here’s why natural beauty is a scam

Natural beauty is a phrase that has taken on many different meanings in the TikTok era. Some may associate natural beauty with the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic or marketing campaigns for skincare and makeup brands, while others may think of the countless Vogue Beauty Secret videos where celebrities like Zoë Kravitz or Marisa Tomei tout the virtues of clean and natural beauty products – money, of course, has nothing to do with their otherworldly beauty, it's the detox they do twice a year! Or perhaps you think of the hundreds of “no makeup makeup" tutorials whatever algorithm has shoved down your throat this morning.

All these iterations share a common message: you're beautiful the way you are, as long as you buy these ten products to eliminate any signs of texture, wrinkles or other markers of a living human being!

Natural beauty is a wolf dressed up in body-positivity clothing. It is not, as it claims, a movement that encourages people to embrace their "flaws", rather, it insists that participants adhere to conventional beauty standards – but show no such signs that they've made an effort to do so.

We must have clear and dewy skin, but not wear too much makeup to achieve the look. If you must wear make-up, only a skin tint or tinted moisturiser will do – foundation is dead. Wrinkles and fine lines are unsightly, so make sure you start getting baby botox in your early 20s as a preventative measure, just make sure you don't get too much! Otherwise, you'll look tacky and unnatural. 

These (and many other unspoken rules) are everywhere on the internet, and frankly, I’m exhausted. While the natural beauty craze is nothing new, there seem to be several contributing elements that are singular to this point in time. 

Whenever beauty trends skew towards heavy glam the pendulum tends to swing the other way in the years that follow – think back to the bright maximalism of the ‘80s transforming into minimalist grunge in the ‘90s. While the current shift towards natural beauty can partly be seen as a rejection of the overlining and bold brows we clung to in the mid-2010s, there are a few other factors at play.

The pandemic significantly impacted our relationship with beauty. When we realised how annoying it was to wear makeup under masks, many of us poured our anxious energy into perfecting our skincare routines instead. We swapped our pallets for serums, and the beauty industry took note. 

Our obsession with skincare was, and continues to be, proliferated by TikTok. While there is some harmless content in the #skintok corner of the internet, it can get dark pretty fast. #Skintok is filled with 20-something influencers who are terrified of ageing and insist that you should be as well. I’ve seen everything from anti-wrinkle straws to that one girl who has trained her facial muscles not to move so she doesn’t get wrinkles (I want to give her a hug).

Go a little deeper down the rabbit hole, and you’ll find yourself in the weeds of #plasticsurgery. The hashtag currently has 20.4 billion views and contains some interesting contradictions. You’ve got the vlog-style videos that make getting a nose job look as quick and easy as a teeth cleaning, to content from plastic surgeons where they analyse celebrity faces to tell us exactly how to change their looks. This content normalises cosmetic procedures to the point where you start thinking, “damn, should I have that done?”

Unfortunately, this phenomenon stretches far beyond the internet. Studies show that women who wear little to no makeup are likely to earn 20% less than their more “well-groomed” colleagues. However, the solution is not quite as simple as quick a trip to Sephora, because a 2019 study found that attractive businesswomen were perceived as “less trustworthy” than less attractive women.

This is the double-edged sword that makes the pursuit of natural beauty so profitable. Our current beauty standards idolise perfect faces and bodies that are unattainable without expensive cosmetic and medical interventions, but in the same breath, will criticise anyone who tries to participate in an overly obvious way. Rich women aren’t naturally more beautiful than us normies, they’d just like us to think they are. The more we buy into the idea that snatched, pore-less faces are “natural”, the more we perpetuate a beauty standard that is not only extremely harmful but will send us broke.

You don’t need a facelift and a $500 serum to look naturally beautiful, maybe just shaving a few hours off TikTok will do the trick. At the very least, it’ll save you a couple of bucks.