In Western culture it’s an unofficial rite of passage for girls to start engaging in lengthy personal care routines as they mature.
My adolescence was in the late 80s and early 90s, and I hit this phase at about 10-11 years old in 5th and 6th grade. No one told me I should start doing more. All I had to do was look around me and see that girls older than me were doing a lot with their hair and wearing eyeshadow and eyeliner. I could also see that my mom spent extra time on her appearance if something “special” was happening.
I was desperate to do things like shave my legs, which my mom adamantly opposed when I was in 7th grade, telling me I should wait. Somehow I managed to get a razor and do it anyway. Preteens and teens are excellent at the “act first, apologize later” strategy. You can’t make hair magically reappear once it’s cut!
The saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same” applies to a degree for girls these days. In 2024 discussions made the rounds online about 10 year old girls wanting to use advanced anti-aging products, and spending hundreds of dollars in Sephora. It’s new, but it’s not. The biggest difference is that in the 80s and 90s there was no social media, and the range of people that girls might compare themselves to was a bit smaller. That doesn’t mean that fashion magazines and cultural dialoge was any less toxic, but it wasn’t in your face and accessible at every second of the day.
Throughout our lives women are culturally “groomed” to be consummate personal care consumers, and it works for big business. We are profitable customers.
Why women being in beauty industry leadership positions is important to our self image
Women were just starting to break into leadership roles in companies in the 70s and 80s as feminism, greater access to education, and persistence paid off. It’s still safe to say, though, that the majority of companies were led by men. Founders like Elizabeth Arden, Estee Lauder, and Annie Malone were the exception, not the rule.
As well, generally to reach high leadership positions women were expected to conform to beauty expectations such as wearing makeup and having styled hair, which for a time may have reinforced ideals of what being a woman should look like. It was threatening enough to have women embarking on careers and new roles. Society still insisted that we look feminine while doing business.
As Skylar Liberty Rose writes,
“In 1982, the now-infamous commercial for Enjoli perfume was released. In it, Charlie’s Angel and fashion model Shelley Hack dons a series of outfits from slinky dress to blouse to business suit, all the while spritzing herself with “The 8 Hour Perfume for the 24 Hour Woman”. The not-so-subtle accompanying jingle informed us that women could “bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan” and, perhaps most disturbingly of all, ‘never let you forget you’re a man.’ “
Our appearance was absolutely still being interpreted and dictated by the male gaze and our value to men.
Has this really changed in 2025?
Women spend on more personal care and beauty compared to men each year
A 2023 study identified that on average women spend roughly $300 more per year on their appearance than men.
“On average, women spent more for haircuts ($228 per year versus $168 per year for men), makeup ($23 per month versus $5 per month for men), skincare ($28 per month versus $17 per month for men), hair products ($24 per month versus $15 per month for men), and nails ($16 per month versus $2 per month for men).
Men only outspent women in two categories: gym memberships and fitness classes ($18 per month versus $11 per month for women), and supplements and protein ($23 per month versus $16 per month for women).”
To a lot of us these totals likely appear excessively small as well. The study data appears to reflect mass retail shoppers only. Many quality skincare products cost $40 and up per item and you need at least 2-3 products to have a solid routine. Right now a manicure is generally about $30 and probably lasts less than a month for most women. And if you’re getting your hair colored you’re going to be spending over $100 at each salon visit with probably at least 6 visits per year to maintain the look.
And this doesn’t even touch the market for injection based “beauty” using Botox and fillers, which is still growing and is projected to grow each year. Asingle round of Botox treatment can cost $200 - $1200and generally is maintained about every 3-4 months. Over 85% of Botox injections in 2022 were done on women. The statistics for fillers are similar.
Even in 2025 with all the discussions that have been had about self worth and celebrating a variety of types of beauty women are still plagued by self image issues.
Men are still driving beauty investments and controlling beauty marketing
While correlation doesn’t always equal causation it’s worth considering who is leading beauty companies and making the most money from womens’ expenditures.
The business data says it’s men that make the biggest investments, that lead the companies, and that stand to profit the most from women being obsessed with our appearances.
Men are the minority of the beauty industry workforce, but somehow they end up concentrated at the top of beauty industry companies.
Representation of women at the senior management level of the beauty workforce drops by nearly 50%.
We could discuss the many reasons this happens, but I’m going to leave the majority of that for another article. Factors would include negative perception of womens’ leadership capabilities (especially in the USA where we yet again rejected a highly qualified woman presidential candidate over a proven scammer, repeat business failure, and convicted felon) and the fact that women are still penalized professionally for maternity leave, and bear more of the domestic load at home (even with “liberal” partners).
I’ve personally had to deal with these issues and had only 1 child because my leadership role in my company just couldn’t bear me taking time off. There is a cost to leadership for women. You can do big things, but you can't do everything.
What's more, the investment side of the industry has issues too.
Venture capital and how it takes women out of control in the beauty business
While I could say a lot about the problems with venture capital the reality is that a huge part of the beauty industry is controlled by venture capital. My brand has been able to make our way without it, but it's not easy.
In 2023 about 48% of beauty sales were in mass retail.The scale of money that is needed to enter mass retail is just too big for most people to fund on their own. That's where VC funding often comes in to help with the expenses of displays, testers, gift-with-purchase products, marketing campaigns, and more.
It’s become increasingly difficult for brands to grow without this type of funding. If you see a really great video ad online for a personal care product there’s a chance that VC funding was involved. It costs at least $20k-$30k per month to get started working with big digital marketing firms and fund social media ad campaigns. I know because I’ve inquired, and found it out of reach for an indie brand.
This is a huge problem because women get taken out of control of the conversation at the investment step. I routinely get contacted by firms looking to acquire my brand. Most of the time those buyers/investors are men. They always want majority, controlling share of the business which would make me unable to make critical decisions for the brand I’ve built.
Only 13% of venture capital funding goes to companies with a woman on the founding team, and it gets worse for all-female led companies.
All women-led companies receive less than 3% of VC funding.
The beauty industry stats fare a bit better than other industries, after all there are a lot of women founders and creatives seeing our problems and creating solutions to them! As of 2017 53% of beauty startups had at least one woman in a leadership role, but only 19% of beauty startups had ONLY women leaders.
This still just isn’t enough.
These stats say a lot about who is in control of what gets promoted and how.
The people making most of the decisions unfortunately aren't women.
That's as bad for business as it is for women as individuals since including women in leadership positions increases organizational effectiveness and growth.
When we think about how women are portrayed in beauty advertising, it seems strongly likely that the complicated issues of women and self image have a lot to do with men controlling a lot of the narrative about our bodies and our beauty.
But, there is an alternative.
Putting women back in charge of the beauty business means spending with independent brands
There’s nothing wrong with taking care of our amazing bodies. We each deserve to feel our best. Whether we invest in a skincare routine that keeps acne at bay, or we really enjoy having our hair a certain way it’s ok to spend time and money on our appearance. There’s a big shift when we do it for fun and joy instead of feeling like we might be worthless if we don’t.
That shift can come about through how we engage in personal care, and who is leading those discussions.
When women lead with a goal of enhancing self worth it changes the impact.
I lead my brand, Blissoma, with the goal of healing the beauty industry and people's self-perception.
My brand is still independently funded and women-led, which means we're making decisions knowing that what we do affects women like us.
A few months ago we started planning a photo shoot showing models with our skincare.
Representation of a solid range of bodies, skin needs, skin colors, and ages was a must to ensure that our images would make our people feel "seen".
Representation is super important to positive self image. Seeing people with whom we identify portrayed as beautiful and relevant can increase our own sense of value.
Blissoma showcased real customers of different ages, racial identities, allergy profiles, and body sizes in our recent photoshoot
We decided the most authentic thing we could do would be to photograph our actual customers.
7 Blissoma customers from St. Louis joined us to celebrate doing beauty differently.
Creative Director Kristen Arnett led the event and Tori Smith photographed.
Hair and makeup received natural styling from Kristen Cossette and the 13th and Washington team. They helped work around our clients' individual allergies and sensitivities, using mostly products from Blissoma's stock.
Our goal was to show the real skin and diverse beauty of our customers.
We succeeded, and it was a truly magical day.
You can see a reel we created of the behind-the-scenes of our photoshoot on Instagram.
I hope that you start thinking about who truly benefits from how you spend, what personal care habits are necessary, and which might be fueling an unhealthy mindset.
Spending with women-owned and led brands that don’t sell using unrealistic ideals is one way you can help change who has the power in the beauty industry.
For better or worse money talks in the USA, and you can empower positive brands by how you shop.
As well, while personal care is one type of investment women now have many other investing options. Consider taking a look at what you're spending on your appearance with an eye for finding money that you could repurpose. Feeling confident in your body definitely pays off in confidence and earning, but you can literally invest in your financial security and wellbeing in many other ways. Men are putting their financial assets into business investing, not into their looks, and that's part of how women end up losing control of our own narratives. We need to start competing in this area.
Blissoma is formulated by a woman, run by mostly women, and the vast majority of our customers are women.
Every day as we mix, bottle, ship, and talk about our work we celebrate the strength, wisdom, labor, and worth of women.
Anyone can use our skincare, but realistically women have supported us and we support them back. We want you to feel amazing in your skin every day so you can do big things.
Let's keep making sure we lift one another up every day.
When women work together the world truly gets better.
- Blissoma founder, Julie Longyear