Beauty and politics are inseparable — from how politicians style their hair and makeup before addressing the nation to how tattoos became tools for resistance. In this comprehensive episode, we’ll explore politics from Elizabethan England to modern-day D.C., where we’ll interview Michelle Obama’s makeup artist, Carl Ray. We’ll then travel all the way to the Filipino village of Buscalan, to hear from a 107-year-old tattoo artist, Apo Whang-od, and tattoo anthropologist Lars Krutak.
Beauty and politics are inseparable — from how politicians style their hair and makeup before addressing the nation to how tattoos became tools for resistance.
In this comprehensive episode, we’ll explore politics from Elizabethan England to modern-day D.C., where we’ll interview Michelle Obama’s makeup artist, Carl Ray. We’ll then travel all the way to the Filipino village of Buscalan, to hear from a 107-year-old tattoo artist, Apo Whang-od, and tattoo anthropologist Lars Krutak.
Isabella: [00:00:00] What do you think when I say the word beauty? Is it silly? Is it frivolous? Is it fun? Do you only think of makeup? Or do you ever think of your favorite athlete?
Sheldon: You find players telling me if they don’t get a haircut, they don’t feel like they lace their boots up properly.
Isabella: Advanced technology?
Paul: You look down the microscope and there are all these fibers, just laid out exquisitely. It takes your breath away, really.
Isabella: Or the economy?
Daniel: The [00:00:30] Lipstick Effect is a very interesting phenomenon where it’s kind of a puzzle from an economic standpoint.
Isabella: Many people don’t take it very seriously, but beauty plays an essential role in the human experience.
Hello there, I’m Isabella Rossellini, and as an actress and model, beauty has shaped the industry in which I made my name. And now, in this new series from L’Oréal Groupe, I’m exploring the hidden role beauty plays in other [00:01:00] important areas of modern life. From sports and business to technology and more. Together, we will travel from Paris…
Aude: We have one salon for 1,000 people in France. That’s the average. In Paris, we would need 2,500 salons to answer the needs.
Isabella: …to Amsterdam...
Ilse: They said Like, within three weeks of starting your chemotherapy, you’d know if you’re gonna lose your hair or not.
Isabella: …to Seoul…
Interpreter for Sean: No matter where you [00:01:30] go in the world, you will not find men and women who love cosmetics and beauty, skin care, as much as those in South Korea.
Isabella: …and Washington, D.C….
Carl: The moment I felt like I had made it, per se, was when I started working very closely with Mrs. Obama in the White House and after the White House years.
Isabella: …to get to the heart of how beauty is woven into our world in ways we don’t even realize. So, this is not a beauty podcast. [00:02:00] It’s a business podcast, a sports podcast, a tech podcast. And today, it is a politics podcast.
You might remember me from films like “Blue Velvet” or “Death Becomes Her.” Or as the daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. Or as the face of Lancôme.
These days, I’m 72 years old, and I went back to university in my late 50s for a master’s degree [00:02:30] in ethology. Ethology is the science of animal behavior. And I also opened a farm in Long Island, where I’m taking care of heritage breeds of chickens, goats and sheep. But I spent over 50 years working in the beauty industry, and I’ve seen a lot of changes over time. But image has always been essential in politics.
Just check the front of the newspapers. The way a politician wears a suit or styles their hair or makeup can [00:03:00] signal different aspects of their identity and what they value. And this has been true for as long as human civilizations have existed. Five thousand years ago in Egypt, pharaohs were depicted as larger than life in paintings to portray their divinity. And in ancient Maya culture, men wore their hair long to symbolize nobility.
Fast forward to the 20th century. The British suffragette, [00:03:30] fighting for women’s rights, conveyed power and protest by wearing bold red lipstick, an item that was still largely taboo. And in the 1950s and ’60s, the Afro became a symbol of Black pride among the civil rights movement and its leaders.
Today, with the 24-hour news cycle and constantly rolling cameras, the way a politician presents themselves has never been more [00:04:00] vital. So now, for our first story, we decided to go straight to someone instrumental in designing how a politician looks.
Carl: My name is Carl Ray. I am a makeup artist. I live in Washington, D.C. I’ve been a makeup artist for about 25 years.
Isabella: Our producer, Gigi, sat down with Carl one sunny summer afternoon.
Gigi: Carl Ray is a very busy man. [00:04:30] Along with a complex schedule doing the makeup of brides, models, families having bar and bat mitzvahs, he has one client in particular that’s helped make him one of Capitol Hill’s most famous makeup artists.
Carl: The moment I felt like I had made it, per se, was when I started working very closely with Mrs. Obama in the White House and after the White House years. I have done everything from rope lines, state dinners, podcasts, book [00:05:00] tours. Every time you see her, pretty much, publicly or on TV, where you think makeup would be needed, I’m usually there.
Gigi: But Carl’s first client wasn’t a public figure.
Carl: I was 14 and my parents were getting a divorce. I’m an only child, and I would see my mother doing her makeup, and I thought I could do a better job, and I asked her if I could oblige her. And she let me. I begged her not to tell anyone, because I had swim team and baseball in the morning. So that’s how I got into it. I started doing [00:05:30] her makeup, trying to get her out there in the dating scene.
Gigi: It took some grit to end up working with the caliber of clients Carl has now. After becoming the in-house makeup artist at a beauty store, he had the chance to do makeup for the editor of a local magazine.
Carl: When the magazine came out, they were talking about her wedding day, and they had a picture of me doing her makeup. So, I ripped it out, I’m like, What am I going to do with this? I ran to a very well-known hotel in D.C., a five-star hotel, and I asked if [00:06:00] they had a makeup artist. They said they didn’t, and they introduced me to the owner of the salon in the hotel, and she interviewed me and asked me if I’ve ever worked in a salon before. I said no. She said, are you a prima donna? I’m like, What is that?
So she hired me on the spot, and I worked there for about 14 to 15 years, having the opportunity to work with musicians, politicians, actors, you name it, was coming in and out of the door. So I started to build a name for myself, [00:06:30] and being able to work with that type of dynamic client, you know, it was more comfortable the more I worked with folks like this.
So that’s how that started, and then eventually I went on to do more. I’ve had the opportunity to work with presidents, vice presidents, first ladies, second gentlemen, prime ministers, speakers of the House, Supreme Court justices, queens and princesses.
Gigi: So, I was curious, what’s it like being a makeup artist on Capitol Hill?
Carl: Everybody wants [00:07:00] the same thing. They want to look the best version of themselves. I mean, the public is very hard on appearance. So I think looking your best helps you feel your best, and you’re able to perform your best. So I think it’s very important to be very polished and put together.
So, for me, the D.C. look is generally a little more conservative and understated. It’s a more polished, natural appearance. I want to highlight their features. I will do a little research. I do my homework. I see how they [00:07:30] carry themselves, see what I could do for them, how I could help them. I just want them to be flawless, basically, and to be able to do their job without feeling any type of way.
I want to make sure that their voice is heard. I don’t want the talk to be about their makeup or their lash or their contour. I really want them to get their voice out and their message out. So I feel like that’s my responsibility.
Gigi: And that’s not only true for female politicians.
Carl: Men do need makeup, especially for TV, because with the high-definition cameras and things like this, you can see [00:08:00] every little pore or fine line. So, with men, I like to, like, cover up a blemish, or if they have dark circles, or a razor cut. Basically, I’m trying to even out the skin tone and improve the texture. It could be someone that is speaking, having a TV appearance, I don’t know, just men that are on TV in general. Sometimes if I have a groom, I’ll put makeup on a groom if they cut themselves shaving or they didn’t get enough sleep, they look a little tired, they want to look a little more fresh.
Gigi: So what’s happening backstage when Carl is working with a client?
Carl: I will [00:08:30] come in, I will cleanse the skin, I will moisturize and prep the skin so the makeup adheres and lasts and stays in place, doesn’t budge or smudge. Like, if it’s a man, I will do a little concealer under the eye, around the nose, even the skin tone out.
Generally, I’ll give them, like, a Chapstick to apply for themselves. A lot of men don’t want you touching all over on them. And I’ll groom the eyebrows, do a little setting spray and set them on their way. What’s changing mostly is the high definition of cameras, seeing every pore, every fine [00:09:00] line. Makeup has gotten a little more highlights and lashes and liner, but I still try to keep it very natural, neutral and just not too garish.
Gigi: Today, Carl is clearly a seasoned pro. He’s used to working up close with some of the world’s most important people, but he wasn’t always so relaxed.
Carl: It can be intimidating, and it was very much at first. I just wanted to do a good job and just, expecting a lot of yourself, for me, it was, and really, really having your client [00:09:30] feel at ease and comfortable.
After you work with someone for years, you can kind of get it down to a little dance of sorts. They know every move you’re making, and you know how to work with them and their emotions, and what’s going on in any given day. So I can either do it in 30 minutes, I can do it in an hour, just depends. If I’m pressed on time, I can go, go, go. If I’m taking my time and it’s something new, take my time and explain what I’m doing, listen to my [00:10:00] clients, see what they want. And we come together and we, we make it happen.
Isabella: What I hear from Carl is the importance of feeling that you’re put together. It happens to me, too. Sometimes, you know, maybe there is a stray hair that goes up in my head. And people look at that and say, What’s wrong? Instead of listening to what I say. Sometimes put together means as simple as having your hair combed in place so that it doesn’t look a funny shape. Or just to have a little lipstick because the lights are so [00:10:30] strong that your face’s features are washed out.
I would imagine that Carl must have been under incredible pressure, because politicians, you know, the faith of the world is in their hands, and they present themselves to the public, to the people that are going to vote for them. I can’t imagine how nervous they are. I think he also gives them that parenthesis, where he says, Now, now you comb your hair, you put yourself together, and you present yourself to the world.[00:11:00]
Once I played, for a television series, Joséphine de Beauharnais, the first wife of Emperor Napoleon I. Christian Clavier was playing Napoleon, and we were waiting one day for the command “Action” to open a door and enter. We were shooting in Versailles, which had been the place where the king of France, now deposed, used to live.
And as we were waiting for the action, we looked up and there was a portrait [00:11:30] of Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, who had been guillotined. And the way I looked as Joséphine was completely different from the way Marie Antoinette looked. And yet, there were three years’ difference between that portrait and how I was dressed.
Marie Antoinette, the old regime, the monarchy, with this enormous dress, with the hips exaggerated, that you would have to go sideways to go through a door, really was so clearly the past. [00:12:00] Joséphine, the revolution, and the way she dressed, it was so modern, a silk dress with high waist, something we can wear today.
Of course, Marie Antoinette and Joséphine de Beauharnais were not the politicians, but yet they were responsible for carrying an idea of their husbands’. And I thought, Wow, look, these two women, they present themselves so differently because in the way they use their makeup, their hair, their fashion, they’re stating [00:12:30] a revolution, a change. And the importance of image struck me.
So, in our next story, we will hear from our producer, Eva, about another painting, one that depicted a figure whose legacy has reverberated down the centuries and across the world.
Eva: Queen Elizabeth I succeeded to the throne in 1558, aged just 25, with her bright red hair, [00:13:00] courtesy of her Tudor roots, and her decision to remain unmarried and not have children, despite intense social pressure.
She was a striking figure. The late 1500s were a tricky time to be Elizabeth. She was a Protestant, and Protestant monarchs were definitely in the minority. In 1570, the Pope excommunicated her and declared that she was deprived of her crown. This declaration led to many attempts to assassinate her. Now, these attempts largely sought to [00:13:30] replace Elizabeth with her cousin, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots.
Luckily for Elizabeth, her spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham successfully foiled the plots and kept her safe. Tensions with France and Spain were high, too, and it was important that she was seen to maintain her status on the global stage.
Then, in about 1575, a new portrait of the queen was painted. Almost certainly painted from life, it would help define her image for centuries to come. [00:14:00] Known as the Darnley portrait, the painting depicts a woman wearing an ornate dress, covered in gold and silver trim, with a double string of pearls around her neck. She holds an ostrich-feather fan and has a ruby decorating her dress. Most important, however, is her expression. Often described as haughty or imperious, her serious and inscrutable gaze is a picture of strength.
She wears a masculine — [00:14:30] at least, for the time — doublet tight around her neck. She’s confident and collected in this more Continental style of image and is the absolute equal to her male counterparts in France and Spain, who continued to support plots against her. That facial expression and the strength it projects became the basis for many depictions of Elizabeth over the rest of her reign, curating an image of an ageless, powerful queen who survived many attempts by her enemies [00:15:00] to overthrow her.
The portrait is a beautiful example of how a single image, carefully crafted, can help shape a ruler’s legacy for centuries, and also reminds us of the timeless importance of appearance in politics.
Isabella: A portrait can be decorated however the artist — and whoever pays them — wishes. Making use of symbols and brushstrokes as codes to demonstrate personality, or [00:15:30] sensuality, or power. But, we can be decorated in the real world, too. And how we choose to adorn ourselves can be a powerful tool for self-expression, that signals to others who we are, where we come from and what we stand for. Tattoos are a fascinating example of this. Now, I don’t have any tattoos. Early in my career, as a model, we were certainly discouraged from getting them. But today, it is not unusual to see a [00:16:00] model on a runway or a cover on a magazine with body ink.
In many parts of the world, tattoos have been an important part of society, which lead us to our last story. We are now heading with Gigi through the rainforests of the Philippines, to the village of Buscalan, to visit the world’s oldest tattoo artist.[00:16:30]
[Voices speaking in Kalinga]
Gigi: That’s Grace Palicas speaking to her great-aunt, Apa Whang-od, 107-year-old tattoo artist from the Kalinga tribe, who has been tattooing since she was just 14 years old. She performs a technique called batok, where the artist taps ink into the skin. Here they are describing how it works.
Apo: What I use is luru. It’s a stick. I put in the sun. When it’s dry, [00:17:00] I put the pomelo thorn. And then ink is cold charcoal. And then I can tattoo. That’s how we Kalinga used to tattoos.
Gigi: I wanted to understand more about Indigenous tattoo practices around the world. So I spoke with Lars Krutak. He’s been a tattoo anthropologist and research associate for more than 20 years.
Lars: Now there’s certain techniques that are used to apply tattoos, especially in the Indigenous world, and those are hand tapping, hand [00:17:30] poking, subdermal skin stitching and incision tattooing, whereby you take a lancet or, you know, a sharp implement, cut the skin, and then you vigorously rub the pigment into the wounds. And some of these traditional methods are more painful than others. And I can attest to that, because I’ve experienced all of them on my body.
Gigi: Wow.
Lars: Skin stitching was widely practiced in the Arctic, and it still is to this day. Basically, what it entails is that the tattoo artist has a needle. Before [00:18:00] trade items entered their cultures — we’re talking about animal bone, or maybe fish bone — and a piece of sinew thread was attached to the eyelet. And the sinew thread was impregnated with pigment. So you pinched up a piece of skin and you brought the needle and the thread all the way through the skin. And that left an entrance and an exit mark — small dots. So, over repetitive stitching the skin — we’re talking, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of times, depending on what pattern or design you’re trying to achieve — it’s a very slow, methodical and tedious process. And in the Arctic, it usually would take several years and many, many, many sessions with a tattoo artist, who was invariably female in the Arctic, to complete that tattoo. I’d say it’s one of the more painful and slow techniques.
Whereas I find that hand tapping, which is pretty widespread across Southeast Asia as well as Polynesia, because it’s very rhythmic in nature, it’s sort of, uh,[00:19:00] hypnotic and sleep inducing. I mean, I find myself falling asleep sometimes, because of the rhythm of the tattooing. It’s just tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh. You know, the song of that tattoo is really relaxing, and it just puts you in a really nice place. But then, when you hit a nerve, you wake up really quick.
Gigi: It’s pretty wild to me that Lars has experienced such a wide range of tattoos for himself, especially ones that sound so painful. You can really appreciate his passion as a researcher. [00:19:30] But I wanted to know, how long have tattoos been around?
Lars: Oldest evidence we have of tattooing to date comes from the Neolithic period. And in 1991, a European quote-unquote ice man dubbed Ötzi, because he was discovered in the Ötztal Alps melting out of a glacier, was found. And he bears over 60 linear tattoos and one cruciform on his body. He dates to about 5,200 years old, and almost about the same [00:20:00] age are two predynastic Egyptian mummies, a male and a female, that date to about 5,000 years old, and they possess the oldest figurative tattoos in the world. Mainly, the man has a bull — which could be a symbol of virility, we are unsure of that — on one of his shoulders, and the woman has a series of S-like shapes on one shoulder and then what looks to be a crooked staff on the other, which in later times was a symbol of authority. So we don’t know [00:20:30] much about the meanings behind these tattoos, but it’s been conjectured that perhaps she had some status in her community as a leader.
And we believe that there are probably many other Egyptian tattoos from the predynastic period that are waiting to be discovered, because these actually cannot be seen with the naked eye. They were only discovered after infrared photographs were taken of their bodies. And there’s many other tattoos in later Egyptian periods, especially in the Middle [00:21:00] Kingdom. And some of the individuals that wear those tattoos have definitely been identified as priestesses and other women that were part of the court of rulers.
Gigi: Lars told me that Western tattooing history really began in the medieval period. There are 16th-century records of Christian pilgrims visiting Bethlehem and Jerusalem, receiving hand-poked tattoos as symbols of faith and to commemorate their journeys. Over the next few generations, as world travelers like sailors and nobles came home with body ink, they gained popularity, even among some pretty surprising [00:21:30] characters.
Lars: The future English King George V and his brother Prince Albert Victor, who were in service of the British Navy, were tattooed in Yokohama with these colorful Japanese patterns.
Gigi: These global journeys were expensive. So tattoos served as a key economic and class identifier, which was also the case in many Indigenous societies.
Lars: Well, if we’re talking about Indigenous societies, some were very egalitarian. So anybody and everybody could wear the same types of tattoos. Whereas in [00:22:00] others, there was a rigid hierarchy of three or four more levels. You know, you have the aristocracy, the nobles. Just like you have in Western culture. Then you have individuals who are closely related and are basically courtesans, or in the court of these aristocrats. Then you have common people, and then you also have a slave class in some cases. And so, depending on your rank within that particular system, you were allowed to wear certain patterns that were related to your [00:22:30] status.
I mean, tattooing usually signified that an individual had become enculturated into their respective community and had mastered the skills to become an adult and a productive member of society. For example, I’ve heard this many times, but the particular words of an Inuit elder from Nunavut once said that you can’t get a wife if you haven’t learned how to build an igloo and that you weren’t [00:23:00] a real Inuit woman if you didn’t have a facial tattoo.
Gigi: Status mattered within the profession, too, often depending on the tattooing technique used. Sometimes, women were the expected tattoo artists, like in the skin-stitching style Lars mentioned earlier. For other groups, it was only appropriate for men. But for Apo, she got her start tattooing after learning from her father.
Grace: How did you start tattooing? Who trained you?
Apo: I did start when I was a [00:23:30] kid. We tattoo each other. We practice with others. My father tell me that you can be a mangkukwato, a tattoo artist, so that you can continue what I do. Meaning for us as a Kalinga, for the tattoos, it’s really important for us as a Kalinga to have a tattoo. Because it will stay in your skin. Even though you’re rich, you [00:24:00] don’t bring when you die. Tattoo will stay.
Grace: Do the tattoos on men and women have different meanings? What do they mean?
Apo: The difference of the tattoos, the man is for warrior, for bravery. The girl is for decoration to have, to be attractive, like beauty. This is a neat meaning for us.[00:24:30]
Gigi: Lars told me that even before the height of tattoo tourism, Apo was a much sought-after artist.
Lars: She tattooed a lot of warriors, not only from her tribe, but from neighboring enemy tribes, because of her exquisite line work. But when she was tattooing these men, these warrior men who were leaders in their community and their wives, she learned about privileged information, if you will, about political situation, community situation, local gossip, [00:25:00] because these tattoos took a long time to make, especially when you’re talking about a warrior who has full-body tattooing.
So she wouldn’t knock those out in one day. It would take successive trips, successive sessions, to complete a full complement of tattoos. So, she had a really privileged position in the sense that the company that she was keeping and, of course, she was also earning relatively high wages in relation to others in their community because they’re, for the most [00:25:30] part, agriculturalists.
Gigi: Ultimately, Apo commanded a position of power, both economically and politically. Nowadays, she’s famous globally for her age, but she’s also made another important impact.
Lars: She’s also broken down a lot of stereotypes within the Philippines because, as many people know, it’s a pretty devout Roman Catholic society, and she’s broken down a lot of stereotypes on what tattoos can and mean, especially with a lot of Filipinos coming from the lowlands as well as from [00:26:00] around the world, like diasporic Filipino populations coming to receive tattoos from her because it’s a, an authentic symbol of their cultural identity.
Although, I have to tell you that when I first met her in 2007, tattooed elders among the Kalinga were made to feel ashamed of their tattoos. And when they traveled to the lowlands to go shopping, they would cover up their body tattoos with long clothing. But now there’s been a complete change, a revaluing of [00:26:30] tattooing among the domestic population.
Gigi: But I wanted to know, who is making them ashamed?
Lars: You have to go back in time, because the Kalinga were some of the fiercest warriors in the Philippines. And even the government was afraid to go, even the military was afraid to go there. But now, everything is completely transformed and opened up with tattoo tourism, if you will. Or, they call it locally, tattoo mania. But who was making people feel the shame when they went to the lowlands [00:27:00] to trade or to go to the market? People just associated, as they do in some cases today, a heavily tattooed person is associated with being a criminal or a criminal element. And so, they may have no idea that this person was an Indigenous tribal member of the Kalinga. They just had the association that you’ve defiled your body and you’re most likely associated or stereotyped as a criminal or, you know, some outsider [00:27:30] outcast. So it’s really interesting to see the transformation in people’s conceptions of what tattooing actually is, what it means, and it’s just fascinating.
We have to remember that in many places of the Indigenous world, missionaries and government colonial agents arrived there, in some cases hundreds of years ago. And because tattooing was so firmly enmeshed in their spiritual values, their identity, it was one of the first things that [00:28:00] they attempted to stamp out and that they actually did a very good job of doing so.
In some locations, there were official tattooing bans, especially during the colonial Japanese era among the Ainu. Also, when Taiwan was a colony of Japan, the Atayal, Paiwan and other Indigenous communities were officially banned from tattooing. And it went so far as that if someone did receive a tattoo, the tattoo artist and even their client, or maybe even the parents of their client if it was a [00:28:30] youth, were imprisoned or they faced great fines.
In some cases, people were made to be so ashamed of their tattoos that they had them removed surgically with a scalpel, or they even burned them off their skin with acid. Now, in North America, it went a little bit farther than that because Indigenous peoples were displaced from their homelands and put on reservations, where they were heavily surveilled and they were forbidden from carrying on their traditional religious practices.
And then there were generations [00:29:00] of youth that were taken away from these communities and brought to boarding schools, residential boarding schools, where their native languages were banned. And they faced dehumanizing cruelty at the hands of the people that were running these schools. But they were locations where new forms of tattooing were developed as sort of acts of resistance.
Isabella: I find it fascinating that cultural identity, of course, goes through your appearance. [00:29:30] And if you’re not allowed to express your culture anymore because you’re being dominated by another culture, you can still find sneaky ways to do tattoos to keep your culture going. It's not just self-decorating, it can be a political act. So whether we are a politician trying to signify our values to our constituents, a 16th-century queen looking to stake her claim in a male-dominated Europe or a Kalinga warrior earning decoration for accomplishments in battle, beauty is, really, an impulse to define [00:30:00] who we are as people and how we want others to view us. And where else could that be more important than in politics?
Thank you to our guests, Carl Ray, Lars Krutak, Apo Whang-od, Grace Palicas, for speaking to us. If you have enjoyed our podcast, please subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss out on our new episode, and if you don’t mind, [00:30:30] rating and reviewing so other listeners can find us.
Next, we will be exploring the unexpected ways in which beauty has impacted the world of business. I’m Isabella Rossellini, and thank you for listening to “This Is Not a Beauty Podcast,” brought to you by L’Oréal Groupe.