You used to be so pretty

Growing up, Haein Shim was taught that if she wanted to succeed, she needed to change her appearance. Shim was raised in South Korea, where a competitive job market and booming beauty industry combined to make careful beauty maintenance all but mandatory for gainful employment. By the time she was a young adult, she was spending hours a day and hundreds of dollars a month on makeup and clothes, until one day her friend asked, “Why do we spend so much money on our appearance?” That question upended Shim’s family, career and sense of self. It led her to join...