Cover Photo: Photograph by Eugenia Maximova/Unsplash
Photograph by Eugenia Maximova/Unsplash

How Years of Running Beauty Focus Groups Nearly Destroyed Me

I am the only one in the room who is neither asked nor allowed to answer: “How does that make you feel?”

This is Focus Group Archives, a column by Katiy Heath about navigating womanhood and identity within the beauty industry's white corporate gaze.

KATIY HEATH is an essayist from Saint Joseph, Missouri. Her obsessions include women who bathe, women who work, and women who witness. She currently is writing a memoir about her experience moderating focus groups for skincare companies. Read more from her at CHEAP POP, Pigeon Pages, and XRAY Lit.