by For Hazel Wood, getting a beauty treatment isn’t just an occasional treat. The 28-year-old influencer spends around £500 a month on grooming appointments, including £80 on pedicures and manicures, £70 on eyebrow lamination (where a chemical solution is used to eyebrow straightening and reshaping) and £60 for her hair. . In addition, she pays around £250–£300 for Botox every three to six months.
These treatments, she says, play a vital role in her life. “It makes me feel like I’m showing up as my best self. When I don’t feel good about myself, it’s hard for me to feel confident and productive, and I also have a hard time interacting with people.”
“It’s not that you have to do all these things to be beautiful,” she says. But for her, doing all these things “makes me feel more capable in both my personal and professional life”.
Wood’s professional life involves spending a lot of time on camera – making content for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube about where she shops and what she eats – much of which is sponsored by high street brands and fashion. She often spends her own money and time on beauty maintenance treatments. “I don’t particularly like getting any of the treatments if I’m completely honest,” she says. “I’m someone who likes to be busy. Once I book these treatments, I think it’s a few 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 put together, so I can start my day more efficiently because I don’t have to spend time getting ready.”
In recent years, the concept of “beauty maintenance days” has grown online, especially on platforms like TikTok. The hashtag #beautymaintenance has collected more than 112.7m views on the platform, and the idea was to book semi-permanent treatments such as a lash lift (so you don’t feel the need to curl your eyelashes every morning) , or an eyebrow treatment (so you don’t have to spend time penciling them every day) you’ll save a whole lot of time during the month.
Conversely, part of this trend is also about not looking overdone or overdone. As one Vogue article recently described it: “The irony of wearing makeup often is that we prefer to look like we’re not wearing it at all.” The hashtag #maintenance ardtobelow has more than 70m views on TikTok. These wildly popular videos show users meticulously documenting their trips to the nail salon, eyebrows and eyelashes and going for laser hair removal. What they show is that a so-called “low maintenance” or “natural” look is anything but. Looking natural is now such a strict beauty standard that it requires a commitment of at least a full day every month.
So how did we get here? Although the pressure on women to look a certain way and spend time and money to achieve unrealistic ideals is new, during the pandemic, many people have taken on stricter beauty regimes. While hairdressers and salons were closed, trying DIY treatments at home became popular – according to one Mintel study in 2022, 38% of women aged 16-24 made changes to their beauty and grooming routines. And, while the cost of living crisis hit retail as a whole, beauty retail remained relatively stable in 2023, as, according to Mintel, many considered grooming to be an “affordable luxury” when times are tough.
Charlie Shepherd, 29, a communications manager from London, started a skincare routine while in lockdown. What started as a way to pass the time has become a permanent part of her routine. She spends £80 on getting her nails done and £60 on beauty products every month. Every few months she spends £200 on a haircut.
“It’s all about the experience,” says Shepherd. “It’s a social activity, a confidence booster, and something I do entirely for myself.” She never misses her bi-weekly manicure. “It gives me confidence, especially since I’m in the gaming world, and when you’re talking to people, you use your hands a lot, so I feel like I’m well put together.”
It’s well documented that the pandemic has prompted many to ditch the notion of a beauty regime altogether, let their gray hair grow out, or leave body hair intact. Market research company Kantar found that makeup sales fell 19% from 2019, which was partly due to the pandemic.
However, things have turned around very quickly. Spending on beauty salons and hairdressers increased to over £8bn in the UK 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. In 2023, the global influencer marketing industry was estimated to be worth $21.1bn (£16.bn), according to Forbes, and spend on influencer marketing is expected to surpass advertising spend on every single platform. In other words, advertisers are spending a lot of money on influencers whose livelihoods depend on their appearance, encouraging us to spend to look like them.
The pressure to conform to these beauty standards can have more serious consequences. Wood admits she has reversed her lip filler procedure this year, keeping only “the tiniest amount left”. She first had the procedure when she was 22. “I think the problem with lip fillers is that when you start, you don’t realize how big they’ve gone. You have more and more,” she says. “There’s a lot of pressure online because we see everyone’s done, and then you assume 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 if you look better, you’ll have a better life. We’ve taken on the ideal that this means a better relationship and a better job, so it’s a dominant value for people,” she says.
The pressure to maintain a certain look is not felt equally across all demographics, however. Black women, for example, often 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 50% more on average than their black, Asian and ethnic minority counterparts. These statistics clearly show the disparity in beauty maintenance for Black women, and also point to why some Black women feel the need to achieve an unrealistic standard of beauty.
But not everyone is accepting the increasing demands of beauty maintenance. An increasing number of women are finding freedom by rejecting the routines that once existed in their lives. Nifemi Kesinro, 23, a student experience officer, is among them. “My hair and nails have always been a big priority for me,” she says. “I would do a range of services on my hair, but the biggest thing for me was outsourcing it. Even if it was just a wash and blow dry, I would pay.”
Braids, a smooth hairstyle, required regular appointments every six to eight weeks, costing between £150 and £170 per session and taking up to eight hours. Kesinro soon realized that the financial pressure was becoming unsustainable. “It was too expensive; I felt like I was trying to maintain a standard of beauty that was unrealistic,” she says. And so she adopted her natural hair, which was not without its difficulties.
“The biggest struggle is styling my hair for work; the prospect of going into the office excites me. I find it very difficult because I feel that it has to have a level of neatness. Instead of wearing it in an afro or up in a high ponytail, I put it in a slick bun or buns. Although I don’t mind wearing these hairstyles, I don’t like feeling restricted … and the time it takes in the morning is very stressful.” She founded Candid Conversations about our Curls, a community where Black women can share their experiences and support each other. “It’s heartwarming to see women being honest about how they are affected by beauty standards,” she says.
“There’s a pressure to look a certain way within our community, and I think it’s because of how Black women view beauty and consumer culture, and the truth is, in my generation (gen Z), it’s easier to fit in than to go against the grain.”
Kesinro feels free in her decision but still admits that the journey continues. “It requires a lot of patience and consistency,” she says. “Seeing posts online of women who look a certain way doesn’t make living in the digital age any easier. But confidence comes from within so I recognize that I am beautiful beyond what my hair looks like.”
The community that Kesinro has built offers a sense of sisterhood and freedom while accepting that there are many different definitions of what is beautiful. “One of the most special aspects of it is hearing people’s stories about wearing their natural hair to work for the first time in years. Also, it’s really rewarding for us as a community to listen to the women who aren’t ready to wear their natural hair in conversation and be willing to explore their own biases and opinions on natural hair.”
