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UNMASKED: A Journey of Faith, Health, Curiosity & Authentic Conversations with Ashleigh Chevalier
Welcome to UNMASKED, the thought-provoking podcast where host Ashleigh Chevalier invites you on a journey of authentic exploration through life's joys, hardships, and defining moments. Join this Christ follower, fitness enthusiast, and curious adventurer as she delves into the interconnected nature of our diverse experiences.
UNMASKED breaks the mold of single-topic podcasts by embracing the beautiful complexity of human interests. Each episode features candid conversations about:
- Faith and spiritual growth
- Fitness journeys (CrossFit, lifting, archery)
- Travel adventures and discoveries
- Entrepreneurship challenges and triumphs
- Animal companionship and training
- Marketing insights for businesses
- Family dynamics (motherhood, divorce, healing)
- Recovery from domestic violence
- Music, art, and whiskey appreciation
- Plant care and gardening wisdom
- Neuroscience and health discoveries
- Space exploration and engineering fascinations
About Your Hostess
Ashleigh brings a refreshing perspective as someone who doesn't claim expertise but rather genuine curiosity. A libertarian who values personal freedom and respects diverse viewpoints, she creates a judgment-free space where listeners can explore ideas without political divisiveness.
Her personal experiences with family, animals, career challenges, and overcoming domestic violence inform conversations that resonate with authenticity and hope. She's a professional marketing and strategic development coach for her business Level Up Collaborative, a professional touring and recording musician (singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and performer), and an amateur fitness enthusiast.
UNMASKED isn't just another niche podcast—it's a reflection of how our varied interests connect in meaningful ways. Whether you share Ashleigh's faith or come from a different perspective, you'll find value in these honest discussions about navigating life's complexities.
Subscribe now to join a community where nothing is off-limits, expert guests provide valuable insights, and every episode reminds you that you're never alone on your journey.
*Remember, today is just the beginning.
#AuthenticConversations #FaithJourney #LifeUnmasked #PersonalGrowth #CrossFitLife #EntrepreneurMindset #MeaningfulConnections #DiverseDiscussions
Hey. I'm Ashleigh Chevalier. Welcome to the second episode of Unmasked. I have to tell you genuinely, I am so excited to be here. I've done a lot of really cool things in my professional career.
Speaker 1:I remember the first time I got published. I was studying PR abroad in London and wrote a piece on the Obama inauguration and various perspectives overseas. And I remember my whole world opening up when I re when the article got released, and I realized I could write. And since then, I have written for numerous publications. I had a TV show.
Speaker 1:I'm a Forbes council communications contributor. I've done some really neat stuff. But when I was launching in and curating this podcast, my heart welled up with just fullness and excitement and love. And I can't really express, like, why I'm so excited to connect with you here and talk about all of the things that we're gonna talk about, which are laid out in the very first episode and introduction of the podcast. But disclaimer, and I have to say this, everything that we talk about on here is purely just opinion in conversation.
Speaker 1:We might discuss preferences, and we might even draw on some deeper resources and have expert advice, but you should always do your own research. You should always seek professional counsel when making a decision regarding your health or legal or anything else. This is just purely for entertainment. So that's what I'm saying, and I'm sticking to it. Well, I say entertainment, but connection.
Speaker 1:Right? Like, conversation, authentic connection and communication. And one of the that I have decided to bring in some different, maybe seemingly less important topics into the conversation are because they're life relevant. And I realized a long time ago well, not a long time ago. Life didn't have to be so serious.
Speaker 1:And there are things that people want to talk about that aren't always heavy. And we need that opportunity to talk about things that aren't heavy that are still helpful. It doesn't always have to be about making money. Sometimes it's just making a conscious life decision, which or enjoying the small things of life. So today's podcast, parking tickets, lipstick and the moon are talking about all three of those things.
Speaker 1:So before we get started, let me tell you that I do have my Patreon started, and it is patreon.com/ashleychevalier. The link is in the show notes as are all of the resources and, and links that I have consulted for this podcast external to just general talking. So parking tickets. If you've had a parking ticket, you know how frustrating it can be. I live in a neighborhood where they're like, a lot of the houses don't have driveways.
Speaker 1:My house doesn't have a driveway. So I heard the street sweeper coming down the road, and I jumped out of bed. And I was like, oh my gosh. Did I get a ticket? I've already gotten two parking tickets.
Speaker 1:I've lived here for several years and didn't get a parking ticket until this, like, this past six or eight months. And I was like, oh, no. And I saw my car. I saw the street sweeper going, and I was like, I didn't get a ticket. Phew.
Speaker 1:But I was on the the right side of the road, it turns out. Well, I go to move my car really quickly, and I park on the wrong side of the road on a cross street. So it wasn't It didn't do me any good. It actually put me in the way of a ticket. I went inside for ten minutes, came back out, didn't realize I had a ticket till I was coming back from getting my coffee, which is overpriced.
Speaker 1:Right? To be honest with you, the same cup of coffee costs almost a dollar more to, than it does two counties over. And that but, you know, I make that choice. I love this coffee. I've been buying it forever.
Speaker 1:But as I'm driving, the lid wouldn't stay on, and then it's filled my entire cup holder. And then I see like the parking ticket. And it reminds me of when I've been on tour in DC or tried to do a gig in DC and I have to pay $25 to $35 for a couple of hours to park, or I have to walk blocks and blocks and blocks, for a metered space. And I get it. Parking in space is a commodity, but the tickets are crazy.
Speaker 1:The one ticket I got in DC, my daughter was little. She had to be like two. So a decade ago, it's $50 and I didn't realize that I was parking in the wrong place. I don't know what my option would have been. And at that time, I'm pretty sure that I couldn't have afforded a $25, like, ticket you know, place to park just for a couple of hours.
Speaker 1:So, again, getting the ticket here this morning, oh, it's just so frustrating. So tell me your craziest parking ticket story, and maybe I'll be able to recount one of those in an upcoming podcast because I feel like they are the bane of my existence right now. Yeah. I tell you what. So but focusing on something cool, the moon.
Speaker 1:So Friday, 03/14/2025, there is a blood moon and full lunar eclipse in the Northern Hemisphere, which you'll be able to see, provided that you don't have cloud cover. I think that's really neat. I had worked with a space startup in their medium PR, ran that up and built a site called nebulamedia.space, and we covered a lot of the moon things. That has shifted now, but, it did spark this interest for me to have an like, to follow the moon. And if you were paying attention last year, maybe you saw the strawberry moon.
Speaker 1:I have seen some really great pictures, and I saw the strawberry moon, and it really was pretty to see the sunset and the strawberry moon across the Eastern, Atlantic Ocean. So the other thing is this month, you can see several planets at the same time, including, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter at different parts. It does have to do with, like, the time of day that you're looking at it early morning or, you know, in the evening sky, but you can be on the lookout for where you live in particular. I found this at starwalk.space, I believe. Let's make sure we've got that starwalk.space.
Speaker 1:That is correct. And that's a great little site that gives you these, gives you these updates. So you can and they do the northern and the Southern hemisphere, so I highly recommend, like, if you like to follow this guy, moons, planets or whatever, take take a look. As far as music is concerned, a quick update there. I have a full length album that is now getting mixed down.
Speaker 1:It's 18 tracks from over a decade. Some songs are recuts, and some are new little interludes, and some have been honestly, this album has been recorded in four or five different studios, and I'll talk more about that over time. This why this album took so long purely comes from life circumstances, and I'll talk more about that later. But it's finally here, and I'm so excited. But alongside this, I've had the opportunity to start recording an acoustic album that takes tracks from this album, my very first album, and, new songs.
Speaker 1:So this is gonna be kinda cool because I have basically two full lengths coming out at the same time over time, dripping. So stay on the lookout for that. Also, if you didn't hear it yet and you didn't know, Jason Isbell just released his latest album, Foxes in the Snow, on Friday, March 7. And I love this album. I sat down with my fiancee, and we just at dusk, and we just listened to the whole album.
Speaker 1:And the songwriting is impeccable. It always is with him, but this is probably my favorite album of his since Southeastern, which is kind of a great little, bookend to how he shares his life story. And I am bringing on Johnny Terrell from Soul Haven Studios to talk about this and his writing a little more in-depth, in future episodes. So stay tuned for that. Let me know in the comments, the favorite your favorite album that has come out so I can take a listen because I love finding new music.
Speaker 1:I do I can stem on new music, so I'll, like, listen to the same track over and over again. It's how I got hooked on my future birds. If you haven't heard them, check them out. So, next, the last part of what I'm really wanna talk about today is lipstick. Why?
Speaker 1:I love lipstick. I wear a lot of this, Styla brand, Stila brand for performing. I don't know, if anybody else does. It says it's made in Italy. I really like the way that it sits, and, you know, like, I was drinking coffee, so but it feels really good on my lips.
Speaker 1:And I know this is, like, a different color. I've been criticized for different lip color that I've worn. What woman hasn't been? So then I was thinking a little bit more about, like, what goes into our lipstick and what kind of lipstick should we be wearing and what makes lipstick and why do we wear lipstick and what is the history of lipstick? And if you love lipstick, then let's talk really quickly about it.
Speaker 1:I will tell you that I don't wear a whole lot of makeup, but lipstick is one of my go tos.
Speaker 2:I just I just love it. I just think it's I think it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:So, another day is I just won't wear any makeup at all. Also me. And I'm gonna invite you right now and let me know your favorite kind of lipstick. What I didn't know, and it's kind of been on the cusp of conversation, are all the chemicals that are currently in lipstick that are toxic and carcinogenic. So that kind of made me rethink the brands I'm gonna be using and what's actually in them.
Speaker 1:I was reading about the history, though, so let's start let's start there. And check out a whole bunch of videos on YouTube on how it's made, but actually putting on the whole history of of lipstick is is not as cohesive of a narrative when I did my searching. There's a great article on National Geographic about it. And I did look up a lot more. And, again, I'll link all of this in the show notes so that you have it.
Speaker 1:But it's become something I'm conscious of because sometimes it's hard to make an overhaul with your makeup or anything that you're doing. Like, I use paraben free as much chemical free cleaning products as I can in my house and also in my shower that's, like, for personal care, but that's just that's just me and my choices, both environmentally and for my health. And a lot of the toxins in those things are contributed are linked to cancers and, hormonal disruption and things like that. But that conversation is for a different day. So let's talk about some quick facts on lipstick.
Speaker 1:Red lip coloring goes back to 3,500 BC, and it was used by royalty to stain their lips. And it was a status statement. Right. It was usually made with like bugs and berries and all kinds of weird things. It says ancient Egyptian aristocrats used red ochre mixed with resin.
Speaker 1:That must have been a pretty heavy, like lip lacquer there. Some of them, like, used a a different kind of blend, like queen Cleopatra, preferred carmine, a deep red pigment extracted from cochineal bugs. In ancient Greece, red lips were associated with sex workers, and Greek sex workers used ingredients like mulberries, seaweed, sheep sweat, and crocodile excrement to make this lipstick. Crocodile excrement. What about that?
Speaker 1:Like, was it oily? I don't know. So again, Roman Empire vibrant lip colors indicated higher status, and then lower class Romans used red wine sediment for their lip color, which was probably a little grainy. Have you ever had, like, those the grainy lipstick? Anyway, medieval to renaissance period, the crusades introduced reintroduced it in Western Europe, but Christians considered it to be against their teachings and and and pinging on, like, the natural natural beauty that god gave us.
Speaker 1:That's a different conversation. In England, it became to it came to be thought that it would repel evil spirits. So queen Elizabeth did wear a custom color, that was made of coconil, gum, egg whites, and fig milk. Now I don't know how the fig milk would work and the egg whites, and I wonder if they dried that and everything, but it's just super interesting. Right?
Speaker 1:And then after her lit king James, it became something that was associated with witchcraft. Repelling evil spirits, now it's associated with witchcraft. And more relevant to our era, we have, the red lipstick symbolized the fight for women's rights during the suffragist movement. That's super cool. I think it still maintains that symbol.
Speaker 1:You know, there's there's some controversy about, quote, whether men like a lipstick stick on women, whether they like natural colors or bright colors. So the fact that lipstick has been a statement for women in status or that they would be using it to highlight, you know, their strength or a movement towards empowerment kinda makes sense to me. And then in World War two, red lipstick symbolized patriotic femininity and resilience. Remember the the, Rosie the Riveter? It it's interesting because red was a a big color then.
Speaker 1:Anyway, a lot of favorite famous actresses we know, wear all wear red lipstick. Taylor Swift wears a lot of red lipstick. I know I've worn a lot of red lipstick. I am by no means comparing myself to Taylor Swift being very clear there. But anyway, so what kind of lipstick should we be wearing though?
Speaker 1:Right? So I, again, I was wearing this, like, Stila brand, which I really like, but I don't know a whole lot about the ingredients. I just knew it was long lasting. It's made in Italy, and I like to wear it. I don't wear it every day.
Speaker 1:But, anyway, there are toxins that have been found, that are carcinogenic in lipstick, and that includes, like, formaldehyde is leading the parabens and lead. Some have mercury. So I looked up an article. I looked up quite a few articles actually about, like, what what the most toxic ingredients are for lipstick and, other cosmetics have similarities, but this is we're just focusing on lipstick. So the environmental working group out of DC did a really well researched sourced paper.
Speaker 1:Harvard is in there. A lot of studies are in there talking about the leading, the leading issues for, with lipstick And formaldehyde is right at the top of that because it's directly related to cancer. And of course, we don't wanna take in mercury or lead. And I will drop that link in the show notes so that you can read the article for yourself. And I followed a couple of the other, like, links in the report just to make sure that it was all checking out, and it was.
Speaker 1:Looked up again. I went in and I was like, okay. Let me now find products that are not toxic that I could that I could use. And the list of ingredients on these lipsticks is crazy. We've got, like, tin oxide and mica, iron oxide, titanium dioxide.
Speaker 1:Now, to be fair, I could go in chemically and tell you what these things are, like, what their chemical formulas are, because some of those are just natural elements, and they they might not be as dangerous as they sound in context. There's silica, psyllium. Today's lipsticks also carry a lot of different types of waxes, like, let's see, and different oils like jojoba oil or beeswax or candelilla wax, and then something for pigment. And I've I think that a lot of the chemical the chemical things are coming into the binders and in the pigments. So I did find this one woman, she's a beauty expert from LA, and she writes for organic beauty lover, and she has the best non toxic lipsticks and her reviews of lipsticks also, which I will put in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Almost all of these are a % natural, and they don't have a whole lot of junk in them. She kinda highlights what parabens are, what kind of fragrance is being used if it's a hormone disruptor disruptor mineral, like the microplastics, like like polyethylene and polypropylene that some people, some lipstick brands use. So she kind of she kind of gives the detail there. One that she highlights, Westman Adelir lip suede matte lipstick. It's not a % natural.
Speaker 1:She tells you what that is, but the quality of the ingredients is way better than, like, what you might find in your local drugstore or department store lipstick, and I won't say any of those. It's got peptides, hyaluronic hyaluronic acid, metafoam extract, vitamin c, and vitamin e. Here's a % natural option. The % pure fruit pigmented lipstick. Never tried it.
Speaker 1:Have you tried any of these? I haven't tried any of these. And honestly, if it was all natural and I didn't have to worry about it being carcinogenic, I would probably go ahead and use use them. Right? The price points are somewhere between 20 and $50 depending on what you're willing to spend.
Speaker 1:But honestly, like, I don't usually go through a whole thing of lipstick in a year, so spending that amount of money isn't too bad. Here is a % natural.
Speaker 2:I don't know how to
Speaker 1:say this. It's k j a e r, Kajar or Weis Lipstick, and it is dryer castor seed oil, olive fruit oil, and shea butter. Looks like something I might wanna try. I do like a dryer lipstick. Anyway, some of these others are good.
Speaker 1:Mineral fusion lipstick. It's budget friendly. It's not a % natural. But, hey, these ingredients are looking a lot better than some of the others. And now you're hearing hearing my Malinois in the background because guess what?
Speaker 1:She's a Malinois. Anyway, I think it's kind of like, can we get an all a full % all natural lipstick? It doesn't I mean, what defines natural? I think what it's coming down to for me is making sure it doesn't have the really hard things. So while it might have more ingredients than I want to have, at least it doesn't have formaldehyde, mercury, or lead pigment and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I mean, some of it's just affordability. Right? Like, what can we what can we really afford? But anyway, this is from organic Beauty Lover. I don't know her.
Speaker 1:I don't work with her. I don't have any of that information, but of all the articles that I found for, natural lipsticks, this was the best one. You know, a lot of the blogs and stuff they're paid for just like you would get a recipe. Right? You go to a blog, you see a list, and they link to different products.
Speaker 1:The products are broken or they're not super informative because they're just placed for link backs. This is my marketing insight here. So I tend to distrust those. This one doesn't really have that. It's it's clear.
Speaker 1:It does have shop links, and that's fine. You know? Like, this is this is the model, but it's informative. So anyway, let me know if you have tried any of these makeups, six, and which ones you prefer. I run into the issue when I'm performing it wearing off or, smearing on my face because I'm singing on the microphone.
Speaker 1:I had that happen once and then took a picture with a friend of mine, and, like, I look like Ronald McDonald around my face. Not kidding. Not kidding. Not a good look. Not a good look.
Speaker 1:And then I said to him later, I was like, I was like, Ron, why didn't you tell me that I looked like Ronald McDonald? And he was like, self correcting exercise, basically. But he's like, I thought you knew. I was like, well, thank god I looked at it before I published that anywhere. So I've become, like, pretty, a little more savvy.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say I'm savvy about makeup at all, but more savvy about lipstick. So let me know what you recommend, and, I mean, I'm really serious about this, and I'll I'll go buy it, and I'll try it out, and we can talk about it. So yeah. Because we all don't we don't need more chemicals in our lives. Right?
Speaker 1:We just want lipstick that works, that's clean, from a company that we can trust, like cruelty free and and all of that. Anyway, so that's this episode of Unmasked, where we're checking out parking tickets, the moon, which we're totally gonna be checking that out. I'm on tour this week, so I will have to scoot out and check out the moon on Friday night. And then, we talked a little bit about all these lipsticks and organic options. I will put all of the links in the show notes again.
Speaker 1:Remember, you need to do your own research. But I would like to close with a verse. Give justice to the weak and the fatherless. Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Psalm eighty two three.
Speaker 1:I hope you have a wonderful week and, stay tuned for the next episodes where we talk a lot more about music and a whole lot of other cool stuff. Remember, today is just the beginning. You are not alone, and I'm praying for you.