In Soigner sa peau. Exploration d'une obsession, journalist and author Mona Chollet begins by reflecting on her own use of cosmetic products to examine how the modern fixation on skincare and the massive revenue it generates reveal deeper issues in capitalist and patriarchal societies. The beauty industry is everywhere, with advertising for skincare products growing rapidly in recent years across billboards, television, and social media. Products such as day creams, night creams, eye contour creams, anti-wrinkle creams, lifting creams, exfoliating creams, hydrating creams, plumping creams, and creams for various purposes have become a constant presence in the so-called beauty market, which primarily targets women. Chollet questions what this widespread obsession signifies about contemporary society, noting that many women are troubled by the condition of their skin. She highlights how from Instagram filters to advertisements urging young girls to combat the aging of their features, and through the development of surgery and aesthetic medicine, societal norms have shifted to obscure what a human skin is supposed to look like. She writes, "What kind of society is it where - in the upper classes, certainly - it takes a dump truck of products for a woman to be considered beautiful, or simply to meet expectations?" The author of Beauté fatale (La Découverte, 2012) expresses her anger about the collective hatred of women's age and the condescension it expresses, opposing the injunction to be and remain decorative creatures. She notes the costs of the skincare industry, which affects mental and physical health due to toxic substances in cosmetics and the risks of surgery, as well as the planet, making it particularly ecocidal. Chollet discusses the suffocating sexism that governs societies, which often goes unrecognized as it blends with the air we breathe, generating insecurities. She highlights the powerful, persuasive, and attractive forces that know how to exploit both weaknesses and dreams, noting that the skincare industry, one way or another, always ends up harming women while financially "stripping" them. She states that the system puts all of us on the spot: women are stigmatized if they resort to aesthetic medicine and surgery, and they are stigmatized if they refrain from doing so. While Chollet is annoyed by the hasty condemnations of beauty practices, she dedicates pages to the "panache" and "delight" that can be in applying cream to one's face. She reminds that women not conforming to dominant norms (white, thin, cisgender, etc.) "risk exclusion, or even aggression, for issues of self-presentation." At the same time, she places these practices within the deleterious social context in which we live, asking, "Would our terror of aging be so invasive if humanity had found a harmonious ecological balance, if no climate catastrophe was underway, if we had the assurance of being able to retire at a decent age and not lack anything until our death?" She estimates that "we feel more ready to challenge immutable physical laws [the aging of our skin] alone in our corner than to challenge a political order together." Chollet summarizes in a meaningful formula: "To what extent will it be possible to have beautiful skin and rejoice in it in a hideous world?" Soigner sa peau. Exploration d'une obsession by Mona Chollet, published by Zones/La Découverte, is 192 pages and costs 20 euros, with a release date of October 1st.