While many of us would love to spend less time and effort on maintaining our physical appearance, the truth is that there’s still a lot of value in doing so. From health benefits both inside and out to maximising opportunities both professional and social, maintaining a positive attitude to grooming and beauty is something that shows itself to be worth women’s time. Here’s why.
Boosting self-esteem and confidence
One of the best reasons to pay attention to your appearance is how good it can make you feel about yourself. Studies link a positive body image to general happiness and satisfaction with one’s life, so taking pride in how you look can be a great step towards putting yourself first. Knowing that you’re putting forward the best version of yourself means you can escape the trap of maintaining your appearance for the benefit of others – it can be something you do for yourself.
Social perceptions and interactions
How we present ourselves can have an impact on how others perceive and interact with us. Before a conversation begins, the energy projected by your appearance can set the tone, whether that be confident or frazzled. This can be particularly true when making first impressions, as our brains often place emphasis on the first piece of information they receive about something.
However, there are two sides to the coin here. It’s also true that many of us are much more critical of ourselves than others are. The ‘spotlight effect’ is the term that describes how we assume other people scrutinise every minute awkward moment in our behaviour – being confident in our physical appearance can help to reduce angles for our brains to trick us in this regard.
Professional impact
As much as we’d like to believe we’ve moved past such concerns, the truth is that ‘lookism’ – judging people based on their appearance – still plays an uncomfortably large role in the world of work. Entangled with other forms of discrimination based on age, race and more, what people think of our appearance can affect the first impressions we make at job interviews as well as our chances of promotions and other professional opportunities.
Overall well-being and health
Many steps taken towards maintaining one’s outward appearance are also linked to physical health – everything from looking after what you eat to taking good care of your skin. In this way, using hair removal products that help you maintain a polished appearance can go hand in hand with observing a balanced diet and doing regular exercise – it’s all part of a holistic self-care routine.