I'm back! Did you miss me?

In this episode, I'm taking you on a journey through the ways beauty standards twisted and transformed during some of history's darkest moments- from the death-obsessed world of the Black Death to the patriotic glamour demanded during World War I & World War II.

We'll uncover why people clung to fragile, disciplined, or "pure" aesthetics when everything around them was falling apart. We'll talk plagues, pin-ups, propaganda, and the way modern beauty culture still mirrors those old fears.

Are. You. Ready?

****************

Featured AD:

If you love wandering into the stranger corners of history with me, you'll want to hear the trailer for my new narrative show, Murder Through Time: A Whodunit Across the Centuries. Each episode drops you into a different era as you unravel a real case shaped by the customs, dangers, and secrets of its time. You're not just listening, you're the detective. You'll hear the teaser in today's episode, and you can listen to the first episode right now wherever you get your podcasts.

****************

Sources & Further Reading:

Naomi Wolf — The Beauty Myth (1990)

Millard Meiss — Painting in Florence and Siena After the Black Death (1951)

Katherine Byrne — Tuberculosis and the Victorian Literary Imagination (2011)

Kathy Peiss — Hope in a Jar (1998)

George Mosse — Nationalism and Sexuality (1985)

Ruth Ben-Ghiat — Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (2020)

Jia Tolentino — Trick Mirror (2019)

Oxford University Press — Women in Wartime analyses (various authors)

****************

Leave Us a 5* Rating, it helps the show!

Apple Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beauty-unlocked-the-podcast/id1522636282

Spotify Podcast:

https://open.spotify.com/show/37MLxC8eRob1D0ZcgcCorA

****************

Follow Us on Social Media & Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

YouTube:

@beautyunlockedspodcasthour

TikTok:

tiktok.com/@beautyunlockedthepod

****************

Intro/Outro Music:

“Fame Inc” by Savvier — https://icons8.com/music

Welcome, my unholy loves, to the final episode of our Unholy December series.

In seventeenth-century Puebla, a cloistered nun's suffering was documented as spiritual warfare rather than illness. Drawing on colonial convent records and clerical testimony, we examine how pain, devotion, and fear collided inside the rigid world of New Spain's Carmelite convents. Stripped of folklore, this case reveals how a woman's body became a site of religious authority and control. The Possessed Nun of Puebla endures not because of what was believed to inhabit her, but because of how her suffering was interpreted.

****************

Sources & References:

Rosalva Loreto López, “The Devil, Women, and the Body in Seventeenth-Century Puebla Convents,” The Americas, Cambridge University Press.

False Mystics: Deviant Orthodoxy in Colonial Mexico, Scribd academic document.

Discalced Carmelite Convent of San José and Santa Teresa — historical foundation and context.

Fernando Cervantes, The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in Colonial Mexico, Yale University Press, 1994.

****************

Leave Us a 5* Rating, it really helps the show!

Apple Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beauty-unlocked-the-podcast/id1522636282

Spotify Podcast:

https://open.spotify.com/show/37MLxC8eRob1D0ZcgcCorA

****************

Follow Us on Social Media & Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

YouTube:

@beautyunlockedspodcasthour

TikTok:

tiktok.com/@beautyunlockedthepod

****************

Music & SFX Attribution:

Epidemic Sound

"Return of Light" Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen

"Final Examination" Jay Varton

"Ghost Dungeons" Ethan Sloan

"Creepy Crawly" Arthur Benson

Find the perfect track on Epidemic Sound for your content and take it to the next level! See what the hype is all about!👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

epidemicsound.com

****************

Bell Church

Whispers Eerie Low M

AudioHero.com

A quick message for my Unholy fiends to say Happy Holidays, thank you for the love!

Just wanted to share a small update, the final Unholy December episode will be released on Saturday.

I really appreciate your patience and apologize for the delay.

Stay safe, my loves.

****************

Leave Us a 5* Rating, it really helps the show!

Apple Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beauty-unlocked-the-podcast/id1522636282

Spotify Podcast:

https://open.spotify.com/show/37MLxC8eRob1D0ZcgcCorA

****************

Follow Us on Social Media & Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

YouTube:

@beautyunlockedspodcasthour

TikTok:

tiktok.com/@beautyunlockedthepod

****************

Music & SFX Attribution:

“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” arranged by Craig Austin. Licensed through Audio Hero.

AudioHero.com