Sarah Nicole Landry, a.k.a. The Bird’s Papaya, on “The Traitors” lore, a new chapter and why self-care shouldn’t cost a fortune

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

0:08Welcome to Breaking Beauty, the podcast all about the breakthrough people, products and moments in beauty. We're your hosts, Jill Dunn and Carlene Higgins.

0:21Everyone, thank you all for joining us on this Thursday afternoon. and I have to give you a big warm welcome to Breaking Beauty Podcast Live. We're so thrilled to be here. I am Jill Dunn. I am one of the co-hosts of Breaking Beauty Podcast. And I'm Carlene Higgins, Breaking Beauty. We are two former magazine beauty editors turned beauty podcasters. I see some of our former magazine peeps here in the audience today. We're all about sharing the breakthrough people, products and moments in beauty every single Wednesday. And this is actually our ninth year, officially March of 2017. So here we are nine years later, still doing it.

1:05Yes. All right. After that. And we have a lot of amazing guests on our show every single Wednesday. We've had makeup artists like Makeup by Mario, dermatologists like Dr. Shereen Idris, to celebrities like Kayla. And this week, I think we have Lily Reinhardt. So I have to do a little bit of name dropping. But also every single month we review products. We check out what's on the beauty shelves that's new. In the month, we test it, we review it, and we decide what is hashtag damn good. So we basically help you edit your makeup and skincare routine. But lately, what we've noticed is that we're getting this resounding question.

1:47I feel like it resonates with so many people. And it's how do I look good and feel good without breaking the bank? That's right. And that's why we are so happy to be here for an exclusive live podcast. Welcome Suave to Canada. And honestly, at a time when the cost of taking care of ourselves really is at an all-time high, there's some sticker shock going on out there, I will say. And Suave is really here to help Canadians keep looking good, keep smelling good, and high-performance products that we can actually afford, which we're all here for. And thank you to Suave for partnering with us to share this very important conversation.

2:31Yes, and to help us talk about beauty and budgeting and confidence and all the good things, we have Sarah Nicole Landry, who is also known as the Bird's Cup Pride. and Sarah is a mom a body confidence advocate she's a speaker she's a writer she's a six-time cover girl she's a weekly podcast host of the papaya podcast and which we have been on it many moons ago and she's just an all-around gal's gal so we're gonna have a great yap session yes and what we're gonna do we're gonna dive deep into what's called the cost of smelling Good Index. So this is a survey that was conducted across 1 ,500 adults in Canada to find out how we're feeling, how our relationship is to self-care these days in this economy.

3:21Because the grocery bills even, we are looking at them with a bit of shock, right? Honestly, it couldn't have come a better time because 53 % of Canadians say the cost of living impacts their ability to prioritize self-care. So I think we're all feeling it. So in partnership with Suave, we're sort of here to turn that all around. And we're going to be hitting you with stats, everybody. I love a stat. We're going to be coming at you with hacks. Yes. So before we get into the cost of living index, all of that, we need to do a little catch up, right? We need some girl talk here, Sarah, the last time you were on our show was 2020.

4:00Yep. The world upside down, inside out, back again. Why? What happened? So what's new? What's new with you? I had a whole child. I have done a renovation. My job has pivoted a few different times within that, didn't we all? It's been filled with a lot of ups and downs. Like I think a lot of times we exist seeing it. And I had a lot of lowlights too. And I'm really proud of where I am today. I'm proud to be here. I'm proud to wake up every day and like do this job. I've been in this. This is my 18th year as the first papaya. Congratulations. That's amazing. You've doubled us. We're only nine. We're babies.

4:39Not paid. Not paid. It was like 10 years. I think I'm like eight years in doing this as like a full-time job. But those 10 years were so important to do it without, like at the beginning of your podcast. Before, like people cared and like, not that they didn't care. But like, you know, like they weren't, it wasn't what podcasting is now. Content creation wasn't the same back then. We were just doing it for the passion. And so to be able to call this a career or even a hobby or anything is like such a beautiful thing. I wake up very grateful to do it every day. Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. Well, one of the things you did last year was you appeared on Traders Canada.

5:16Any Traders fans in the house? Oh, okay. Okay. So I'm going to take this. What do you want me to tell you? My NDA is forever, but I'm not terrible at NDAs apparently. First of all, did you watch the U.S. one? Did you see Rob? Yeah, yeah, of course. Did you look overall? Yeah, the American one is actually set very different from Canada. So in the U.S., obviously, it's like very celebrity stacked. In Canada, we have both gamers and like civilians come together, and the game is completely different. I was such a fan of the U.S. one. Then my good friend Lauren Chan went on the Canadian one. I binged that one.

5:49I love the dynamic of it. I applied on the very last day of applications, and then I was like, I'll just like, I did a quick video being like, if you want me, you want me. And I sent it, and then I got a call the next week, and it was a process of applying and being accepted, and then I disappeared from the internet and made everybody worry about me, and then I came back and was like, yeah, I did a reality show. So it was, it was, but I love the game. The game is incredible to watch on TV. Less incredible to play. Yeah. Was the manor haunted? That's what I would like to know. Honestly, it was.

6:22all haunted. It's also just like, people didn't realize this because in the U S it's different. We actually stayed on site. You live in that house. That's why I wanted to ask you this. You live there. So you're like, you, you're living there, but you're also like mic'd up all day long. There's not a lot of your, the psychological warfare of like bonding so traumatically with people. And then also, uh, it's like a secret. You can't talk about it. Nobody knows what you've gone through. It was one of the best and worst experiences of my life. And I like actually changed my life in incredible ways.

6:54Wow. Okay. Everybody needs to go binge it. It's like a, it's like a murder mystery game of clue kind of. Listen, go make some best friends and they might try and kill you. I understand that congratulations are in order because the CAFA Canadian arts and Fashion Awards has just announced their nominees for 2026 and you are one of them. Thank you. In the digital fashion category, I'm so proud of you. You just keep evolving, but also standing for what you stand for. It's so fabulous. How do you feel like your content has changed though, over the past five years? Because you've talked a lot in the past about, like last time you were on our show, we talked a lot about body positivity, body neutrality, a different place now.

7:43So I'm curious. I do think like, it's, it's so interesting because I think these conversations were so important. They needed to be had, right? I pocket myself more into body confidence because along the route of like neutrality and positivity, there is so much nuance to that. And I was like, okay, at the end of the day, I exist in a body and it's going to ebb and flow. I went through a pregnancy in real time, a postpartum in real time. I went through mental health diagnosis in real time. My body has changed even in the last five years so many times. But a couple of years ago, or maybe like three years ago, I just kind of threw up my hands to it and was like, I just want to say yes to my life.

8:19And what does that look like? And here I am about accepting your cellulite, accepting your postpartum body, accepting your stretch marks, but I still felt a lot of limiting beliefs around them. So I went on a mission to basically say yes to parts of my life that I could not say yes or no to them based on how I felt about my body. So things like Sports Illustrated Runway, things like troubleshoots, things like doing traders, terrifying things to do, but I wanted to do them and I had to go in and like fully submit to the process of it. My life has been very different as the years have gone on because I've been saying yes to these opportunities and And allowing myself to recognize that, listen, I don't think I'm a body confident person, but I can choose it.

9:05I can choose to do things scared. I can choose to do things not having it all figured out to recognize that I actually don't feel great about my body every day, but that doesn't need to limit my life and opportunities. And the more I do these things, the more you sort of like practice the muscle of that. So I think going through what I thought was accepting my body, but then it would change. and then it would change again. And it just felt like a moving target. And I'm going to be honest with you. If you look around, society is also changing. Our conversations around women's bodies are actually getting worse.

9:36And so how do we talk about it and acknowledge that these things exist? So acknowledge that we want to live our lives. We want to make choices. We want to be able to show up. We want to be able to have the autonomy to do so and not feel so scrutinized and judged by each other. Yeah, I think we've got a ways to go. I think it remains incredibly important. I know we love statistics. I recently just discovered that search the hashtag postpartum body, 95 % of them do not represent what most people look like in postpartum. And so we're looking at even in the lens of social media, only 5 % represents what most people experience.

10:15So I remain on the mission of saturating what is my real because I spent my body and hiding myself and sitting on the sidelines of my life. and I'm very excited to now be like, hey, guess what? Don't love my body every day. Don't feel great about it all the time. Love my life and I want to keep living it and I want to do everything I can to sit at 80 years old and go, oh, I'm so glad I did that and go, oh, I wish I had. Yeah, yeah. I think that's very relatable because especially showing up on the internet, it's not actually very easy to do. It's not? The comment section, your comment section is intense sometimes, right?

10:55And I really give you a lot of credit for showing up for all of these years you have been doing it and continuing these conversations. Important, but they're not always easy. No. And, you know, because you really stand there proudly, sometimes that can make you a target unfairly. So it's really amazing that you're being recognized by the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards. Yeah. Can we vote for you or something? I actually don't know. But you know what's actually interesting about the CAFO Awards? I actually, like I was asked, I was nominated two years ago. Okay. My mental health was so low that I said no.

11:26Oh, wow. And I immediately regretted it. Like, it gutted me. I was so sad that I would limit myself that way. And I want to share that now because, like, I don't want to carry that shame of, like, I had a bad moment and a bad season that I didn't feel worthy of that. And if it came up again, I would say yes. And so I did. And you actually look at who I'm nominated with. And we're looking at some of the best in, like, fashion and creator. like Dorian Hu and my friend Sarah I cannot pronounce her last name I'm so sorry Sarah if you listen to this Izzy Poopy like some of the most amazing and I'm like how is this 41 year old mom in this like group of people but I'm so honored because I think I obviously represent something that mattered to them and I don't want to put myself on the back burner of that opportunity again and so such an honor I've attended the awards before I've watched other people like And I will honestly, I know they always say this, but like anybody who wins, genuinely, everybody on that, in that group, when they named the list, I was just blown away.

12:32I was so honored to be among them. Love it. Yeah. We are a beauty podcast after all, says so in our name. So what has been bringing you joy in the world? Honestly, play. Like I think as you get older, there's a lot of you, you feel kind of left behind. You feel like you watch the videos and everybody who's like surging on TikTok and in the trends, like it's getting younger and younger and you stop feeling so represented, but at the same time, shouldn't limit you from like continuing to play with makeup and beauty and discovery. And so I have paid a little bit more attention on like actually looking for things that work on an older skin texture and actually work for, you know, different, our skin is different as we get older.

13:13It's not as hydrated, all these different things. I've just like, instead of being like, oh, poop, just like, oh, hey, this is cool to learn about. It's cool to learn and evolve. But yeah, I'm just like leaning into trying a little bit more new things, having fun with it again. I grew up as the kid who watched everybody do like the cool girl makeup and the cool girl things. And I never felt cool enough to do it. And now I'm like, I just don't believe in that anymore. I think we're all just can do whatever we want. I need to know. So I didn't do it though. This is the work of Alyssa Helm. She's a beautiful makeup artist.

13:47And I love it for moments like this. I love to have like, have it done. And also you learn so much when somebody else does your makeup. Absolutely agree. Yeah. Because they look at your face very differently. They can shape it. You just like, you learn a lot. So I, sometimes you walk away being like, oh, this is actually what I should be trying and doing. Yeah. Yeah. It pushes you a little bit. Yeah. It does. You learn. I always ask them so many questions. I drill them like we're not, we're never not talking. Yeah. Well, now it's time to unpack the cost of smelling good index because only 33 % of Canadians affordable right now, just a third of us.

14:24And because of that, nearly half of us are cutting back on self-care in order to save money. So we can't be having that. Sarah, what is the biggest money-saving hack that you've tried in the name of beauty? Honestly, a couple different things. Rotating between maybe a luxury brand with a less so. Like I have a really, really great hair product that I use after my, like I've washed my hair and you want to blow dry it. And I have a really expensive version of it. There's like a really like tiny little bottle that cost me way too much money. And then I have one that's like a more cost-effective one and I rotate them and I having those experiences with doing it less.

15:03I also got one of those like Amazon scoopers that you can like scoop product out. There's so much product in the bottom of a tube that we're missing. And so I'm trying to be a little bit smarter about it. Cause I, and I also think like it's worth noting affordability is such a spectrum. Uh, when you talk about affordability 10 years ago when I was a single mom, different from the world today for me. Uh, this is why I think talking about this and some of these conversations around like some of these more basic, luxuries, which is like smelling good, I believe should be really accessible to people.

15:36And this is why I think it's like really nice to have this conversation. Yeah. And I do think you, especially a lot of moms, I don't have kids, but a lot of moms, I feel like they, they will sacrifice their self-care. It's the first thing to go, right? Often if they're looking at their budget. And so I think it is really important to just prioritize that. Also, I will say I like your hack about the scoop there was I don't know how many of you saw it but there was a viral with a very luxurious highlighter and the creator had taken the sticker off the back and pushed it up like with a pen and there was pranks too it was like double the size inside so like you can get right in there you really can it's shocking how much product is in the bottom of them.

16:20And very open with your audience before about mental health and self-care and the link there when you are feeling really overwhelmed, just how important leaning into the self-care is. What would that mean to you if maybe you weren't able to do that anymore because of budget constraints? Yeah, I'm going to be honest. A couple of years ago, I got diagnosed with a condition called premenstrual dysphoric disorder. If you don't know it, it's basically PMS that like lighter fluid was lit on fire with it. It's just, it is every symptom that you could possibly imagine very heightened and it comes cyclically.

16:54So it's very hard. Oftentimes people miss it. They don't understand why they're in these depressive states. The statistics around better parts of this are really staggering. It's not great. And it's very difficult to fight, especially when you get diagnosed and you're like, oh great, this is every month is going to be this. So I have had to spend the last couple of years figuring out how to make those few days a month livable, thrivable. And I don't really have a lot of option here. You got to get up and go. And self-care has been pivotal for that. So yeah, things like aromatherapy have been key.

17:32Things like getting in the shower and rinsing off a little bit, just like keeping a routine, keeping nourished, keeping hydrated, basically feeling like a house plant a little bit, but like keeping going, right? One foot in front of the other is truly how it feels sometimes. But I noticed early on that at the beginning, I was just sort of like, I'm just going to curl up and do my best and just get through it and hide away a little bit. And I realized that wasn't very helpful. I wasn't actually feeling better until I was using these systems, which I would call them systems now that I really have to access in order to be able to have a little bit more comfort in those days.

18:10So yeah, starting with like getting ready in the morning properly, even when it feels very, very difficult, changed my mindset. It reminded me of my worth. It reminded me of my, it also allowed me these bits of escape. My therapists, a lot of people were like, okay, meditate. With what time? Like, how are you going to add that in the schedule? I don't have 10 minutes to meditate right now. And I don't. One of those like self-driving cars. Yeah. Like, I was trying to be like, please, where would you like me to put this in the schedule? But my therapist was actually like, what if I'm within your shower time?

18:43So then that changed the experience as well. This is where Suave is really great coming in with the body washes, right? So yeah, things like that, being able to access these moments and have them work within your own schedule and build upon that, creating systems and tools that help those really, really hard days. Just be a little bit easier. Feel like you don't have the motivation to do anything. you can rely on the systems that have kept you going. Yeah. I love a meditation shower moment. Sitting down in the shower. You can find guided meditations. There's so many different ways to do it. My therapist has an app.

19:16And she'll also do guided meditations and send me the recording. So yeah, they make a huge... Sitting down in the shower. Oh, yeah. I did that yesterday. Okay, you must have a nicer shower than me because I would be like on the floor. I like that Kermit me. You can shave your legs, but you can also just like sit there with the shower water on your back and you're just like, you know. Okay. Well, yeah, you do have a very luxe or like a not me. I mean, I'm, I'm, uh, but maybe I'll come over and do that. Sure. You're welcome. Sleepover, slumber party. Okay. So that is so important. I feel like we are almost about to do a game of prices right, right now, because we have not talked about the prices of these suave products that have just dropped in Canada.

20:02I mean, I don't know if you saw any prices out there, so let's just see. Okay, so here's what just launched in Canada. We have the suave antiperspirant deodorant for women, 48-hour protection. Thank you. You're my prices, right girl? Yeah. It comes in fresh powder and cocoa butter. I'm wearing the fresh. It's so light. What do you have on? I'm wearing, what's the pink one? Powder. I actually do the cocoa I actually, yeah, I know. It's so funny. I'm not going to lie. Look at this. Look at this. Anybody guess the price? Or did you see it out there? Yell it out. Yell it out. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else?

20:39What'd you say? Who's? Are you a spy? It's$3.97. That's the right rule. $3.97. Close to without going over. Yeah. That's like the price of a latte. It really is. I mean, it really feels like a rollback. I said that's$1.98, girl math, per armpit. $1.98. Less than a toonie? What? How Canadian is that? Less than a toonie is so Canadian. All the Americans right now are like, what? And your milk is in bags? No, that's why it's so great that they're coming. They also have seven lovely scented body washes for men and for women. They're brimming with these for your skin ingredients like glycerin. And they are really generous sizes.

21:27I have them here. Again, doing my price is right thing. My favorite one, you guys, is the Strawberry Delight. No, you have no idea. It smells like dessert. And I think this one, of all of them, it'll be the one that will go viral. Did anybody smell it out there? Yes. Okay. There's something nostalgic about it. I'm addicted to this one. And I used this one this morning. And what I appreciated about it, like the lather is gentle. For a very affordable body wash, it's very gentle as well. And I think that this scent reminds me of those little striped you used to have like at your grandma's house, like the strawberry ones.

22:05Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, you smell this one. I thought they smelled like a strawberry shortcake. But now I need to ask y 'all. I love the milk and honey. Oh, yes. I love the milk and honey. The milk and honey. So how much do you guys think this one is? So good. Okay. We need a drum roll. Who said five bucks? Closest. Close. everybody I'm reading it so I know it's right it's$3.97 each for this yeah you're all going I learned this is the new class yeah I just figured it's not it's the it's the what is it the four where Jen's yeah you're mastering it You know, clock 397. But I just think that's amazing how generous the size is.

22:51And you know, that it can be in the shower and you don't have to feel guilty about using a lot, which I do. I'm a Gen X. So to me, these are like 1980s prices. Like when do we ever have that happen, a rollback like that? And that is a big deal because here's another takeaway from the cost of smelling good index, nearly one in two Canadians feel like they have to overpay to get high performing, better performing products. Do you guys feel that way? You know? Yeah. This is the general consensus, but you tune into our show, we do budget episodes on a regular basis and I'm telling you, they are just getting better and better.

23:34We're getting elegant textures, fine fragrances in body care and they are performing as well as the uh the prestige stuff yeah yeah sarah to you where are you saving and where are you splurging these days in your self-care routine a lot of it comes from rotation of like the save and the splurge and i'll be honest sometimes i'm like what am i spending more like i had like a really expensive shampoo for a while but then i got like a lesser getting the same results so i think like also paying attention Is this something that I'm doing because it has that like high price and I think that it means it does better.

24:11But I'm always, I've, listen, I will always be a bit of a saver. I love a thrift shop find. I'm, that's just, I love a good deal. So I've never been somebody that's like over splurged and I always loved like finding things that really work. But I also have kids that are Gen Z and they're usually the, they're probably going to be the, listen, I'm going to do this whole thing. and I'm going to talk about all this stuff. And then my daughter's going to come home in like a month and she'll be like, you need to get this, this, this strawberry. Suave body wash for me. It's like all over Tik TOK. And I'll be like, seriously, I told you about this, but until it hits them, I actually think this is going to be the one, my oldest daughter, she's just turning 20 and she smelled it and she was like, can I have this one?

24:55And I was like, it's in my shower right now, but yeah. Okay. Like, yeah, it has that caramelly smell to it too, which is, you know, those gourmand kind of trending sense. And I want to add to what you said earlier, Carlene, because, you know, I've done TV segments for many years now. And I'll never forget when I was on the Marilyn Dennis show. And it was so different from doing print magazines where we were sort of like in an ivory tower, like selecting the products that go on the page. And you're like, this is purple. And sometimes literally that's the decision. Not even looking at the price.