Skincare Culture is Unhealthy
the facade of modern wellness and what our priorities say about us
I’m getting tired of the way people online talk about skincare, self-care, and “wellness.”
Shortly after London Fashion Week back in September, ELLE published an article titled “The Runway Has Entered Its Wellness Era,” and I was intrigued.1 They must be requiring a meal break per 8 hours of work, I thought to myself, or introducing new standards for medical and mental assessments, or at the very least giving the models herbal tea and playing relaxing music backstage. Wellness is about a holistic approach to your health—caring for your mind and body in a balanced way—right?
Sure. The first paragraph of this article shocked me:
Cast your mind back to 10 years ago. The word 'wellness' was something you'd hear whispered among celery juice enthusiasts. You almost certainly didn't know about skin biohacking or hay bathing, and considered self-care to be sitting down with a cup of tea rather than bracing oneself for a cryotherapy chamber.
What on earth is skin biohacking? What’s wrong with taking a break with a cup of tea? Why do all these newfangled “wellness” things sound so complex, expensive, and painful? I immediately sent a screenshot to my best friend, who aptly criticized:
The article goes on to talk about accupuncture, cryotherapy machines, and IV drips—notice that all of the “wellness” trends seen backstage are intended to improve the outward appearance. Were the models practicing healthy, well-adjusted eating and exercise behaviors? Were they given private changing areas? Did they do anything to make their own day happier? Who cares? We need to make their jaw look sharper by massaging their lymph nodes or whatever. The priority is the appearance, not the person.
The modern version of “wellness” and “self-care” is a new facade on the old message that “beauty is pain.” The current trend is to sacrifice your time, money, comfort, and relationships in pursuit of outward perfection.2 The culture (by which I mostly mean social media, honestly) is hawking the strange message that a human face is no longer good enough. You need to look like glass, like a glazed donut, like an instagram filter, like a baby hippo (?). And no matter how much money or time you spend on changing your appearance and pursuing outward perfection, it’s defensible in the name of wellness.
The culture around skincare feels especially egregious to me—“skinfluencers” (I feel gross just typing that) performing their 12-step routine, buying products that they will use once then throw away, showing off extreme close-ups of their seemingly perfect, poreless skin. Earlier this year, Glamour published an article defending the “morning shed” trend and claiming that criticism of this high-maintenance overnight skincare routine is somehow misogynistic (not the routine itself, with the Hannibal-Lecter-esque chin straps and the countless patches and products that don’t actually do anything):
While there are obviously plenty of people with low-maintenance routines who don’t judge anyone for living differently, comparing oneself to other women in particular feels kind of gross. This “not-like-others-girls” rhetoric perpetuates the notion that women’s interests are inherently superficial and frivolous and trivial, and that as a woman, being “high-maintenance” is a bad thing while cool girls roll out of bed and head out the door.
The article ends with the familiar excuse, “Let women enjoy things!” I have to wonder: do these women really enjoy this? Is it adding to their quality of life or improving them mentally or spiritually? Are they doing it because it makes their day a little happier, or are they doing it for their outward appearance? Now, happiness and beauty aren’t mutually exclusive—but let’s be real, you can tell what the main motivation is when you watch these videos. Captions like “the uglier you go to bed, the prettier you wake up” and “pov: you almost died in your sleep #morningshed” abound. The only priority is physical improvement at any cost, including the ability to open your mouth, and it’s a kind of idolatry that just makes me sad for those committing it.3
I want to clarify that, yes, these women do look beautiful when they peel off all the layers and fluff their heatlessly-curled hair. Expensive skincare products do have an effect on one’s skin. I just think that we need to step back and analyze whether the benefits outweigh the cost—and whether the “benefits” are truly good or not.
As a teen, I had severe cystic acne—some on my face, mostly on my back and shoulders. It was painful and embarassing. My parents took me to a dermatologist, and I was cycled through a variety of topicals and pills until we found a winning combo that kept the worst of the cysts at bay. I was prescribed a 3-step routine—wash, treat, moisturize—and did my best to follow it.
Now, at 22, I still get pimples from time to time.4 I still have faint scars from my teenage acne. My skin tone is not perfectly even and my pores are visible when I lean close to the mirror. Could I fix this? Probably, if I were willing to spend more time, money, and energy on skincare. I could add in more steps, buy more expensive products, obsess more about how often I touch my forehead or track what foods I eat before a breakout happens. I’m not going to do that, though, because I know that it will not add anything to my overall happiness or wellness. The benefits of a 5 or 7 or 12 step routine do not outweigh the cost to me—being minimalist with my skin products and embracing imperfections as they come is self-care.
This is not to say that I am irreproachable when it comes to my priorities and practices around beauty and wellness. I fall victim to the “beauty is pain” mentality frequently—I am thinking of a particular pair of mary jane flats that always cause blisters, and yet I wear them, because I allow my appearance to be the top priority.
In a well-ordered life, everything should be properly prioritized. Preventing smile lines should be a lower priority than experiencing joy with friends; doing your nighttime skincare should be a lower priority than saying your nighttime prayers; wearing shoes that match your belt should be a lower priority than keeping skin on the back of your ankles. Maybe in all these scenarios you can do both, but if you have to choose, your priorities need to be straight so you can choose rightly.
We all need to remember that imperfection is normal, natural, and even good.5 We were not created to pursue outward perfection; we were created to pursue God, who alone is perfection. We were not created to adore our beautiful reflections; we were created to adore God, who alone is beauty.
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God bless you <3
Modeling might seem like a glamorous, self-care-ish job, but the industry is notoriously unhealthy across the board. The Model Alliance studies and reports on rampant industry issues including sexual harassment and exploitation, child labor, eating disorders, agency scams and shoddy legal regulations, etc.
Fair warning: the Dazed article linked here is explicit and talks about sex in ways I do not fully agree with, but the overall point stands: “we’re going to bed with our mouths taped shut, afraid to let our faces be touched or smile, passing on opportunities to spend the night at a partner’s house lest they see your make-up-free skin, and getting Botox even at the detriment of emotionally connecting with others.” Relationships and genuine human connection often are lower priorities for people mired in this kind of skincare obsession.
I actually had a little pimple right over my upper lip when we were taking engagement photos, and guess what? My fiance still kissed me (yes, on the lips, where the pimple was—oh the horror!), AND you can barely see it in the final pics. A pimple is not the end of the world.
Litany of Humility: “At being deprived of the natural perfections of body and mind, Lord, I want to rejoice.”
Wow. This is why I subscribe to you. I cannot tell me how much I needed this. I had crazy cystic acne all through high school and college, and it still flares up sometime, not to mention the scarring! 9 times out of 10, I literally don’t think about it, but if it’s a particularly bad flare-up (or if there’s a guy I’m talking to), it’s so easy to fall into a spiral of “well, I don’t look like a tik tok model therefore I have zero worth as a woman 😔😔”. My friend on the phone last night was literally just telling me, “liv, your skin does NOT affect your appearance as much as you think it does.” This was a beautiful reminder to fix our eyes on the beauty of the Lord, instead of ourselves. Our culture is so hyper-focused on how we look—including myself—and Narcissus is the perfect myth to encapsulate that.
Love that included the painting of Narcissus- very appropriate. 👏 Brava