Author and podcaster Katie Gatti Tassin calls it “the hot-girl hamster wheel” — the endless rotation of appointments and treatments just to maintain your appearance. It’s time-consuming, costly, and hard to stop even when you want to. “The most insidious thing about it is that it can leave you worse off and uglier than you were when you started,” says Tassin. “So you feel even more compelled to keep going.”
For instance, if you’re stuck on the manicure train — especially gel — your nails are likely damaged and will take months to grow out. If you’ve bleached your hair for years, dyeing it back to its natural color can be a complicated process. Spray tans go through an awkward peeling stage within days if you don’t get them redone. Fake lashes damage your real ones, leaving you bald-eyed.
Still, when the wheel spins too fast (and costs too much), you have to find a way to get off. At her peak, about six years ago, Tassin realized she was paying nearly $4,000 a year on nails, eyelash extensions, regular hair-salon visits, makeup, and eyebrow threading — so she decided to quit and see what happened. “At first, it was a little jarring,” she says. “When you’re used to people noticing you when you walk into a room, and suddenly that doesn’t happen as much, you feel invisible.” But then … that was it. “At the end of the day, my life didn’t really change because of it,” she says. The biggest difference was that she had more money and time.
Tassin has since resumed getting her hair highlighted; it’s a compromise she’s willing to make. “Personal upkeep is an individual choice for everyone; I’m certainly not telling you what you should or shouldn’t do,” she says. “I just hope that you’re doing it because you want to, not because you feel like you can’t stop.”
She isn’t the only one who has scaled back. As recession fears loom, Botox sales have slumped, and major beauty brands are reporting slower business. “Looking really ‘done’ seems sort of ridiculous these days,” said a friend of mine, a beauty editor, who tells me that she’d much rather look “natural” than seem like she’s trying too hard. But trying less hard isn’t always an easy transition. Here, three women talk about what the process looked like for them.
“At first, I was like, ‘I’m hideous.’ Then … it was kind of magical.”
Mia, 40, a freelance writer in Brooklyn who was spending $12,000 a year on hair, skin care, dermatology, lashes, and nails
I am a freelancer, and about three years ago, I lost a big client. Around the same time, a couple other projects fell through, and I was panicking. When I went through my finances, it was clear that the biggest way to kill a big swath of expenses was to cut back on my physical upkeep.
Looking back now, it’s insane how much money I was spending. I did eyelash extensions once a month, which was probably around $200. I got my eyebrows shaped, which wasn’t that expensive, but it was monthly too. I would get a cortisone shot every single time I got a zit, which was once or twice a month, when I had my period; each time, it was about $200. Then, if there was a scar, I did a little bit of laser stuff. I got gel manicures all the time, which you can’t even remove by yourself — you’re just helpless. So that was another $100 a month or so. Per year, I probably spent up to $1,000 on body-hair removal, depending on how much I needed; I did both laser hair removal and waxing. As for the hair on my head, I did a combination of cut, color, and some keratin. I would do random facials here and there, too. All in all, I was definitely spending over a grand per month on beauty stuff. And buying fancy products, too.
My quitting process was gradual. Initially, I just stopped getting my eyelashes done. Then I decided to let myself have a zit and not do any more cosmetic dermatology. Then my hairdresser moved locations, so I didn’t get my hair done. And then I didn’t get my nails done. I had a month when I stopped everything. I decided I’d just hole up for a while and figure out what to do with myself.
The detox period also coincided with a pretty disastrous breakup, so I wasn’t going out or doing much. At first I was like, “I’m hideous.” Especially without the eyelashes — I’d been getting fake ones for so long that I felt super ugly without them. I just tried not to pay too much attention. Then it was kind of magical. When I was ready to be out in the world and start dating again, I relearned how to tweeze my own eyebrows and put on mascara, and it was fine. My nails looked unpleasant to me when they were damaged and growing out, but I don’t think they affect your overall appearance. It doesn’t really bother me to look at ugly nails or just plain nails. I rediscovered what my actual nails look like.
When I grew out my hair, I realized that I didn’t have as many grays as I thought. They just stand out because I have black hair. I went through this phase when I discovered that using a Sharpie marker on the gray hairs works better than any of the temporary hair-color products you can buy, so I used a Sharpie for a little while, which was extreme. I also trimmed my own hair. Finally, I went to one of the Madison Reed salons and asked them to color-match me and show me how to dye my own hair at home. I’m sure my hair looks shitty to a professional, but it’s fine for my purposes.
Once I stopped buying expensive skin-care products, I realized that they definitely weren’t worth what they cost. I switched over to basic drugstore versions, and everything has been just as good. I do miss cosmetic dermatology, though. I haven’t gotten a cortisone injection in over two years now, and it’s okay to get a zit now and then, but the injections really did work — the zit would go away immediately, no scar. Maybe someday, if money were no object, I’d go back to it.
The biggest advantage, in addition to spending less money, is that I’ve gotten so much time back. Now, when it seems like I should do something, like get a wax or schedule a haircut, I’m like, Ugh. I’m going to have to take time out of my day and spend money on that. And I just don’t want to. I probably was prettier when I was doing all that stuff. But then the question became, do I want to take on more work so I can afford it again? And the answer is no, of course not.
Last year, I got married, so I got fake eyelashes again and my hair done for the wedding, and I felt really fucking great. But it also reinforced the fact that I feel totally fine not doing it regularly. When I look at old pictures of myself, I’m like, “Oh, I look good.” But the difference isn’t big enough to justify all that time or money. I cut that whole category out of my life, and it’s not appealing anymore. Even the way nail polish smells to me now is gross. You get desensitized when you’re doing it, how uncomfortable and unpleasant it all is.
“I’d always been curious about shaving my head, so I decided to do it. All my friends were like, Ooooh. Is she okay?”
Maya, 28, a paralegal in Chicago who was spending about $3,000 a year on hair and nails
I decided to scale back on my self-maintenance two years ago, after I got stuck in Salt Lake City coming home from my aunt’s funeral. There was a major airline meltdown and, for various reasons, I couldn’t get home for almost a full week. During that time, I missed an appointment to get my hair relaxed, as well as a laser hair-removal session, and my nails were a wreck. I was literally clawing off my gel manicure. I realized that I had become so tied to my beauty commitments that they were dictating my life. I couldn’t even take a week off without panicking. So I decided to quit, cold turkey, and see if it made a difference.
The death of my aunt also played a role. When I got home, the prospect of sitting in a salon chair while my scalp felt like it was burning off — which I had done every six to eight weeks for years — was suddenly ridiculous. Like, what am I doing with my life? Do I want to spend my precious time doing this? No. I’d always been curious about shaving my head, so I decided to do it. All my friends were like, Ooooh. Is she okay? I think they were a little worried about me, so they all said it looked great. They might have been lying a little, but it looked good enough that I decided to keep it. I’ve let it grow out a little bit, but I keep it short and natural, and now it feels like me. And I love that I’m not tethered to a cycle that I’m obligated to repeat and spend money on.
I work in a corporate environment, so I was also a little worried about whether my hair would look professional. But right before I shaved my head, another woman at the firm where I work — who was senior to me — did the exact same thing. So that made me feel less nervous about how it would be perceived.
My nails did look awful when I quit the gels. When I went to visit my family at Christmas, my mom was like, “Your hands!!” But now that they’ve recovered, I’m very vain about them. I have nice hand creams, and I like to keep them buffed and filed. You know the SATC episode when Miranda puts on hand cream and gloves and then watches TV while her hands marinate? I do that.
In terms of money I’ve saved, it probably adds up to a couple thousand dollars a year — going to the hair salon would run me about $150, including tip, and then nails would be around $200 a month, or more if I got something fancy. So that’s not nothing. I make up for some of it by spending more on nicer makeup; I think because my hair is short, I want to look more feminine with jewelry and lip color and bolder eyes. I also care about my skin more. On balance, I actually think I look much better now, but maybe it’s that I’m fussing less in the mirror. The biggest upside is that I feel more like myself. It maybe sounds dumb, but I feel more free. A lot of my friends still do all this maintenance stuff, and I remember how that felt — like, this obligation. Another thing to keep track of. And I’m glad to be rid of that.
“I was really self-conscious for the first month I had brown hair — I would have jump scares in the mirror.”
Becca, 33, an accountant who lives outside of Washington, D.C., who was spending about $8,000 on hair, nails, skin care, and Botox
A few years ago, I started to get exhausted by how much self-maintenance I was doing. Financially, it was a lot, but the time commitment was what really got to me. The gel manicure every two weeks. The highlights. The Botox. The five-step skin-care routine. I’d been dying my hair blonde for 15 years, and I was like, I don’t even know if I necessarily look better as a blonde than I would with my natural hair color. Maybe I’m spending all this time and money to look worse.
I started by using up all my skin-care products. Then I had an appointment with my dermatologist where we went through it all and she was like, “This is worth it, and this isn’t.” I still pay for the expensive vitamin C serum, the SkinCeuticals one that costs $180, because I haven’t found anything that works as well. But I stopped buying Augustinus Bader moisturizer, and I just use CeraVe from the drugstore instead. The retinoid from my dermatologist, which is $10 or $15 a tube, makes a bigger difference than anything I was buying at Bluemercury.
Then I stopped getting gel manicures because I was getting dermatitis around my eyes, which can apparently be caused by the gel — it’s an irritant, for some reason. So I quit the gel, and the rash went away. When I got engaged, I got a gel manicure again because people were always looking at the ring on my hand, and the rash came back. That’s when I quit for good. It took a little while for my nails to grow out and recover, but now that they’re healthy again, I’m fine with it.
Dyeing my hair back to its natural brown was the last domino to fall. I did it near the end of last year. That was a big change. Because it’s dyed over the blonde part, I still have to go back to the salon every ten weeks to get it cut and tinted so that it doesn’t start to look reddish. Even still, it’s so much cheaper and faster than highlights. I’m not spending four hours in the salon anymore. And when it grows out fully, I can do even less.
I was really self-conscious for the first month I had brown hair — I would have jump scares in the mirror. I felt like strangers on the street were thinking, Oh my God, that girl’s hair is so brown. All my friends kept saying, “Wow, it’s just so different.” And my co-workers all commented on it, not in a weird way, but like, “I almost didn’t recognize you!” Psychologically, that was a little bit of a struggle. I don’t think I look better, but I don’t think I look worse either. So all things being equal, I’d rather do what costs less money and time.
In 2022, I spent $6,000 on beauty stuff, and that doesn’t even include Botox — so tack on another $2,000 for that. This year, I’m on track to spend about $3,000 total. I did not set out to cut my beauty budget by more than half, but it’s definitely been an exercise in figuring out what’s worth spending on and what isn’t.
I also took a year off from Botox. It started because I had one appointment where they went a little overboard and I felt like I couldn’t move my face. So I figured I’d take a break and get back to baseline. By the end of the year, I was like, “I’m ready to do this again.” So that was a good experiment. I’m 33, and I’m not trying to look 25. I definitely think there is a benefit to looking conventionally attractive. On days when I go into the office, I still wear makeup. I still get facials. I am willing to pay for a service that will make things noticeably, tangibly better. But I don’t want to do things just because I’m in the habit.
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