The Beauty Secret That Changed My Life
It's probably not what you think...
I was never much of a makeup person. I wasn’t allowed to wear it in middle school (to the point where one of my Catholic School teachers made me take off my Dr. Pepper lip balm before school photos). I didn’t wear it in high school except for the occasional blue eyeshadow from CVS. I barely wore makeup in college. My skincare was simple too. Maybe some Lubriderm and usually some sunscreen (in the summer anyway).
When I graduated and got my first big job after college, I went to Sephora and bought Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer. It felt so fancy (and expensive). For the most part, makeup and skincare didn’t come into my life until my early 30s, which just so happens to coincide with my career as an influencer.
I quickly became someone that would almost never leave the house without a face of makeup. I was a self declared “low maintenance” girl sharing my “no makeup makeup” tutorials and a medicine cabinet with no less than 15 products at any given time.
I loved the thrill of trying new products, and trying to turn my face into a poreless, shiny, dewy, wrinkle free canvas. It was lucrative too. Try new beauty products all the time AND get paid to do it? Sign me up! I was completely brainwashed into believing that the only way to exist in the world was with a full face of makeup and a 10 step skincare routine.
But I was doing it for me! It was my “self-care.” You don’t need to look far to find plenty of articles and social media content that will convince you as such. And for a long time, I really believed it.
But as
writes:The line between the beauty and wellness industries has blurred to the point of nonexistence. It is from this place of nothingness that we get the concept of “makeup as meditation”. Maybe it’s the beauty industry’s attempt to monetize mindfulness, or maybe it’s the industry’s attempt to sabotage mindfulness, lest customers rise above beauty culture brainwashing.
A few months ago I started to get a rash on my face (most likely from the assortment of products I was using). It wouldn’t be the first time my skin got a weird rash from products. So I finally decided to do something I never would have considered a year ago.
I stopped using all my beauty products. No more makeup, masks, serums, eye creams, exfoliants or cleansers. Just water to wash my face and a moisturizer (the same one in the morning and at night).
Do you want to know what happened? The rash went away. My skin was fine, maybe even better than fine? The longer I went without makeup and a multi-step skincare routine the less I thought about it, at all.
Soon, I realized that not spending time applying products was my own form of self-care. It wasn’t just about the products or the time, but the comfort in my own skin, in the truest sense.
I can’t say that a rash on my face was the sole reason for ditching all my beauty products. It was an evolution. Disentangling myself from the influencer industry has taken years. Stepping away from social media has given me enormous perspective. I’m not sure I would have gotten to this place were I still scrolling through poreless wrinkle free faces everyday. At the same time, constantly looking at myself on Instagram Stories all day was not healthy (is it for anyone?).
Moving to Vermont has changed how I view beauty (and people). I’m curious how much environment impacts our perception of beauty (to me it feels like a lot). Day to day, I see less makeup, more body hair (and gray hair), more faces with visible signs of aging. Seeing more of it makes it feel normal, because it is. And that has given me permission to adjust my own standards of beauty.
It trickles down too. With so much pressure on girls to look a certain way, and a beauty industry that’s targeting them at a younger age, it’s one more way I can show my daughter that aging is normal. To age is to live.
I want to make it clear that anti-aging is a beauty standard. Plain and simple. Youthfulness is not a health goal. It is not a moral goal, no matter how often brands equate young-looking skin with “good” skin. This is an aesthetic goal only. The history of this standard goes back centuries, it stems from systems of oppression. Patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism for sure. Anti-aging is the ultimate capitalist goal, because it can never be met, right? It’s physically impossible to anti-age. And to try to anti-age is to be a consumer for life.
A question for all of you: Do you think your environment impacts your beauty standards (where you live, who you spend time with, etc)? How do you think social media affects how you see yourself and others?
A quick note: This publication is entirely reader supported. I do not take any brand partnerships so that I can freely and honestly speak about my experience as an ex-influencer and human being existing in this hyper-consumerist society. Your paid subscription helps support this work and allows me to continue doing this free from the restrictions of sponsored content. Please consider a subscription for $5/month or $50/year (a 20% savings!).
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Love this! “Anti-aging is the ultimate capitalist goal, because it can never be met.” We are taught that from the minute we wake up in the morning, we aren’t good enough, and we need to buy products to change that. I appreciate you calling that out so clearly, and showing another way!
I’m really shocked (in a good way) to read your change in perspective and practice of skincare and beauty. I feel like makeup, skincare, and clothing are the top 3 things I’m marketed to when I’m online, and IT IS OVERWHELMING. Not to mention expensive. I can’t remember if you wrote about this Jess, or I read it somewhere else, but I read that with social media showing us a close up view into the lifestyles of people in far higher economic brackets that we would never ever have seen before has really messed up people’s ideas about what they should want and what they actually need. Something like seeing a celebrity or model millionaire trying new luxury beauty products daily gets in our heads, but most of us have far less money to spend on such things and it has lead to a lot of debt, waste, and feeling inadequate with what we have. It’s refreshing to hear a take on using less and not overdoing it with the skincare and beauty products. Thank you!