Part 1: The Beauty Tax

How beauty became an economic trap for women

A four-part Op-ed series on beauty, labor, and power

ID 124283600 | Beauty Influencer © Ammentorp | Dreamstime.com

From $200 hair appointments to TikTok’s ‘Sephora Kids,’ the beauty industry works as a silent gatekeeper, robbing women of their time, money and confidence. This piece unpacks how appearance has been weaponized into an economic trap designed to keep women polished, preoccupied, and powerless.

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I’m 33 years old, trying to start my own business, and broke. Not the cute, sitcom kind of broke — the kind where 200 euros for a hair appointment should be out of the question. But I book it anyway. I need the fresh color, the bounce, the illusion that I’ve got things under control. I open a credit line to pay for laser hair removal on my underarms and my lady parts, because God forbid I show up hairy and ambitious. I spend at least 100 euros a month on moisturizers, hyaluronic acid, and retinol serums. I exfoliate, I hydrate, I conceal.

At 33 — a relatively young age — the first thing I see in the mirror isn’t potential or grit. It’s the fine lines forming where my expressions used to live. The greys peeking through. The skin that doesn’t glow like it used to. Hair that no longer curls but frizzes.

These aren’t vanity purchases. They’re what the world has taught me are necessities for women with goals. While men splash water on their faces and charge into the boardroom, women are taught to first conquer the battlefield of the bathroom mirror. Beauty standards,  though presented as cultural preference,  function in practice as economic levers. They drain women of time, money and attention. They tell us we must delay our dreams until we’ve “fixed” our faces. 

The men who dominate global wealth face no such distractions. Jeff Bezos doesn’t have to age gracefully. He gets to age loudly, baldly, and surrounded by drones.  His ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott — the one who helped build Amazon, bore his children, and stood beside him in obscurity — is now quietly giving away her fortune to causes that actually serve humanity. Bezos on the other hand has moved on to a surgically sculpted, high-gloss partner who looks like she was focus-grouped for billionaire branding.

Elon Musk is no better: as his net worth ballooned, so did the number of women he cycled through. For men like Musk and Bezos, beauty is a resource that they consume – a status symbol used to prop up their power. Meanwhile, their own appearances are beyond critique.

Women, on the contrary, are expected to submit to a lifelong maintenance contract — one that siphons the very resources we need to claim power of our own.

When Grooming Becomes Gatekeeping

For women beauty isn’t a luxury — it’s a tax. A time suck. A credibility trap.

According to a study across 93 countries, women spend nearly four hours a day on appearance-enhancing activities — compared to roughly 3 hours for men. Waxing, shaving, skincare, and hair styling alone consume over 180 hours of women’s time each year.

Beyond time, the financial burden is significant. Women spend an average of $1,064 annually on appearance-related expenses, compared to $728 for men. This includes haircuts, skincare, makeup, and fitness-related costs.

Ironically, the very time and money women invest in appearance — often under the guise of gaining recognition or standing — is later weaponized against them. The societal script is cruelly contradictory: women are told that beauty is professional currency. Yet once they comply, their efforts are framed as frivolous, vain, or financially irresponsible. The stereotype of the “high-maintenance” woman undermines the competence and seriousness that beauty culture promises to deliver. A man who spends on suits or gym memberships is seen as investing in himself. A woman who spends on skincare or hair appointments is often dismissed as shallow or financially reckless. This double bind ensures that women can never quite win.

Beyond personal care, the “pink tax” exacerbates financial inequities. Products marketed to women — such as razors, shampoos, and deodorants — often cost more than their male counterparts. For example, women’s shampoo and conditioner are priced 48% higher on average. This systemic overcharging extends to services as well. Dry cleaning for women’s dress shirts can be up to 90% more expensive than for men’s shirts.

These financial and temporal burdens act as silent gatekeepers. By enforcing costly beauty standards, patriarchal systems divert women’s resources away from wealth accumulation and professional advancement. This diversion is compounded by legislative actions that limit women’s autonomy, such as restrictions on reproductive rights and inadequate maternity leave policies.

In essence, the societal emphasis on female appearance functions as an economic strategy to maintain gender hierarchies. As Naomi Wolf observed in The Beauty Myth, by keeping women preoccupied with meeting imposed beauty standards, systemic structures effectively hinder their full participation in economic and political spheres. But in the age of social media, the aesthetic contract has evolved. Where Wolf dissected the punitive beauty standards of print and advertising, Virginia Postrel’s The Power of Glamour later revealed how allure itself became a kind of soft capital—a way of selling aspiration as identity. Today, those two forces converge online: beauty as discipline, glamour as currency.

Self Care or Self Surveillance?

If there’s a battleground where beauty economics plays out most aggressively today, it’s not in corner offices or leadership summits — it’s in front of ring lights and vanity mirrors. According to Vogue, the hashtag #GRWM (Get Ready With Me) has garnered over 59.5 billion views on TikTok, transforming everyday beauty routines into intimate performance art that blurs the line between personal care and public spectacle. What used to be a private morning routine is now a filmed ritual of product layering, angle-perfect lighting, and brand endorsements masquerading as authenticity.

Influencers sleep with silk pillowcases, slug their faces with petroleum jelly, wear heatless curlers, mouth tape, and overnight face masks that cost more than a utility bill — all in pursuit of waking up “effortlessly” beautiful. Their morning routines often resemble a full spa menu: ice rollers, LED masks, scalp massagers, dry brushes, caffeine serums, lash growth treatments. It’s a full-time job performed before their actual job.

Even more troubling is how early this culture is reaching girls. Dermatologists are now reporting a rise in skin irritation and barrier damage among preteens using anti-aging actives like retinol and exfoliating acids — products never meant for developing skin. According to a USA Today report, children as young as 11 have developed severe rashes from using such products, often influenced by social media trends. Experts warn that these potent ingredients can disrupt the natural skin barrier, leading to increased susceptibility to infections and long-term skin issues. The phenomenon, often referred to as “Sephora Kids,” highlights the impact of beauty marketing on young audiences. Gen Alpha girls are walking into Sephora with allowance money, shopping for serums to “fix” flaws that don’t yet exist. What was once adult anxiety has become a childhood rite of passage.

This is the trap: beauty isn’t just expected — it’s engineered. And the penalties for noncompliance are steep. But what’s more insidious is how the system convinces us it’s our idea. That we’re choosing this upkeep. That the problem is our skin, our hair, our bodies — not the exhausting, expensive illusion we’re forced to maintain. And the more we invest, the deeper we sink — not just financially, but emotionally. Because beneath the surface of every serum, filter, and swipe of concealer lies something even more profitable than our money: our self-doubt.

If beauty is a tax, then confidence is the asset being stripped. In Part 2, we’ll follow the trail: from the marketing machine that monetizes insecurity, to the calculated ways it erodes women’s ambition before we ever step into the workplace.