was always being perceived the same way. It didn’t matter what culture, what region, what country this person came from. When you’re as an audience, as the holder, right? As the eye. You have this power, and as humans, we have this power of taking at someone and really soaking [00:49:00] up what that person is giving to us.

And so I was convinced that there was a link there. And when I was in college, I went to college in USC, at USC in Los Angeles, and I realized that A lot of people I surrounded myself with had a certain aspect of beauty. I think that a lot came in sorority world. I was in a sorority and I think that there was a very, there was a pattern in what looked like what you were supposed to look like, or what beauty looked like when you were in those type of social circles.

And so, this always brought back the question, like, Huh, do I have it all wrong? Do they have it all wrong? Like, what’s going on? Like, there’s something that doesn’t really, like And so, I had this curiosity, and I don’t think anyone has it all wrong. I think that it’s just a question of perception. And so it was very interesting because I was able to fulfill this curiosity when I decided to write a book and [00:50:00] this decision came about after I was reached out to from a professor at Georgetown that was sponsoring some students to, to write a book.

So he kind of proposed this idea to me to write a book about something I was interested in and I kind of took this opportunity. To write about beauty because I was so interested and so curious about this on how cultures consumed felt and had a relationship with beauty so I ended up taking this offer and interviewing 65 different people in the industry and ended up writing a book that I think encompasses The power of feeling beautiful, but in different ways, in ways on how we have a relationship with ourselves, how we deal with our relationship with social media, how we deal with our relationship with different generations, how different [00:51:00] generations deal with it.

Perceptions of the other generations as well, because sometimes we are taught that the youth has it all wrong because we are all comparing ourselves on social media and X, Y, Z, and we’re all changing. But honestly, I think that social media has also given us such a bright light on a 360 bird’s eye view on what beauty is.

Yeah. Yeah. All of a sudden, before, I think, before the social media generation came out, only a select few had a voice. And you had to be an actor. You had to be a model. You had to be a famous person. You had to be a celebrity. You had to be someone to be listened to. And now you can have a voice. Basically everyone’s their own influencer.

Now you’re going to have a voice. It doesn’t matter how many followers you have. It doesn’t matter because honestly, also micro influencers are the ones that are getting the most traction with what they say, because those are the [00:52:00] ones that have the, that little niche community that. Really is a loyal to what that person is saying.

Right. Have it be 5, 000, 2, 000, 1, 000 followers. You’re still influencing a lot of people on what you say on social media and what you do on social media and you have a voice. And if you have a voice, you can, you can have your voice about expressing what you believe in, what you have a passion in, what you hope to see in the world, and that is all a translation of your own beauty.

And so I think that a lot of people that have been minorities in the beauty industry have been able to showcase themselves now in that way. And I think that that’s such an interesting thing. And I wanted to touch on that when I started writing this book. And that’s something that, to me, Was a necessity, but was a necessity for my generation and for other generations to hear a message [00:53:00] from the people in the highest ranks of the beauty industry.

Because sometimes we think that the beauty industry is trying to impose something on us. And really when you hear what these people have to say, they’re really, it’s like one thing is what we’re perceiving and another thing is what they’re trying to give us. And really, I think that in the, in the true sense of the beauty industry, there’s such beautiful message, the beauty industry, there’s a beautiful message, but there’s such an impactful message of you being you and trying to.

Make your own features be as beautiful and as Authentic as possible as inclusive as possible And I think that the beauty industry has gone so far already in Such little time before we would only see actresses and models that were All a certain aesthetic, a certain way. And now we see an [00:54:00] array of people.

One of my favorite, favorite, favorite stories in the book is Yalitza Aparicio’s story, which is the main actress in Roma, the movie that was an Oscar winning movie, um, last year. And she, she plays the character of Cleo of the house, um, made in, In the movie, and she was, she had the opportunity with, um, the magnificent Clara, uh, Carla Martinez de Salas, which is the, the editor in chief of Vogue of Mexico and Latin America, that had the idea for the 2020 anniversary to be.

Uh, for the 20th anniversary of, um, Vogue, she decided to put her on the cover and there was huge, huge backlash. Some people had horrible, [00:55:00] um, response to it, but others had the most remarkable response to it. And now, she has basically, both of them, um, have basically changed. The, the beauty industry and the fashion industry, you know, Vogue is, is the icon, the most iconic magazine in the world for beauty and fashion.

Yeah. Have a, an indigenous woman, um, that had never been featured before a woman of her ethnicity on Vogue. It was just incredible, And her message, um, I, I was able to talk to her as well. And, um, The, the impact that it has made on so many people, so many demographics, so many populations, um, specifically, specifically in Latin America that have been the minority in the beauty industry [00:56:00] have been so, so undershown under, um, Undervalued in the beauty industry and have been kind of told that they couldn’t be beautiful because by not showcasing Some type of people you’re basically telling them in in a very indirect way that They can’t they don’t have the right to feel beautiful And I think that this we’re in such a revolutionary era right now for the beauty industry and it’s so exciting to see how it changes um, even luxury companies now, um, Just are changing so much are changing the way they Approach formulations.

They approach ingredients in a different way. They are all trying to find the most natural and the most Research and the most effective ingredients and active, uh, ingredients to have in their, in their skincare [00:57:00] and in their, um, makeup. They’re trying to remove everything that is toxic, that is now being shown and being, everyone’s starting to be aware of it.

Um, for example, with the huge, huge movement towards no mica, right? Right. Knowing what is behind and who is behind everything. Like, like before we were buying so much clothes and made for China and we didn’t know because we were unaware about who was all the child labor that was behind it. Now there’s the same kind of revolution happening in the beauty industry.

And I think it’s such a relief to know that all of this is happening. And I think that we all can contribute to this huge movement by becoming Aware and by becoming conscious consumers. And so I knew that this was a message that I wanted to give off and I thought How like what a better way to do it than to write a book with a bunch of anecdotes

[00:58:00] research um Uh, anecdotes, research stories and recommendations from the most profound, uh, people in the industry and the most, really the most famous, the most celebs, the most, um, famous people. I, I’m like not finding the right words. The most famous people in the industry, but also. The most revolution revolutionary people in the industry to the most innovative people in the industry to the most Entrepreneurial people in the industry that are not known yet and that are doing things that are completely incredible and that are um doing things like new true cosmetics now that are Very very much the new thing that are doing men’s cosmetics that are much the new thing now It’s a huge market opening for sure.

Um Yeah And a huge market opening to in, in wellness and how really wellness, [00:59:00] um, happiness, what we eat and what we consume health and beauty are all connected. Because if one is not working, if we’re not healthy, we can’t feel beautiful. Right. If we’re not feeling beautiful, we’re probably not healthy and in our minds or in our body.

And it’s also connected that I think it’s very important. Right. To, to see this connection and to, and to read it. And I thought that honestly, it would be interesting for, for me to explore. And I learned so much throughout doing all of this. And, and I think, um, there’s so much for others to learn too while reading it.

So I hope that everyone that reads it can take away as much as I did when I was doing all the research. 

Hope: I mean, I agree. I encourage all of y’all to look on Amazon. Um, beauty as it is, is a lot to learn. There’s a lot of good takeaways. And I want to finish with one question I ask everyone and, and just to kind of relate it to your experience in beauty.

Um, but what [01:00:00] do you think is the most important change people can make, or the most important thing they can do to live with purpose?

Carlota: Question to end with. I honestly think that, um, purpose is something that you give to yourself, and it’s not something that you find and you search for until you find it. I think it’s something that you, um, have to feel the same way as you have to feel beautiful and you have to feel happiness. Yeah. And you have to kind of choose to, um, and so I think that In order for you to live with purpose, um, one thing that I would change is to put a smile on your face every day and to see every challenge with that, um, full glass kind of view that silver lining and everything that smile in every frown that you can find.

Um, I think that Your smile is the [01:01:00] the cheapest and most effective cosmetic you can ever wear 

Hope: I love that 

Carlota: um, that is something that bacilla bococo really. Um, Also an incredible woman I interviewed for the book really. Um, In ingrained in my belief because I think that in anything in life, if you put a smile to it, um, you can get so much further if you, um, that’s also the same.

It’s the only language that stays the same. Anywhere you live in the world, um, moving so much and being someone that speaks four languages and, um, and really takes pride in, in being able to communicate with a lot of people, I have realized that language, it only goes so far. And there’s a lot of things that are ingrained in culture that you can’t explain [01:02:00] or can’t understand only through language.

You have to understand through, um, cultural meaning. Um, but smiling is the only thing ever that we have in common. It doesn’t matter what country you go to, if you give them a smile, they will smile back. And I think that that’s a very, um, good way to have purpose with whatever, with everything you do. Um, with Everything you decide to do every day you wake up and you look at yourself in the mirror and maybe you don’t like what you see that day, but If you just smile at yourself, maybe, um, you’ll, there’s actually a lot of science behind it that, um, smiling gives your, your brain, um, certain hormones that you need to feel happiness, right?

And to feel fulfilled. So. Purpose is something that is so profound and I think that people have been, um, like so many existentialists have been asking themselves for so long and Yes. And have been writing about and have been, um, [01:03:00] theorizing about so long, right? Like, why are we here? Mm hmm. And why, and what is my purpose?

And why am I here? What am I here to do? Um, but if you approach all of your challenges, um, all of your thoughts, all of your insecurities with a smile, I think that that can make you, um, feel more fulfilled and maybe have more purpose and and allow people to to feel that. Um, and resonate with you. So I think that a smile can get you very far.

And again, it’s very cheap. 

Hope: No, it is. I love that. It’s so true. And I think it’s, Exceptionally relevant right now where we are in the world. So I I love that and that’s a great lesson And I thank you so much Carlotta for joining and just kind of enlightening all of us. I think this has just been a really Meaningful conversation.

So, thank you 

Carlota: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me It’s it’s such a pleasure to always speak with people like [01:04:00] you that are willing Um to hear these kind of things and and that have such a similar mission and goal As we are trying to spread these messages out. And have them get to as many people as possible and improve as many lives as we can.

Hope: So that’s what we’re here for. That’s what purpose is all about. Exactly. I love it. 

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for listening to Hopeful and Wholesome, y’all. If you found value in this week’s episode, please subscribe on iTunes wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review to let me know what you thought.

I love to know what you find useful in these episodes so I know how I can provide the most value I can to my listeners. And if you have topics that I’d love to hear those as well. So shoot me a message on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. It’s at the Hope Pedraza or visit my website, hopefulandwholesome.

com. Thanks, [01:05:00] y’all.