Carissa Vikis
211 episodes listed below
Beauty culture, stripped of its innocence.
Beauty Unlocked is a brisk essay show about the politics hidden inside beauty culture. Carissa connects celebrity scrutiny, body hair, thinness, Botox, glow-ups, and men’s grooming to larger systems of control, shame, aspiration, and profit.
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Beauty Unlocked treats beauty as a public record of private pressure. Led by Carissa’s brisk narration, the show turns everyday appearance debates into arguments about power, discipline, desire, and surveillance. It does not treat celebrity bodies as harmless entertainment. Red-carpet commentary becomes a case study in how ordinary people reproduce the old tabloid machine through comment sections, zoomed-in photos, and speculative judgment. Body hair becomes more than grooming. It becomes a way to ask why adult female bodies are so often expected to look smooth, youthful, controlled, and commercially maintained. Thinness returns again and again as a moral signal. The show links slenderness to restraint, austerity, racial hierarchy, colonial thinking, and the old idea that a disciplined body reveals a disciplined self. Glow-ups are handled with similar suspicion. A changed appearance may open doors, but Beauty Unlocked keeps asking what that says about the doors. Cosmetic procedures are not reduced to panic or praise. Botox, for example, is traced from medical use to lunchtime maintenance, with the oddness of that normalization left visible. The male beauty market gets the same treatment. Men’s skincare and grooming are framed as both a loosening of stigma and a new frontier for selling insecurity. The show’s strongest habit is refusing to let beauty culture describe itself as neutral. Products, routines, trends, and preferences are treated as social scripts with costs attached. Academic references appear often, including Michel Foucault, Naomi Wolf, Susan Bordeaux, Sabrina Strigs, and Mark Andrejevic. The style stays accessible, pointed, and fast. It favors claims over hedging. It suits listeners who want cultural criticism with historical range, clean outrage, and a clear thesis. Beauty Unlocked is less about what looks good than about who gets trained to care, who gets watched, and who benefits when that training starts to feel like choice.
Made for: For listeners drawn to beauty history, body politics, and social media analysis. It especially suits people who want appearance trends connected to economics, gender, race, surveillance, and everyday self-policing.
What sets it apart: Beauty Unlocked makes beauty standards feel historically loaded rather than merely fashionable. Its essay format moves quickly from familiar internet arguments to named scholarship and structural critique without losing its bite.
Buckle up and get ready as I delve into a variety of topics regarding physical beauty. We'll take a look at our society's obsession with physical beauty and the consequences these impossible beauty standards have had on us. Let's face it; this fascination regarding physical beauty and body image isn't a recent phenomenon; it has been around for centuries, crossing borders, and has affected men and women alike. The realization of this podcast has come about by my own experiences having to deal with society's perverse notion of physical "perfection" and researching an array of topics that have intrigued me...
This is the show that makes your beauty routine look like a centuries-old surveillance program.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A sharp account of how tabloid-style scrutiny became a social-media habit shared by the audience.
The episode follows a cultural handoff from tabloid covers to comment sections, where celebrity scrutiny is no longer only sold to audiences but partly made by them.
A brisk, thoughtful history of how commissioned art helped train viewers to see women as beautiful, passive, and available.
Beauty Unlocked follows the male gaze back to the point where beauty became something a patron could purchase. Before Hollywood, cameras, advertising, or algorithms, the episode places the pattern in commissioned art, where repeated images taught viewers to link female value…
A Joan Ferguson study of how beauty can turn danger into nuance, and nuance into permission.
Beauty Unlocked's Joan Ferguson deep dive looks at why elegant, dangerous villains can make morality feel negotiable. It follows that attraction through beauty, menace, and the sense of psychological depth, then widens out from older visual codes that cast villains as monstrous…
Scholarly books, patiently made public.
Japanese history, told with sources and bite.
Italian art history, walked room by room.
Beauty Unlocked the podcast's EP - 125 - We Became the Tabloids!
Beauty Unlocked host Carissa examines why female pubic hair is labeled "dirty," "unfeminine," or "gross" while male body hair is often described as rugged and mature.
This episode explores how societal fixation on female thinness is not about beauty but about enforcing obedience, connecting it to sexism, racism, and colonialism.
This episode examines the growing male beauty industry, questioning whether it represents progress or simply expands consumerism by selling insecurity to a new demographic.
This episode explores how the societal ideal of 'effortless beauty' actually requires significant invisible effort, expense, and is tied to wealth and class.
This bonus episode explores the normalization of Botox as a quick beauty treatment, examining its origins as a neurotoxin and questioning its perceived harmlessness.
Beauty Unlocked host Carissa argues the 'male gaze' predates Hollywood by centuries, tracing it to wealthy patrons who commissioned portraits and dictated exactly how women were depicted.
Beauty Unlocked host Carissa uses Wentworth's Joan Ferguson, played by Pamela Rabe, to ask why audiences forgive elegant, attractive villains for things they wouldn't forgive from someone less conventionally beautiful.
This episode explores the dangerous and socially-driven beauty practices of medieval women, blending history with commentary on societal pressures.
Beauty Unlocked the podcast examines how appearance rules controlled women through social pressure and law, from medieval hairline shaving to 1930s U.S.
This episode explores how beauty standards evolve and intensify during times of societal crisis, using historical examples like plague, war, and political collapse.
A narrative history of a possessed nun in 17th-century Puebla, based on clerical documentation and convent testimony.
This episode analyzes the Southeast Asian legend of the kuntilanak, exploring its origins and the societal fears it embodies.
This episode explores the 17th-century demonic possession case of Madeleine de Desmondolles de la Palau in Aix-en-Provence, focusing on her accusations against Father Louis Gaufridi and the religious tensions of the counter-reformation era.
A narrative true crime episode recounting the 1974 exorcism of Michael Taylor in Yorkshire that ended in tragedy.
A young woman accuses a Jesuit priest of seduction and spiritual manipulation in 18th-century France, leading to a sensational courtroom drama.
A detailed narrative of the Smurl family's decade-long haunting in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, starting with subtle disturbances and escalating to violent paranormal activity.
A narrative history episode about Martha Brossière, a young woman in 1598 France whose alleged demonic possession sparked a conflict between medical and religious authorities.
This episode explores the vampire's evolution into a modern pop culture icon, focusing on the 1922 film Nosferatu as a product of post-WWI German Expressionism that embodied societal fears.
This episode explores how the vampire myth reflects humanity's timeless obsession with eternal youth, beauty, and immortality, tracing its cultural roots from historical ideals to modern beauty practices.
This episode explores the vampire's predatory beauty and eternal youth as manifestations of humanity's ancient obsession with immortality, tracing connections from Chinese emperors to alchemists and explorers.
This episode explores ancient myths of female monsters like Lamia, Lilith, and succubi to reveal how societies have historically tried to control female desire.
This episode explores the psychological and cultural connection between fear and desire through the lens of vampire mythology, focusing on the symbolic meaning of the vampire's bite.
A narrative exploration of vampire origins, from bloated corpses to seductive predators.
This episode explores the trend of facial harmonizing on social media and its troubling historical roots in society's obsession with symmetry.
This episode critiques the anti-aging industry and societal obsession with youth, exploring how aging is framed as a moral failing.
Exploring ancient Egyptian beauty rituals and their cultural significance in defying aging.
The host discusses a study revealing that ancient Greek and Roman marble statues were originally painted and perfumed, challenging modern perceptions.
This episode tells the scandalous story of Diane de Poitiers, a Renaissance beauty icon who used gold drinking and other hacks to maintain her youth and power.
This episode explores the labia puff cosmetic procedure, discussing its purpose, popularity, and the societal implications of intimate aesthetic trends.
Explores the dangerous and bizarre beauty rituals of Regency-era England, including lead-based makeup and toxic teeth veneers.
A narrative history of soap making from ancient Sumer and Babylon to modern times.