WWPD Guides: not worrying about it (too much)

Whereas men tend to underestimate what's necessary for looking their best, we - women - will often realize that we've been worrying about - and devoting time and money to - something to do with our appearances that we could perfectly well skip. See the women who imagine their lives will be radically different if only they lose five pounds, but who could perfectly well stay the size they are without facing any health or social-stigma consequences. See Edith Zimmerman's story of relying on, then abandoning, face makeup to cover acne, and later acne scars, only to discover that she looks just fine without the paint. See those of women who stop straightening their hair, only to discover that their natural hair texture suits them better and turns more heads.

We're often wrong in our assessments of what's worthwhile. We may overestimate the amount of artifice we "need" and end up looking (by the standards of our milieus) ridiculous. Or we might just end up looking the same. A woman with thick, dark eyelashes can fund the mascara industry if she wants, but why bother?


But the inefficacy of certain priming can't be the reason to liberate one's self from excessive primping, because sometimes artifice delivers. It's not always the Snooki "makeunder." You won't always look more tasteful or sophisticated if you switch to hippie soap/shampoo and no more. You may just look worse. This will not come as news to any woman who's gone to work bare-faced and been asked if she's tired, and not - as we might imagine - congratulated for her low-maintenance turn. 


"Not worrying about it" means accepting that abandoning whichever ritual might not amount to any improvements. It means outgrowing the middle-school imperative to look your best and then some. How you look matters - and can be controlled - less than you think. But yeah, it could be that you would look noticeably better doing X, Y, and Z, yet also that there are better uses of your time. These things are not inconsistent. Life is easier for the better-looking, but there's only so much primping can do, and there's a threshold at which you'd be better off changing other things about your life than your looks.


The idea, though, is not to take an absolutist stance. If you believe that X, Y, and Z make you look better, but you want to reduce time and money spent on primping, or chemical exposure, or simply the stress of worrying about it, what you can do is, make 'looking your best' a special-occasion thing, as opposed to a necessary-for-leaving-the-house one. Shift it down. You can look merely presentable, using your own judgment to tell where "presentable" ends (and this will vary, of course, depending what it is you do for a living) and "dolled-up" begins. 


This approach doesn't have the same liberation appeal as discarding the offending primping implements, as a great big bonfire filled with push-up bras and Clinique. But there's a huge difference between thorough hair-and-makeup to go to work and for a swanky party, between losing five pounds for aesthetic reasons for your wedding and spending your entire adolescent and adult life maintaining a weight that doesn't agree with you.