ReceiptGate #024: These Substack icons have skin in the game, literally.
Ungatekeeping with Jessica DeFino and Carson Griffith
Welcome to ReceiptGate! In case you’re new here, on Mondays, we dare it-girls (who also happen to be Selleb app superusers) to ungatekeep their tried-and-true favorites and deinfluence us on crowd-pleasers that shouldn’t be. Behind the paywall, you’ll find even more of the good stuff: their best-kept restaurants, favorite white tees, shopping hacks, worthy splurges, items they cheap out on, workout brands they swear by, latest gift-giving escapades, etc.
Worthy of our curiosity this week: Jessica DeFino and Carson Griffith, two women who’ve made entire careers out of telling you things other people won’t (can’t). Jessica is a former editor on the Kardashian-Jenner Official Apps who had what one might call a professional come-to-Jesus moment — she went from producing Rihanna cover shoots and ghostwriting for Khloé to becoming, per the Herald, “the woman the beauty industry fears the most.” Carson is the self-described “girl writer with a boy name” who’s been gossip-column fluent since landing at the New York Daily News at 22, cameoing as herself on the final season of Gossip Girl (a sentence that could only describe a very specific kind of Manhattan career), and byline-hopping across the NYT, WSJ, FT, Air Mail, and Hollywood Reporter. Between them, one has made a career dismantling desire from the outside and the other, narrating it from the inside. We wanted to see what survives when they have skin in the game.
Still can’t get enough? Follow Jessica and Carson on the Selleb app to see more of their purchases!
@jessicadefino_
Age: 36
Occupation / Industry: Beauty Reporter (Ask Ugly @ The Guardian, FLESH WORLD by Jessica DeFino)
Current City: Jersey City, NJ
Hometown: Sayreville, NJ
Zodiac Sign: Leo
@cargriff
Age: 39
Occupation / Industry: Career journalist (NYT, WSJ, FT, Air Mail, etc.) and writer of the new-ish newsletter Rich People Shit
Current City: New York
Zodiac Sign: Virgo
Can you ungatekeep a secret…
Signature fragrance?
Jessica: Elizabeth & James Nirvana Black. It’s discontinued now but I buy up old bottles on eBay and Poshmark.
Carson: I wear Madame Grey hair perfume, and on my body a mixture of Le Labo’s Santal 33 and a scent made for me by a woman in Virginia who works entirely off-book. I’ve worn it for almost a decade.
What’s your AM skincare routine?
Jessica: I splash my face with water, apply jojoba oil, and massage my face and neck with my fingers for a few minutes. Plus sunscreen if I’m going outside.
Carson: I just did a CO₂ facial with Dr. Sean Alemi. Before, he had me on a fairly strict prep routine. I was using the Filorga Skin-Prep Enzymatic Cleansing Foam (which a makeup artist once used on me as a face primer) and after cleansing, I used Environ C-Quence Serum 1 mixed with Environ Defence Cream I got from Dr. Alemi’s office. On the days I skipped that step, I went heavy on Valmont Regenera. Now, since the laser was so recent, he has me using Plated Calm Serum and Avène Cicalfate+ Restorative Protective Cream, which everyone says is basically just a dupe of La Mer. If I remember, I’ll use my SOLAWAVE LED Face Mask which was a gift from my friend George Hahn.
Best purchase under $50?
Jessica: Intimately Midweek Underwire Bra in black, the only bra I wear.
Carson: I buy the Donna Karan Cashmere Mist deodorant stick on repeat.
What’s something that you used to judge people for buying that you now totally get?
Jessica: Laser hair removal? Probably cheaper than buying razors for the rest of my life. (Ideally I wouldn’t care about body hair, but beauty culture conditioning persists.)
Carson: I spend far more money on skin and body care than I did when I was younger. Clothes and shoes used to come first, and everything else was an afterthought. Now making sure the whole machine is functioning well and looks good from head to toe feels just as important as what I put on top of it.
What’s the most overrated “status symbol” right now?
Jessica: Logoed under-eye patches. I’m disturbed by the way brands have turned our faces into free ad space.
Carson: Trader Joe’s tote bags or an Oura ring.
Unknown brand that no one else wears yet?
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