When Jessica Matlin announced what was then the final episode of Fat Mascara in May 2025, she didn’t know what she would do with the podcast she had built over nearly 10 years and 580 episodes.
“I put a pin in it, and I just needed to think,” Matlin said. Her founding co-host, Jennifer G. Sullivan, had taken a full-time role as the senior editor of beauty and personal care at The New York Times’s Wirecutter, while Matlin, who is also director of beauty and home at Moda Operandi, considered her next move for the show.
But Fat Mascara’s devoted fanbase doesn’t have much longer to wait for new episodes. On March 25, Matlin will relaunch a new season of Fat Mascara in partnership with People Inc.
The first episode will feature makeup artists Bobbi Brown and Daniel Martin as part of the show’s new Artists’ Salon franchise, which brings together creatives for roundtable discussions. Future episodes will introduce franchises such as Beauty Bonds, which will put beauty talent in conversation with celebrity guests, and Ask an Expert, which will invite doctors and beauty authorities to answer listener questions.
“People can expect more of what Fat Mascara listeners love, which is access to established beauty experts and insiders,” said Matlin. “But also, they’ll get to meet beauty experts and creators that they might not know so well, and that sense of discovery that I think Fat Mascara has always been known for.”
Bringing on People Inc. as a partner will not only give Matlin access to the publisher’s large audience, but it will also provide integration with existing franchises in the People umbrella, such as People’s World’s Most Beautiful People and InStyle Imagemakers.
“With Jessica, we can help her scale her readership and her fan base, because we can scale it across tens of millions of people throughout the month, hundreds of million people throughout the year,” Leah Wyar, People Inc. president of beauty, style and entertainment, said of the partnership, which will last 12 months with the option to renew. “We can have her pop up at an event that we’re doing, since events are such a big piece for us. So it just makes a lot of sense to try to bring the two worlds together, and we just have a mutual admiration of each other and of our businesses.”
When Matlin launched Fat Mascara in 2016, podcasting was still finding its footing in the media landscape. In the decade since, podcasters like Joe Rogan have claimed multi-million deals, and shows such as Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” have become a mandatory part of the mainstream media circuit; in 2026, the Golden Globes awarded the inaugural Best Podcast award to “Good Hang with Amy Poehler.”
“I used to say, ‘It’s like the radio, but anytime you want.’ Or, ‘It’s the purple icon on your phone with the microphone.’ And now, some of our guests have their own podcasts,” said Matlin, referring to the early days of podcasting.
Matlin first conceived of Fat Mascara while working under Wyar at Cosmopolitan. Since then, both beauty and podcasts as industries have grown to encompass more mainstream audiences.
“Beauty is a very emotional category. To be able to sit there in your home, your car, your commute, and hear directly from people that you care about, is a powerful thing,” said Matlin.
For Wyar, signing on Fat Mascara was crucial to building People Inc’s legitimacy in the medium.
“Going into 2026, it is very much on my list of priorities to create a podcast slate for my group,” said Wyar, whose group includes titles such as People, InStyle and Entertainment Weekly. “It is also very hard to build new podcasts from the ground up. And so, when you have an opportunity like this, that just feels so organic because you were sort of involved in a very peripheral way from the beginning, and have been a fan and a supporter of it all through this decade, it just felt like a very organic partnership.”
People is not Fat Mascara’s only new partner. Milani Cosmetics will sponsor the first five episodes of the new Fat Mascara, marking the brand’s first-ever podcast partnership.
“I really jumped at the opportunity [to come on as sponsor]. I love Fat Mascara. I think [Jessica] brings such a unique blend of connected journalism between the beauty industry, editors, consumers and culture together, and can really bring that to life,” said Jeremy Lowenstein, Milani’s chief marketing officer.
“Consumers are multi-dimensional in how they consume media today. Their attention spans are varied, and podcasts give you the opportunity to go a little bit more in-depth from a storytelling perspective,” he added.
Podcasting has evolved to reach audiences at various touchpoints, Lowenstein noted; it is not only an audio-based medium, but it’s also a hybrid format where short-form video clips can go viral on mediums like TikTok or viewers can tune into full episodes on YouTube. Wyar said Fat Mascara will continue with short-form video clips for social media and aim to introduce video episodes on YouTube, as well.
“To me, the most exciting thing that’s happened to podcasts in the last few years is that, even if you don’t listen properly or you’re not following [a show], you’re still exposed to it,” she said. “Of course, at the end of the day, what you want is somebody to be enticed enough to go in and subscribe and be an active new listener. But you can certainly be exposed to the content and the water-coolerness of it all.”
According to People Inc., downloads for Fat Mascara to date are over 13 million. Matlin described its audience as “niche,” but in an intimate medium like podcasting, loyalty and engagement are just as valuable of commodities as reach.
“Of course, we’re looking to grow the audience. But the Fat Mascara audience has been with me for 10 years, and I hope they come along for the ride,” said Matlin.
Editor’s note: this article was updated after publication to reflect the current title of People’s World’s Most Beautiful franchise and download count for Fat Mascara.
