Flawless

Reviews for FLAWLESS

“A bright light into the shadowy world of manufactured beauty and endless ‘self-improvement’…Hu’s study of Korea’s beauty cult is fascinating and disturbing, woven with threads of dark humor and personal experience.”

KIRKUS (starred review)

“Surprisingly profound questions.”

PEOPLE MAGAZINE

“Hu has written a brilliant, deeply researched book that reads like a conversation with your smartest friend … Refreshingly, the author’s lack of Western judgment makes way for curiosity and respect.”

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

“We might expect Hu to conclude by rejecting ‘appearance work’ completely. But she does no such thing. Instead, she takes a fresher and more interesting tack, reminding us that self-stylization has often served as a form of revolt.”

THE WASHINGTON POST

“Nuanced, wide-ranging, and fluidly written, this peels back the layers of a powerful cultural trend.”

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“A remarkable investigation.”

SLATE

“Hu tracks the social, political, and economic results of a beauty industry big enough to reshape a country. Her ability to lay out a highly rigid and codified standard of beauty in a different culture defamiliarizes our own enough to make its outlines and paradoxes plain.”

VOX

“The book shows that Korea’s newly global influence is not limited to tangible cultural products such as films and dramas, but may be beginning to shape how we look.”

ASIAN REVIEW OF BOOKS

“Elise Hu has written the definitive exploration of K-beauty in her sweeping new book.”

NYLON

“Astonishingly researched and unputdownable.”

ELECTRIC LITERATURE

Press for FLAWLESS

What Authors Are Saying

“Superbly researched and deeply insightful, FLAWLESS is a timely, provocative, and fascinating must-read. Elise Hu masterfully blends an engrossing memoir about her experience as a foreigner, woman, and mother of girls in Seoul with a journalistic exploration of the disturbing forces behind K-beauty’s global rise and the increasingly algorithm-driven perceptions and unforgiving standards of “beauty.” I loved it.”

Angie Kim, NYT bestselling author of HAPPINESS FALLS and MIRACLE CREEK

“Like a trip to the beauty counter with your most discerning friend, Flawless deftly redirects us from the individual choices we are bombarded with (so many serums, so little time!) and focuses us instead on the transnational systems that sell consumption as the key to wholeness. Well-researched and funny, it is Hu’s own vulnerability and keen observations on the endless project of female self-improvement that make each page sparkle.”

Alicia Menendez, MSNBC Anchor & Author, THE LIKEABILITY TRAP

“If you think that only women are trapped by a society that demands physical perfection, think again. Korean men now consume roughly 13% of the world’s skincare products–even camouflage lip-balm for men doing their mandatory military service. A fascinating look at the ugliness of Korea’s cosmetic underworld, sometimes shocking and often darkly funny as Elise riffs on the more ridiculous aspects of the pursuit of “ideal” beauty. Let me tell you dudes, the book gets under your skin–in all the right ways.”

Jake Adelstein, author of TOKYO VICE and executive producer of Tokyo Vice on HBOMax

“In FLAWLESS, Elise Hu explores not just why South Koreans are so obsessed with skincare, but also how the beauty standards of Korean culture have created a seemingly endless feedback loop of beauty “problems” to be solved by an ever-increasing number of products. A fascinating, meticulously reported deep dive into Korean beauty culture.”

Doree Shafrir, co-host of FOREVER35 PODCAST and author of THANKS FOR WAITING: THE JOY & WEIRDNESS OF BEING A LATE BLOOMER and STARTUP: A NOVEL