With endless pressure to conform to aesthetic ideals, the pursuit of perfection is leaving many women feeling drained, financially strained and emotionally overwhelmed
Beauty routines are often sold to us as acts of self-love – a way to pamper, express ourselves and feel confident. But for many women, these rituals have become less about joy and more about obligation. The constant upkeep, the endless appointments, the perpetual self-monitoring, the overwhelm of products, the non-stop beauty content and the pressure to meet ever-evolving standards, has left countless women feeling exhausted. Welcome to beauty burnout, a phenomenon where the pursuit of perfection leaves women feeling drained, financially strained, and emotionally overwhelmed.
Beauty burnout symptoms can include content fatigue, making risky financial decisions for beauty, feeling exhausted by yet another beauty trend, wanting to opt out but feeling unable to, skipping social events because getting ready is a chore, feeling panicked before work if your appearance isn’t ‘perfect’, as well as feeling anxious, hyper self-conscious, depressed and not wanting to leave the house.
“It just started to feel like insanity,” Shope Delano, the 29-year-old founder of Kind Regards told me. “Every couple of weeks something had to be done – the braids were grown out or the nails were grown out or the lashes were grown out. I was on this hamster wheel.” Like many women, Shope found herself caught in an endless stream of ‘necessary’ maintenance appointments: monthly lashes, weaves, acrylics, microblading and regular waxing – all considered baseline grooming in many professional environments.
Beauty has always been seen as women’s work – degraded and devalued, while simultaneously lauded as a necessary mandate for our humanity. We, as women, are not inherently more beautiful or more intent on beautification than men, but we have been conditioned and encouraged to become so. The pressure is particularly acute for women in client-facing roles or those running their own businesses, where appearance is often conflated with competence. “I felt like being a founder, being freelance, or honestly just being a working woman, where you have to sell yourself, there was a system of beauty maintenance attached to that,” Shope explains. “I think a lot about how polish makes professional progression smoother, and lack of polish makes it feel like it’s got more friction.”
The collective exhaustion – mental, physical and spiritual – was palpable with all the women I spoke to. As creative and influencer Sophia Tassew notes, “I often think about how much more productive I would be if presenting yourself a certain way or keeping up with all the beauty stuff all the time was put on the back burner, or if it was normalised to just look not done up. If I could just turn up to work in my bonnet and a little bit of mascara, I would get so much done by 10am!”
This beauty tax isn’t just about time – it’s a significant financial burden, and a gendered issue that puts women at an additional economic and temporal disadvantage. Women feel the need to invest heavily in their appearance in order to be worthy of visibility, opportunity and respect, in a way that men simply do not. Despite the rising costs of treatments, and the fact that women are getting into debt for beauty, we continue to participate because the penalties for nonconformity can be severe. Research shows that women who don’t adhere to beauty standards face both social and economic consequences, from lower wages to reduced opportunities for advancement.
The paradox is particularly cruel: women are valued for their beauty and physical attractiveness but often penalised and judged for putting effort into enhancing their appearance. The’re expected to employ rigorous self-discipline and monitoring while appearing nonchalant and unconcerned by beauty at all. As one interviewee, Bea, puts it: “I love my Dyson Airwrap but since getting it, I don’t feel like I can go out without using it, unless I budget an extra twenty minutes to use it, I feel super insecure about my curly hair all day. It’s crazy because I know that no one cares, and I know that no one is going to notice or judge me, but I still can’t stop myself from going through it.”
The Covid-19 lockdowns offered many women an unexpected respite from these pressures. Emmy, a London-based beauty professional, hasn’t worn make-up to work since returning post-lockdown. “I found wearing make-up so stressful. I end up worrying about if it’s noticeable and if I’ve blended well. Does this colour match me? Is it cakey? It’s expensive to have loads of foundations and contour sticks, and then it gives me anxiety,” she says. “My life is a lot more stress-free now I don’t wear make-up every day. The reality is that not everyone looks like they’re Vogue-cover-ready every day, it’s keeping up with those standards that’s draining.”
I was essentially trying constantly to get closer to a more Eurocentric beauty standard. When the goalpost is fundamentally unobtainable, there is no reward at the end of the tunnel – Shope Delano
For some of the women I spoke to, it wasn’t just keeping up with beauty standards that was draining – even just trying to shop for beauty products felt exhausting. “I feel it every day!” says Georgie Smith from Leicestershire. “Going into the drugstore to buy the simplest item is totally overwhelming. There’s so many brands and so much choice – how many versions of a black mascara does there need to be?”
For others, the pressure has only intensified in our increasingly digital world. The rise of technology means our perceived attractiveness is no longer a fixed constant but a changeable variable that can be manipulated with make-up, injectables, surgery, filters and editing apps. Social media has created an environment where image is everything and adherence to beauty standards is rewarded with platform, status and often financial opportunities.
Some women are finding ways to opt out – or at least, opt down. Shope transitioned from ‘high-maintenance’ treatments to more sustainable alternatives: “I tried to shift from a system of maintenance that was underpinned by short-term treatments to ones that were underpinned by long-term treatments. So now, I have locs that involve a hair appointment every six weeks, which I can manage. I don’t do my nails, brows, lashes or anything else anymore, but I get facials once every six weeks.”
For women of colour, the burnout is often compounded by the pressure to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards. “I got burnt out with that kind of beauty upkeep because I was playing a losing game,” Shope reflects. “I was essentially trying constantly to get closer to a more Eurocentric beauty standard. When the goalpost is fundamentally unobtainable, there is no reward at the end of the tunnel.”
The reality is that when we consider the constant self-monitoring, psychological labour and time expended, most women receive a negative return on what is sold to us as beauty ‘investment’. And on top of that, we’re left burnt out and exhausted. Despite our changing role in society and increased earning potential, beauty standards are more prescriptive than ever. The gender status quo is largely preserved, if not worsened, by the increasing aestheticisation of our world and the ever-increasing beauty tax women face.
It’s hard to disentangle the enjoyment we get from beauty practices from the pressure society puts on us to pursue the ideal. Beauty work should be a fun and intimate exchange, creating a space for bonding and connection that transcends generational and cultural barriers, but we can’t remove ourselves from the culture that tells us that it is necessary or advantageous. Beauty – cultural, intimate, symbolic and joyful – is something we are taught to love. It is then sold back to us for profit, at our own expense.
If there’s one thing I learnt from my research for this piece, it’s that we are all tired. We are all fed up. Whether we’re fighting to take up space and to be visible as we are, or fighting for our lives in order to be desirable, we are treading water. Women are burning out from beauty standards – the question now is whether we can imagine and create a world for one another where our worth isn’t measured by our ability to maintain them.