INTERVIEW // Christina Harris from Gin & Toxic

With an extremely loyal and dedicated fanbase, Christina Harris, also known as BeautyChickee, has never struggled to get her followers to hit that subscribe button. Whether you’re looking for her indomitable sense of humour, unafraid to tackle any subject, or if you’re looking for tips from the beauty industry, Christina manages to attract every kind of listener and viewer.

On the back of her huge success with her original podcast, The Really Bitchee Podcast, Christina is back and is in the midst of her latest podcast run alongside her co-host Lily Stewart for the Gin and Toxic podcast. We speak to Christina to find out about some of her personal highlights around the first podcast series and what led to the relaunch of Gin and Toxic:

Christina: The Really Bitchee Podcast was the first podcast I ever put out, so it holds a special place in my heart and gave me my start in the podcasting world. One of the highlights of The Really Bitchee Podcast was having guests that were my friends and not just people in the industry. People love realistic/relatable conversations and content, which is why my episodes with people I already knew personally performed so well; it felt like the audience could jump in the chat at any time and feel like they were talking to their close friends. This is something I want to carry over into my new show, keeping that relatability factor.

Like all of us, there’s an origin tale! So what was the aim of the podcast for Christina when it first started?

To share my stories and life experiences with my audience, and advice on being a 20-something-year-old living in NYC.

I love to talk and blabber about all sorts of topics and B.S., and I do consider myself a very open person. With this podcast, I wanted it to be an open, vulnerable space I could share with my audience in the form of long conversations. This is all quite ironic because now, looking back at the show, it ended up not being that at all. That’s exactly why I decided to stop that show, take some time to determine what I truly wanted to talk about, and then start my new show.

It didn’t take long to make an impact with the relaunch and the now titled Gin and Toxic podcast charted on Spotify in the Top Comedy Podcasts in the USA, but why the change? And what can we look forward to that’s a little bit different?

Gin & Toxic is a play on the classic Gin & Tonic, which is my go-to cocktail on a night out. The name embodies the show as a whole, representing a crazy, carefree environment. After taking a break from the podcasting world for a few months, I decided it was best to do a complete rebrand to allow myself to be even more open and vulnerable with my audience, which then let me share crazier, more chaotic stories with them.

As I said previously, the purpose of having a podcast for me was to create an open, vulnerable space to share my stories and life experiences with my audience. Although that was my purpose, I felt I wasn’t genuinely doing that with The Really Bitchee Podcast. The podcast came out when I was in a very weird stage in my life, I couldn’t keep up with the show consistently, and I also couldn’t speak my mind on situations I would’ve liked to. After taking a break from the podcasting world for a few months, I decided it was best to do a complete rebrand to allow myself to be even more open and vulnerable with my audience, which then let me share crazier, more chaotic stories with them.

Christina – and her moniker BeautyChickee – is well used to hosting conversations from an elevated platform as she has over 1.5million followers and subscribers across social media, but Christina also has her own clothing line, Bitchee™. With life as seemingly hectic, it’s clear that the inspiration for her Gin and Toxic podcast conversations would never be too far away – even if it’s an deeply personal take on the subjects at hand:

Our tagline sums everything up: “a show about the messy adventures and life lessons of two un-hinged best friends, living life in NYC throughout their 20’s”.

As for the extended version, the show is a collection of stories from our crazy adventures and nights out that Lily and I have experienced. An even more significant part of the show is discussing topics and tying our life experiences into those topics to either A) inform the audience, or B) to entertain.

For example, when we did our episode on cheaters, we talked about the concept of cheating as a whole and then tied in our personal experiences with cheaters and shared those stories. I think this adds a relatability factor to the show, considering that Lily and I are just like any other 20-something-year-old navigating life. 90% of our stories are messy; we don’t have it all together. I could go as far as to say we are a couple of hot messes! But that’s what we want our audience to see: the good, the bad & the ugly: the great decisions and the not-so-great ones. In a nutshell, we’re just navigating life alongside the audience & sharing our experiences.

What’s the reaction been like to the new podcast? And are you personally enjoying the experience and the openness of the dialogue?

People love the new show from what we’ve seen! It’s been getting incredible feedback. Like I said earlier, we’ve been way more open on this show, and we share all of the crazy experiences we have together, and people enjoy hearing about that & relating to it. It makes them feel like they are part of the show. We will get DM’s from girls that say something along the lines of “I just listened to your last episode, and here’s my similar story,” which we love receiving, because we love seeing how people relate to the show. The audience sees this new, crazier, more vulnerable side of Lily and I that they haven’t seen before, and they are just eating it up!

The experience creating Gin & Toxic has been so incredible, and now doing a podcast alongside a co-host has made the podcasting experience that much more enjoyable. Before, I was doing a solo show, and it’s tough to build off of topics and ideas on your own. A co-host makes it way easier to bounce those ideas and jokes off of, overall making for a better conversation within the show. The experience has been incredible, especially since my co-host is my best friend and we get to share the experience.

There’s an indefatigable energy which comes from Christina and Lily and their Gin and Toxic podcast, so presumably the future for the show looks good – what can we expect?

More “taboo” topics to be discussed as we open up more with our audience.

We also recently started recording our episodes on video! You can now watch future full-length video episodes on YouTube and Spotify, which is incredible for people who prefer to have a visual while listening. We’re going to have some great guests as well and we already have quite the roster of guests lined up to record with! We’d also love to eventually do some live-streamed live shows, as well as some live in-person shows around NYC and any significant cities where Gin & Toxic streams are high. Overall, we are just evolving the show every day and building it out to give our listeners the best possible listening/viewing experience.

Listen to Gin & Toxic now on Apple Podcast, Spotify and other podcast apps.