Some of my strangest childhood memories involve watching my mother in the mirror. I’d curl underneath her arm, tugging onto the pant leg or the hem of her skirts to declare my irritation with her routine. I’d watch her spread light foundation across her face. Two shades lighter than her already light brown skin. When she was finished, she’d appear an olive taupe. I’d watch her mold concealer up and down to the rim of her face. Then she’d make her eyes powdery and smokey, outmatched by the thinness of her finely plucked eyebrows. Then compact bronzer. Always from Mac. I’d place my tiny fingers over the white outlines of the graphic front that spread across an expensive circular object in equal awe and disgust of its powers.
“Can we please go?” I’d cry.
“Why is this taking so long?” I’d tug. I’d tug and tug and tug, but she’d never give me an answer.
“I need to put on my face,” she’d laugh, hushing me out of the door and away from her legs.
Her face was different from the face I saw around the house. It was a face of womanly independence. It was the face of smooth pores, of maturity, of womanhood, of currency. She needed to put on her face during her time that I so rudely interrupted.
The mirror signified a coming movement. The mirror signified that we were going somewhere. The mirror signified an obstacle. It signified a section of time that kept my mother from leaving the house, from driving me to my cousins or to a party or dropping me off with a friend or to school.
The finishing touch was always the lipstick. The seal in the exchange. Glee would fill my belly as I watched her open the final drawer. A neatly packed stack of thirty black lipstick tubes. To my mother, these tubes were special. Every single one of them was Mac. A status symbol. They’d click when you opened them, and the tube spun. At least five times, if you were lucky. Six, if you tried hard enough. She referred to them all by their $20 names: Icon, Sin, Twig, Diva, and of course, her favorite, Ruby Woo.
A favorite among women, since its inception in 1999, Ruby Woo has become a staple in the beauty world. Commonly referred to as the perfect red, the bright brick color screams power, seduction, and femininity.
I’d cheer when I saw the Mac tubes come out. A thick line of Ruby Woo spread across her lips. She’d smile to herself as the red linger brought together her entire look. Now, we could face the world with her new face.
Once, when she made me late for a dumb party where I wanted to kiss a dumb boy, I got agitated with her for spending so much time against the mirror.
“I will never wear makeup,” I shrieked.
My mother turned to me and cackled, pointing at my sloppily done eyeliner.
“You already are, Tally.”
“Well, eyeliner isn’t really makeup,” I smirked.
She looked away from the mirror and cut her eye at me. I thought that I was surely in for a slap and I wouldn’t be allowed to go to the party, but instead, she sighed.
“No woman is ugly when she’s dressed.”
I didn’t understand what she meant at the time. It felt like another one of her Spanish proverbs that she always spouted. I thought my mother was beautiful sitting at home on the couch, when she braided my hair, when she cooked me dinner. But that wasn’t what she was talking about.
II.
In 2018, 17.7 million minimally invasive cosmetic procedures were performed in the US. With rates reaching an increase of over 200 percent, women still over-index these surgeries. The age group with the highest rates of cosmetic procedures is between 18 to 31. In 2021, we all endured a slew of discussions surrounding the rise of Brazilian butt lifts, a surgery that sucks the fat out of desired areas like the belly and inserts it back into the butt. The New York Times recently reported that “in 2021, there were 61,387 buttock augmentations, which include both implants and fat grafting, according to the Aesthetic Society, a professional organization and advocacy group for board-certified plastic surgeons.” This is no surprise; according to Google keyword data, the term BBL was searched roughly 200,000 times per month between January and May 2021. However, the procedure can be incredibly dangerous. The buttocks contain blood vessels that drain down into the inferior vena cava. The vena cava has a direct line into the heart. One false move and doctors can mistakenly inject fat into the wrong place—gluteal muscle and fat will travel into the heart and result in immediate death. The Aesthetic Surgery Journal estimated in 2018 that “one to two of 6,000 BBLs resulted in death, the highest mortality rate for any cosmetic surgery.”
Despite this, BBLs remain as popular as ever. Throughout 2021, a myriad of videos began surfacing on the internet of women traveling across the country to receive the controversial surgery. Various young women on Tik Tok who underwent surgery have discussed their trials and tribulations. One BBL haver, Nelly Baptise described her experiences for an illuminating NYT article “Don’t do it,” Baptiste said when recalling the pain she felt after surgery. “When the pain came yesterday, I was like: I want my old body back. I want it back.”
Others explored how their lives massively improved after the surgery. A Tik Tok trend called “the BBL effect,” pioneered by user @antonibumba, flooded timelines; users imitate how “someone with a BBL” completes various mundane activities luxuriously: from gingerly eating at restaurants to shopping in the grocery store. A BBL is not just a new body, it is a lifestyle.
Interestingly, the Slim-Thick body aesthetic is the most desired form in the U.S. right now, but very few women, even Black and Brown ones, are born with this frame without natural body parts like a larger tummy or cellulite. However, with the rise of “Instagram Influencer” culture, co-opting parts of Black and Brown bodies and aesthetics are commonplace and hyper-enhanced. The Slim-Thick aesthetic is a combination of unrealistic body standards that require rigid maintenance routines—whether it’s excessive exercise and restrictive dieting or plastic surgery. The height of beauty in the modern era is not just a brush of different fabrics, hair choices, and makeup ideas, but the body itself. The body itself must adhere to rigid constraints achieved through dangerous and mentally taxing procedures to become beautiful.
What’s more interesting is that these practices have been marketed as “self-care,” and even feminist, over the years. Though “radical self-care” was coined by feminist author Audre Lorde, she was talking about creating self-preservation efforts in a world that is looking to oppress you. The you here is Black, Queer, marginalized in an intersectional way. It isn’t white girl-bosses cosplaying Eastern Wellness culture and selling you overpriced shampoo (cough, Gwyneth Paltrow). Radical self-care is much different than contemporary self-care which prioritizes productivity culture and $14,500 yoni eggs.
Scholar Suprihmbé describes the theory of “choice coercion binary” in her popular zine heauxthots. Though her theories remarked on the specificity of sex work, racism, and definitions, choice coercion binary can speak to the capitalistic constraint of womanhood. Is it our choice to participate in beauty culture, in both extreme and small ways, or is it compulsory? This isn’t a question of judgment, but rather of choices. Feminism is supposed to allow you choices, but what if those choices are mandatory? What happens when the access and acceptance of beauty culture for most femme bodies becomes a part of our identity or value?
Beauty is a currency. I watched my mother transform each day to go to work, to look “professional,” to become more respected in the white spaces where she worked. I watched her perform similar rituals to become more desirable for Black spaces. I watched her ritualistically straighten her hair every few weeks. I frequently watched her get her nails done, in long petite acrylics painted with Essie pink color Lady-Like. I watched her spend her hard-earned money on waxing, lasering, and bleaching. When I was a child, my mother had a breast reduction and lift. When I was a teenager she had liposuction, which can be as dangerous as BBLs, with a one in 5000 death rate, but has become safer over the years.
She spent 11 months starving herself, working out, and taking non-FDA approved supplements to qualify for the weight requirements. I used to think that’s too much or too far, but now that’s expected. It’s expected for a woman to have physical beauty to be respected, admired, and obtain money and clout. In our capitalistic society, women are expected to perform feminine beauty standards; if we don’t, we are cast aside, bullied, mocked, and shunned.
It may surprise you, but I’m actually pro-plastic surgery. To mock marginalized women, especially for wanting to get work done or adhere to restrictive beauty practices, would be misguided at best and racist at worst. When we are all struggling under the gaze of White-Supremacist-Patriarchal-capitalism, the ability to get closer to a feminine ideal and gain some power is incredibly attractive. In the same NYT article where Nelly Baptise describes the horrors of her BBL journey, another woman Imam Ingram describes why she had the same procedure despite the risks: “. . .because she wants to open a beauty bar in Southfield, a city 15 miles north of Detroit, and thought a new body would help her succeed. “‘In the world we live in, that is the look, especially if you have certain goals and aspirations for yourself,’ she said.’”
The ability to “fix” the issues that beauty culture is telling you that you have is incredibly attractive. As Ingram described, it can help you achieve your goals. Whether we like it or not, people will take you more seriously in business and in life if you look attractive to them. In my opinion, the ability to forgo these societal beauty pressures is incredibly privileged. Often, the people I see advocating against beauty enhancements are those already on top of today’s beauty standards.
It is maddening to see cis, able-bodied, White to Light Skin straight women, who are thin with small features and clear skin, telling others to “love yourself more.” It is equally infuriating to see men laugh at women who are “built badly,” aka fat or otherwise not traditionally seen as beautiful. These same men denigrate Lizzo, date “bad bitches only,” and repost misogynistic posts from The Shade Room. It feels like cognitive dissonance to look down on women who don’t meet the current beauty standards while chastising those trying to get closer to those beauty standards. I was one of those folks when I secretly judged my mother.
The procedures that I thought my mother was outrageous for having have become regular routines advertised in the quest for feminine beauty. Now, I am among those on the quest for femininity, and I often wonder how much of my value feels tied to such aesthetic choices.
I don’t like to think about the money I’ve spent. I tell myself it’s an investment. Maybe that is true. At every job I’ve worked, from retail to corporate America, my experience has been drastically altered by the amount of time I’ve invested in my beauty routine. It could be anything from the large dermatologist bill sent to my insurance almost every month, to my overflowing closet filled with clothing I refuse to give up. I’ve learned to have fun playing with makeup, though it costs me a hefty bill, landing somewhere in the thousands (I’m a 4-time Rouge VIB at Sephora. Talk to me nice). I like to play around in the eyeshadow tins and create graphics on my lips. I’ve come a long way from the sloppy eyeliner cretin I once was.
But neither makeup nor skincare started off that way for me. My skin was terrible. Terrible in that way that people say is terrible. Terrible in the way that people stared at me as I passed them on the street. Terrible in the way that hurt my chances at being “public-facing,” I had a boss say to me once. He shoved me in the stockroom because my ugly and inflamed skin would “scare off” the customers. Makeup was a pivotal skill to learn during this time. I was able to carve out my face into a presentable “face.” An ode to my mother. I could make it look like there was no acne. But harsh foundation can make your skin worse if you aren’t properly cleaning everything, and I wasn’t. I was a silly young person—and the thing about personal beauty is that, for the large part, you have to come to it yourself. This includes mistakes. Mistakes that could get you memed or that could ruin your fragile skin even more.
When I started medically investing in the clearing of my skin, it was an expensive, long, and depressing process filled with Accutane (which literally caused liver damage, three chemical peel burns, an allergic reaction called Pistorius Rosacea, and a horrible skin rash that stretched painful white bumps from my cheeks to my breasts). I laid out in the hot New York sun in long sleeves, crying. I never felt uglier. When my skin finally began to clear up, I was elated. I had tried so many things and the expensive treatment plan had finally started to work. I noticed how my life changed remarkably. I don’t know if my confidence lifted because of my clear skin, and if that’s what made life easier, or if the skin itself became a market of attractiveness—either way, things got better. I got a new and lucrative job within two weeks. I got a new boyfriend. My friends and family all commented on how great I looked. How I glowed. How happy I finally was.
The glow didn’t last long. I was confronted with an issue that many women of color, especially Black women, face as a result of my expensive treatment: hyperpigmentation. Dark scars pressed among my cheeks where cystic inflamed acne used to live. Dark marks and scars were made much more noticeable on my pale brown skin. One solution for one beauty problem created a new one, and that’s how it goes. Hyperpigmentation isn’t easily treatable. There are serums, creams, and treatments; but many of them have lasting, and dangerous side-effects. You could permanently bleach your skin. This is marketed often as a positive side-effect to Black and Brown people. Shocker. Unsurprisingly, colorism and the desire to become closer to white is a medical marketing tool that the entrepreneurs of many beauty products bank on. Adding dangerous lightening agents to products for an extreme effect.
Man, I just want to not look like a moldy potato. Is that too much to ask? What is with all this extra shit?
My push to get rid of my acne was a product of my desire to live up to a feminine aesthetic of clear skin. It was a desire to not be aligned with “dirty,” or “unattractive,” or have “clogged pores.” Go look at an advertisement describing what acne is and see how disgustingly it’s described. Even though 50 percent of adults under 40 report having some form of acne, my acne felt like a large barrier to me achieving “beauty.” I was deeply impacted by bodily factors like my Black facial features that I could not easily change and were already associated with unattractiveness.
The desire to achieve beauty, through plastic surgery or otherwise, is largely connected to sexism. And our wallets suffer. According to several studies, the average woman spends $313 per month on her appearance. That could be everything from makeup, to small cosmetic surgeries, to nails or hair. Over the course of a lifetime, that totals at least $225,360. Access to beauty is an economic privilege, but it is also an expectation. The expectation is that you will find a way to achieve the beauty standards set up by White Supremacist capitalistic culture. Even if those standards directly harm you.
The co-opting of traits from women of color onto white bodies is a pervasive issue that I’m confronted with each day. The beauty that I saw in my mother—her brown skin, her large hips, her round tummy, her kinky hair—was not considered beautiful on her to the white homogeneity of the 90s. She had to strip some of that away in order to survive. Not just to be beautiful, but to be employable. I’ve had to comply with the same beauty standards like straightening my natural hair or wearing makeup. Now that beauty goals have shifted, there’s a deep capitalist need for ethnic bodies on white women. And that’s a fact I struggle with coming to terms.
The beauty industry thrives on insecurities. It creates new ones each day. It thrives by telling us that “something” is wrong: tummy too fat, skin too bad, lips not big enough, hair not long enough, hair too long in the wrong places, nose not small enough, etc. However, these ideas are always changing. By the second, by the hour, by the body. Once you pour your money into changing something about yourself to fit that mold, the mold will change, and the next thing you know, you’re out of beauty. You’re out of style. You’re out of the economic beauty-youth culture which women are often valued for in our society. No woman is ugly when she is dressed, and to become dressed is to participate in making yourself become a more palatable aesthetic. To put on “a face.” The face my mother carved in the mirror. The one that stole her time but transformed her into a “beautiful” version of herself. Was it for naught? I don’t think so.
I think it’s foolish not to appreciate the creative aesthetic of beauty. Beauty is literally some women and femmes’ livelihood and often beauty is the job that will pay most when other jobs are still overrun by men. The question shouldn’t be is beauty worth or time, but rather what you’re getting out of beauty.
The issues lie in the ease of access vs. compulsory needs. Ask yourself: do you want to participate in this beauty ritual? If it feels compulsory, is it actually self-care? What happens when beauty becomes policed? This isn’t a rhetorical question. With the rise of digital trends, beauty is an expensive endeavor but also feels incredibly easy to obtain with money. If you’ve been on the internet as long as I have, I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase or seen the memes that say “you aren’t ugly, just poor” followed usually by a before and after photo of some conventionally attractive celebrity. It is easier than ever to put on a new face and buy a new body. You can change your life with a few surgeries. Moreover, opinions regarding your beauty are easily accessible via social media. How many likes you get, how cool or beautiful you are, is monetizable in a way that it’s never been before. This seesaw is exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. It’s contradictory because historically, women find power through beauty. I have a complicated opinion about plastic surgery because the output is complicated. I think we should all feel that way. The patriarchal system is evil, but in the meantime, we have to live. We have to survive. Should we tell women to disregard beauty culture when it allows us to survive through capitalist means? That feels like an oversimplification of the issues.
The insidious fact is that beauty is a bad investment, but a necessary one. It takes our time, our money, our sanity, but it also gives back. For women, patriarchal systems have forced us to look beautiful. People who don’t participate in beauty are cast aside, ridiculed, and harassed. For the past year, as many of us have, I took a break from beauty culture. Navigating the pandemic can do that to you. I decided to divest. I ate whatever I wanted, hardly looked at my large makeup tray, and bought less clothing. I know that for others, it was the opposite. They spent the lockdown searching for a glow-up, adhering to strict diets, posting fashion hauls on Tik Tok, and getting plastic surgery. In many ways, I envy those who were able to participate in that culture, who achieved their beauty goals and who made profit from it. I honestly look back and feel some bit of envy that other women were able to care about their appearance during this time. My mental health would not allow it and I found myself exhausted with performing beauty culture in the confines of my house, or for a few hours on Zoom. In many ways, I never felt uglier, but I also never felt freer.
The world has “opened up” and slowly beauty culture has crept back into my life. It’ll stay there because it’s a compulsory aspect of my navigation in the world. I have learned to have fun with it, at least. To be proud of the face I can create and the happiness I can grapple from achieving that. When you’re living in a body, a Black female, fat body—and I’m talking about myself now—I’m already experiencing so much oppression due to my intersectional identities. So, achieving acceptable beauty feels like a win. It feels powerful and it helps me navigate the already depressing world. Even if my credit card doesn’t always agree.