Re: Beauty "maintenance"
What does beauty *maintenance* even mean? We're all lost in the beauty routine that once was a hobby
I’ve been reading magazines forever. Literally. My obsession began with Highlights for Kids and then, like most tweens looking to form their identity, I moved to beauty magazines like Teen Vogue and Seventeen. I was reading articles and looking at pictures for inspiration, not necessarily replication, but I still couldn’t help but be influenced by the magazine’s takes. As someone who’s been locked in a chokehold for most, if not all, of my conscious life, I can tell you that I’ve been immersed in the world of fashion and beauty forever because of how fun and creative it was. I’m a Libra, I love aesthetics and I love creativity. Just like other girls, I found myself at the whim of influencers, peers, and magazines when it came to my complicated relationship with beauty. I wore mascara and kajal to detract from the weight I carried in my stomach and stood tortured by my desire to fit society’s definition of beautiful (i.e. Tumblr body trends) and my inability to change the unchangeable.
And what is fashion or beauty if not self-expression in the form of art?
TIKTOK HAS BECOME MY MODERN-DAY MAGAZINE
I’m all for women sharing their favorites when it comes to routines and self-care and all that, but I just cannot get behind this new TikTok trend featuring women sharing their beauty maintenance routines—I have so many qualms with the term “maintenance.”
As you can see, maintenance refers to the general upkeep of something, not someone. Look at the 3 examples given by Cambridge: if you don’t maintain the house, it’ll break down or if you don’t maintain the plane, it could malfunction. People aren’t the same way: women won’t break down or malfunction if we don’t succumb to arbitrary beauty standards. It’s not a thing!
Maintenance implies that there are specific standards to meet, if not exceed, within defined (but subjective) time intervals, to ensure that something’s capable and functional in the long term (eg. getting nails done twice a month, touching up highlights every 3 months, refilling lashes every 3 weeks). This also means that if a woman is not meeting these standards within the specified time frames, she’s fallen below the base level and faces negative self-image perceptions, ultimately making us as women feel like a failure and unpresentable to society.
Oh! And take a closer look at the expanded “SMART Vocabulary” section. All these words and phrases consist of terms like costs & expenses, admission charge, aliment, and fee—seemingly alluding to additive burdens. When these extraneous beauty services become so integral to your identity and how you present yourself, they become so locked into your budget, as if they were mortgage payments, and they become a foregone cost because that’s what the individual deems to be the bare minimum to feel societally acceptable.
NAILS UNDONE
The most infuriating part about these beauty practices is that yes, it’s our body and men don’t deserve to speak to our choices, but when it’s other women who are policing these regimens, it brings to light just how deeply rooted internalized misogyny is in our society. The primary reason this topic of beauty maintenance has been on my mind is because of a viral TikTok of a woman expressing that she doesn’t respect women who have bare nails or chipped polish and that “girls should get their nails and toes done every 2-3 weeks.”
I acknowledge that we don’t live in a vacuum. There’s literally nothing anyone does on their own without outside influence. And previously, botox and lip fillers were procedures that only Hollywood celebrities occasionally partook in, and now, the (mostly good!) democratization of influence through the internet and social media has allowed anyone and everyone to access these treatments. Our constant exposure to media, versus the monthly magazine subscriptions that came in the mail, have us believing that everyone is constantly getting work done, and many viewers feel left out and adding them to their to-do list.
We’re already facing so much opposition living in a patriarchal society, so to hear these influential women state that taking pride in beauty is the only way to receive respect from society is very discouraging, especially when you note that the majority of their audience is comprised of teenagers or girls in their early 20s. Spreading the notion that we’re a lesser version of ourselves because we aren’t keeping with their arbitrary societal beauty standards can leave us feeling unfulfilled, detrimenting our already fragile mental health.
And the funniest part is, I’ve had similar thoughts about myself: guilty of removing all my nail polish when I see one chip, feeling icky over my bare nails, then repainting that same day. It’s the same internal voice that once didn’t allow me to leave the house without mascara or an oversized top, chiding me to be society-worthy and presentable at the very least.
It’s no new revelation that for women, simple maintenance is unending labor. We use curling wands, Brazillian blowouts, and a dozen hair products to alter our hair texture or have 10-step skincare regimens we follow twice a day still followed by concealer just to drop off a return. On the other hand, when girls start baby botox too early or too much filler in their 40s because they’re supposed to disguise the natural signs of aging, or 30yo women wearing extra baggy jeans with hair bows to follow Gen Z trends, we scoff. We snark at women who “fail to age” and perform beauty “the right way,” women who let their efforts show. There is no winning.
With that being said, I am hopeful for girls growing up because of women like Devonne Leigh sharing her experiences and outlining insightful takes to dispel some of the internal misogyny. The major takeaways:
Society is moving the goalpost so rapidly on what they consider a baseline level of appearance maintenance to be.
Beauty is inherently tied to capitalism. There’s so much money to be made in convincing women that they need to be participating in an array of beauty treatments on a 2-6 week basis to be respected in society.
“SELF-IMPROVEMENT” IS A SCAM
WHERE’S THE FUN?
As women, yes, we are held to a higher standard when it comes to our appearances, or at least, that’s been my assumption ever since I picked up a tween magazine, but the blurred line between what are extraneous enhancements and basic hygiene has catapulted the bar for socially acceptable standards of beauty to exponentially rise (especially with the rise of the internet).
FOOD FOR THOUGHT However, the worst part about all this TikTok discourse for me is how genuinely upset and distressed these women feel over b e a u t y. When done for ourselves, beauty can be the most fun part of being a woman.
Maybe what this woman says about getting her nails done is a projection of how she feels pressured to always have perfectly polished fingers and toes, and that’s snowballed into believing that it’s unfair that women don’t feel that same pressure. Feeling that grossed out over a woman not having immaculate nails shows how negatively she must view herself when her nails are slightly grown out or chipped, which is ultimately the saddest, scariest part of this current society.
What I think some women, and society for that matter, fail to understand is that beauty maintenance does not tie into hygiene. These luxury services and wellness treatments have become conflated with hygiene over the past few years (I blame the stay-at-home order), and there’s a lack of enjoyment or gratitude over these activities.
To be honest, I consider all these beauty regimens as luxuries or fun little treats. I never want to feel like having my nails done or curling my hair is a chore, rather I try to view everything as a chance to feel pampered. I remember my childhood self, flipping through the pages of colorful magazines, learning about trends, and imagining myself one day having fun doing my makeup and playing with different hairstyles.
When we’re constantly engaging in beauty practices that most definitely have a patriarchal origin (regardless of how fun they may be to participate in), it might be more beneficial to use a term like beauty extracurriculars or beauty care or something else that doesn’t imply that these practices are *requirements* to be a presentable woman. If anything, beauty and the maintenance of it seems to be a heavy distraction from far more important things and further contribute to women’s othering, our objectification in society. Believe it or not, there are so many women—amazing, powerful women—who walk through life without makeup and bare nails and are still so incredibly successful in their academics, profession, relationships, etc.
I think I’ve come to realize that feminine beauty is a hamster wheel of a longstanding game with no winners, but that won’t stop me from playing. I, along with most women in this world, will never become fully immune to the push of constant self-improvement and desire to be “beautiful” and keep up with every other woman. This arbitrary bar that looms over our heads as women, just above reach, seems to keep rising no matter how tall we become or how high we jump. Beauty maintenance is just another gimmick, I’m convinced of it, and we just need to collectively decide we’re not following these made-up measures. Or at least, not shame others for doing what they want.
BEAUTY: DIFFICULT TO ATTAIN, IMPOSSIBLE TO MAINTAIN, Simi Adeniyi: What do you do when your confidence is contingent on your relationship with the beauty industry when its price to maintain is so expensive (and more expensive as a Black woman)?
LOOK LIKE YOU SLEPT 8 HOURS!, Jessica Delfino: The beauty industry sells women quick fixes in the form of creams and treatments instead of promoting more sleep and better nutrition.
MY MOTHER DIED OF FEMININITY, Lauren Berlant: A wonderful writer explaining the fact "that a thing is an enigmatic relation means not that the thing is replaceable, because it isn't: but that it changes when it's close to other things.”
A WOMAN’S BEAUTY—A PUT DOWN OR POWER SOURCE, Susan Sontag: Women are often dragged and degraded for their beauty while being called beautiful (i.e. “Love yourself! Everyone is beautiful! But also, paint your nails otherwise no one will consider you pretty.”), concealing the insulative nature of the comment.
thank you so much for reading, talk soon! 💌 pk