Falling out of love with the beauty industry. Not skincare. Not looking after yourself. The industry.
Yes, you heard me correctly. I have beauty industry fatigue.
Every article I read, including some I've written myself, seems to be saying the same thing over and over again and I have reached the point where I am quite bored of it all.
Surely everyone is bored to tears of reading about SPF, hyaluronic acid and retinol and must know what they do?
Flicking through some Sunday newspaper magasines lately and it’s the same articles on repeat - is there anything new or interesting to say?
When did it all become so complicated?
There was a time when skincare felt relatively easy. You cleansed, popped on a serum or two, moisturised and protected with SPF. Nowadays, its double-cleanse, retinol, ectoin, salmon DNA, exosomes, polyglutamic acid, LED masks, microneedling, thermo and cryo therapies, to name but a few.
It feels as if you need a chemistry qualification just to work out your evening routine. I didn't take chemistry at school because I found it too difficult (and I was scared of the Bunsen burner).
Take retinol, for example. I'm not disputing its effectiveness because there's plenty of scientific evidence supporting its benefits for certain skin concerns, including visible signs of ageing. But the faff of it all! Start on a low percentage, use it a couple of evenings a week - not every night - allow your skin to get used to it. Increase percentage, increase frequency or STOP! if your skin is being irritated. And of course, don't forget your daily SPF particularly when your skin is adjusting to retinol. Good grief! The stress of it all.
Then you have the exfoliating acids AHA's, BHAs and PHAs in cleansers, toners, serums, masks - there seems to be a product for every occasion! Used properly, these can be a great addition to your routine, but can cause problems when overused.
It upsets me when I read or hear about people experiencing sensitivity, redness and dryness after being introduced/encouraged to try new skincare/ingredients when their skin was perfectly fine in the first place.
And here is the irony. One of the big skincare trends of over the last few years is barrier repair. After years of encouraging us to exfoliate, resurface and introduce more powerful active ingredients into our routines, the beauty industry is now promoting products to soothe and repair the very irritation that overusing those ingredients can cause. You couldn't make it up!
The pursuit of perfection
While I would love to be perfect and have fewer lines, less pigmentation, smaller pores etc, it feels like the powers that be want every normal characteristic of our skin erased.
For example, peach fuzz has become a 'problem' that needs attention and apparently the solution is dermaplaning.
It's a personal choice, of course, but that fine vellus hair on our faces is there for a reason. It helps us sense the lightest touch against our skin and plays a small part in temperature regulation. It’s a perfectly natural feature of our skin, yet somehow we've reached a point where we're being encouraged to remove it.
Why turn something completely natural into another beauty concern?
Exhausted, anyone?
Trying to do the right thing
It's not just about ingredients you can't pronounce and complicated beauty routines. It's also about ethics. Animal welfare has always mattered so much to me, and I don't believe that animals should suffer for the sake of our vanity when it comes to cosmetics. There are so many products out there that work without having to test them on animals first.
So, I try to choose cruelty-free (CF). I research brands and check their policies. The website crueltyfreekitty.com is a great resource to researching CF brands. And there's the irony again. You think you're doing the right thing by buying from a CF brand, only to discover that it’s owned by a parent company whose stance on animal testing you don't agree with. So, while you're trying to make a compassionate choice, you're still helping to line the pockets of a company you'd rather not support. You really can't win!
Then there are uncomfortable discoveries about the histories of some well-known beauty companies. Of course, I realise that companies evolve, ownership changes, and what happened decades ago doesn't reflect how a business operates today. But, once you learn something that doesn't align with your values, it’s not easy for me to forget about it.
This is where the conflict presents itself. I want to believe that the industry is moving forward towards transparency, responsibility and kindness but it feels painfully slow.
Perhaps I've become part of the problem
And herein lies the problem. I feel I have become rather preachy, and I don't like it.
I've spent years sharing skincare advice because I genuinely wanted to help people make informed choices. But somewhere along the way, I seem to have become more interested in what I disagree with than what I actually enjoy.
Frankly, I'm getting rather tired of listening to myself!
Falling out of love
I think this is what's happened to me. I haven't fallen out of love with looking after my skin. I appreciate a lovely texture and the scent of a potion more than anyone. But I'm tired of wondering whether the latest trends are genuinely beneficial or simply another clever way of persuading us to spend our hard-earned cash, in the pursuit of perfection.
Most of all, I'm tired of feeling that I need to have an opinion about it. Maybe I just want to be excited by skincare again instead of being disappointed. Of course, nobody is forcing me to read the articles about the next best thing but please just give us a break.
Not everyone has the time or the money to spend on perfection and if someone else has a cabinet overflowing with serums, acids and the latest innovations, that's completely up to them.
I'll be over here, happily applying my SPF and minding my own business.
Well, I'll give it a try.
