Why I Quit the Beauty Maintenance Olympics

It's 5:20 a.m., and my alarm is ringing with the intensity of a steelpan orchestra. The annoying and brain-rattling sound did the job of waking me up for yet another day of work, mothering, and everything in between. I bring my upper body to a sitting position and place my feet down on the carpeted floor. I walk into my bathroom and turn the lights on. Greeting me was the hyperpigmentation and acne that tell a story of struggle from puberty to a woman in her early 40s. I smile at my sleepy face, from a place deeply rooted in gratitude and radical self-love. This is me accepting where I am and seeing the beauty in the whole person with no desire to pick myself apart.

I remember the first time I realized I was competing in a race that I did not sign up for. It wasn't a particular day or instance, but the awareness started shortly after puberty. With my raging hormones came acne, something I am convinced I inherited from my paternal side of the family. There I was, panting, chasing, and adjusting to meet an ideal that never belonged to me in the first place. My starting line was being redrawn by the very same hormones that were preparing me for womanhood. It felt more like a setback that would sometimes send me into a downward spiral of unsafe skin care practices. I began to understand the hierarchy, the unspoken rules of who gets seen, who gets praised, and who gets chosen. I wanted to be chosen, but at what cost?

Beauty is Never Just Beauty. It is currency, leverage, and identity; it is an ever-expanding checklist of products, treatments, and practices that transformed leisure into labor and self-worth into a transaction. My struggle was acne, and the world dangled a promise before me: if I kept up, if I kept spending, if I stayed vigilant, I could win the ultimate prize of poreless skin—the kind you saw on airbrushed models in beauty magazines. Yours may be something else. But what is the prize? And who was I trying to impress?

The moment I quit wasn’t a singular event or a grand gesture of defiance. It was slow, like waking up from a dream and realizing I’d been running for too long without knowing why. I began to see how much of my time, energy, and money was being funneled into an industry designed to capitalize on my doubts. Every step forward was met with a new standard, a new flaw to correct, and a new treatment to undergo. The rules kept changing, the goalposts kept moving, and I was exhausted.

I Started Questioning Everything. Was I buying this serum because I genuinely enjoyed using it, or because I had internalized the idea that my bare skin wasn’t good enough? The more I questioned, the clearer it became: I was being played. The beauty industry thrives on insecurity. It cultivates doubt and sells the illusion of control. If I could just fix this one thing—this line, this pore, this hair texture—then I would be happy. But happiness was always postponed, always just one more purchase away.

Stepping out of this system wasn’t easy. It meant unlearning the deeply ingrained belief that I needed to optimize my appearance to be worthy. It meant facing the discomfort of feeling “unfinished” when I no longer adhered to the latest beauty standard. It meant navigating the subtle (and not-so-subtle) messages from media, advertising, and even friends and family who still played by the old rules.

But with every step back, I reclaimed a part of myself. I started to notice how much freer I felt when I wasn’t calculating my value in terms of external validation. I found beauty in ways that had nothing to do with marketable aesthetics—beauty in stillness, in joy, in connection, in the rich complexity of being a human outside the bounds of a consumer-driven identity.

And then Came the Financial Clarity. When I look back at the small fortune I funneled into this relentless pursuit, I am still in disbelief. The weekends spent in an aesthetician's office having my face poked, steamed, and massaged. As much as I enjoyed being pampered, I realized that I willingly surrendered so much of my money to an industry designed to keep me feeling inadequate. How much of my labor had gone into sustaining a system that commodified my very existence?

What struck me most was how beauty culture had entered even the spaces meant for relaxation and self-expression. There was no such thing as a neutral activity anymore—every hobby, every leisure pursuit was now an opportunity for self-optimization. Skincare isn't just about hygiene; it is about achieving a glow that signifies youth, health, and desirability. Even simple acts like reading a book or drinking coffee had been transformed into aesthetic moments, meant to be performed rather than lived.

I am not a Project. I started to wonder: what would my life look like if I stopped seeing myself as a project? If I allowed myself to simply exist without the pressure to be constantly improving, refining, and presenting? What if I valued my body not as an ornament but as a vessel for experience? What if I spent my money not on perfecting my image, but on things that genuinely enriched my life in ways that didn’t require external validation?

For me it was easy, but I can't say that for everyone who feels the pull to put an end to this never-ending cycle. I still feel the occasional pull, to re-enter the race, moments where I second-guess my choices or where I catch myself calculating how I measure up against impossible ideals, but the difference is that I recognize the game for what it is. And I choose not to play.

Embracing Authentic Beauty. Stepping away from beauty culture hasn’t made me indifferent to aesthetics or self-care. If anything, it has allowed me to engage with them in a way that feels more authentic and less performative. I still enjoy certain rituals, but they are now acts of pleasure, not obligation. I no longer feel the need to mold myself into these fleeting definitions of beauty.

I embrace what suits my values and the lifestyle I want to lead.

(Photo from Natasha Brazil/Unsplash)