For Hazel Wood, beauty treatments aren’t just an occasional thing. The 28-year-old influencer spends around £500 a month on grooming appointments, including £80 on pedicures and manicures, £70 on eyebrow lamination (which uses a chemical solution to straighten and reshape eyebrow hair) and £60 on her lashes. She also spends around £250-£300 on Botox every three to six months.
These treatments play an important role in her life, she says. “I feel like I’m presenting myself at my best. If I don’t feel like I look my best, I have a hard time feeling confident and productive, and I have a hard time interacting with people.”
“That’s not to say you have to do all of these things to be beautiful,” she adds. But for her, doing all of these things makes “me feel more capable in both my personal and professional life.”
Wood’s professional life involves spending a lot of time in front of the camera – creating content for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube about where she shops and what she eats – much of it sponsored by high-street and fast-fashion brands. She spends her own money and time on regular beauty treatments. “I don’t really enjoy having any of the treatments, to be completely honest,” she says. “I’m the type of person who likes to be busy. When I’ve booked these treatments, I just think that’s a couple of hours out of my day that I’ll never get back.”
So why does she do it? “It helps me save time in the morning,” she says. “I’m already ready, so my day can start more efficiently because I don’t have to spend time getting ready.”
In recent years, the concept of “beauty maintenance days” has grown online, particularly on platforms like TikTok. The hashtag #beautymaintenance has amassed over 112.7 million views on the platform, with the idea being that by booking semi-permanent treatments like a lash lift (so you don’t have to curl your lashes every morning) or a brow treatment (so you don’t have to spend time coloring them every day), you’ll save time overall over the course of the month.
Perversely, the trend also revolves around not looking too made up or made up. As a recent Vogue article put it, “The irony of wearing makeup is that we often prefer to think we’re not wearing any makeup at all.” The hashtag #highmaintenancetobelowmaintenance has been viewed more than 70 million times on TikTok. These wildly popular videos see users meticulously documenting their visits to the nail salon, brow and lash bars, and laser hair removal. What they reveal is that a so-called “low maintenance” or “natural” look is anything but. Looking natural has now become a beauty standard so strict that it requires at least one full day of wearing it every month.
How did we get here? While the pressure on women to look a certain way and spend time and money achieving unrealistic ideals is far from new, many have taken on more demanding beauty regimes during the pandemic. While hairdressers and salons were closed, experimenting with DIY treatments at home became popular – according to a 2022 Mintel survey, 38% of women aged 16 to 24 made changes to their beauty and grooming routines. And while retail as a whole took a hit due to the cost of living crisis, beauty retail remained relatively stable in 2023, as grooming was seen by many as an “affordable luxury” during tough times, according to Mintel.
Charlie Shepherd, 29, a communications manager from London, started a skincare routine during lockdown. What started as a way to pass the time has now become a regular part of her routine. She spends £80 a month on her nails and £60 on beauty products. Every few months, she spends £200 on a facial and a haircut.
“It’s about the experience,” says Shepherd. “It’s a social activity, a confidence booster, and something I do for myself.” She never skips her biweekly manicure. “It makes me feel confident, especially because I’m in the dating world and when you’re talking to people, you use your hands a lot, so I feel like I look good.”
It’s well-documented that the pandemic has prompted many to ditch the idea of a beauty regime altogether, grow out their grays or leave their body hair intact. Market research company Kantar found that makeup sales had fallen 19% since 2019, partly due to the pandemic.
Things have bounced back remarkably quickly, however. Spending on beauty salons and hairdressers in the UK is set to exceed £8bn in 2023, up from 2022 and almost back to pre-pandemic levels. The boom in so-called beauty influencers has also had a significant impact on beauty maintenance trends. According to Forbes, the global influencer marketing industry is estimated to be worth $21.1bn (£16bn) in 2023, with spend on influencer marketing expected to surpass advertising spend on every single platform. That’s a lot of money being thrown at influencers by advertisers whose livelihoods depend on how they look, encouraging us to spend money to look like them.
The pressure to conform to these beauty standards can have more serious consequences. Wood admits she had her lip filler procedure reversed this year, leaving her with only “a tiny bit.” She first had the procedure when she was 22. “I think the problem with lip fillers is that once you start getting them, you don’t realize how big they’ve gotten. You keep getting more and more,” she says. “There’s a lot of pressure online because we see everyone else doing it, and you assume that your face isn’t normal because you don’t look like that.”
Heather Widdows, philosopher and author of Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal, thinks that beauty has gone beyond providing social value—and is now an ethical imperative. “People think that looking better means you’re going to have a better life. We’ve come to believe in the ideal that this means better relationships and a better job, so it’s become a dominant value for people,” she says.
However, the pressure to maintain a certain appearance isn’t felt equally across all demographics. For example, black women tend to spend six times more on beauty products and services than their white counterparts, according to the British Beauty Council. And despite making up just 2% of the UK population, black women account for 10% of UK haircare spending, according to the Office for National Statistics. And yet, according to one report, white influencers are paid an average of 50% more than their black, Asian and minority ethnic peers. These statistics starkly highlight the beauty care inequality for black women, and also highlight why some black women feel the need to achieve an unrealistic standard of beauty.
Still, not everyone is embracing the increasing demands of beauty maintenance. A growing number of women are finding liberation in rejecting the routines that once dictated their lives. Nifemi Kesinro, 23, a student experience officer, is one of them. “My hair and nails were always an absolute priority for me,” she says. “I did a series of treatments for my hair, but the most important thing for me was to outsource it. Even if it was just a wash and blow-dry, I paid for it.”
Braids, her go-to style, required regular appointments every six to eight weeks, cost between £150 and £170 per session and took up to eight hours to complete. Kesinro soon realised the financial pressure was becoming untenable. “It was too expensive; I felt like I was trying to maintain a standard of beauty that was unrealistic,” she says. So she embraced her natural hair, which wasn’t without its challenges.
“Styling my hair for work is the biggest struggle; the anticipation of going to the office can fill me with dread. It’s especially hard because I feel like I have to put it up. Instead of wearing it in an afro or a high ponytail, I put it up in a sleek bun or cornrows. While I don’t mind wearing these styles, I don’t like feeling restricted…and the time it takes makes mornings really stressful.” She founded Candid Conversations about our Curls, a community where black women can share their experiences and support each other. “It’s refreshing to see women talk candidly about how beauty standards affect them,” she says.
“There’s pressure within our community to look a certain way, and I think that has to do with the perception of beauty for black women and also consumer culture. The truth is, in my generation (Gen Z), it’s easier to conform than to push back.”
Kesinro feels free in her decision, but still acknowledges that the journey continues. “It requires a lot of patience and consistency,” she reflects. “Living in a digital age doesn’t make it any easier, seeing posts online of women who look a certain way. But confidence comes from within and so I realize that regardless of how my hair looks, I am beautiful.”
The community that Kesinro has built offers a sense of sisterhood and freedom in accepting that there are many different definitions of what is beautiful. “One of the most special things has been hearing stories from people about wearing their natural hair to work for the first time in years. Also, listening to the ladies who aren’t ready to wear their natural hair has been liberating for us as a community.”