Low maintenance beauty
Because it's ok not to spend half your salary on your face
Since the start of WithPockets I’ve said it was about executive fashion, beauty and lifestyle. I’ve written many articles about fashion (turns out people feel really strongly about bags), a couple of lifestyle articles (the one about what to pack for a business trip is still going strong…) and zero articles about beauty.
There are two reasons for this. The first is that I’m bombarded with beauty content the second I open social media and I assume you are too. And I’m very over it. As a woman in her forties (which the algorithm is still a little unsure of thanks to my apparently eclectic interests in fashion, architecture, AI and politics) I’m the ideal marketing target for every kind of supplement, device, and video of a women dotting her face with different coloured foundations like some kind of Seurat enthusiast.
Bathers at Asnières by Georges Seurat
National Gallery, London, Public Domain
The other reason I haven’t written a beauty piece yet is that I’ve been trying to avoid ranting online. I realise a lot of my readers enjoy a whimsical article about shirts over their Sunday coffee and, in an increasingly polarised world, there needs to be a place for that. Most weeks this will be that place. But not this week.
The truth is, I’m one of the few women I know of my age who isn’t investing the budget of a small Pacific nation on trying to look younger in the false hope they won’t soon be replaced by someone younger (or, increasingly, something that’s not even human) at work or in the bedroom. This isn’t because I’m naturally stunning or because I have a picture in the attic that owns my soul; I just bloody well refuse.
I do take care of myself - and I’ll talk more about that below - but I refuse to get filler or surgery or to spend more than about $80 on any single product (with a few exceptions). No shade if you are doing this and it’s genuinely because you enjoy it and it makes you feel good about yourself. But most of the women I know who are spending big on botox, blepharoplasty and GLP-1, are doing so because they fear for their career prospects and potential as a partner if they don’t. They fear that everyone else is doing it and if they don’t do it too they’ll be left behind. It’s the latest in the endless exhausting line of guilt trips and societal expectations on women.
It’s 2026 and every woman I know is working incredibly hard to be the best at what they do, while also trying to be a good parent / partner and also be well-read, up to date on everything and socially engaged. Or they’ve dropped out of the system altogether and given up on the idea of a career (no judgement there either). All the while, the boundaries of what good and productive looks like keep shifting while, simultaneously, the expectation for women to look 30 well into their 60’s is extending longer and longer thanks to a bunch of predatory snake oil salesmen.
No matter how hard we work, how brilliant we are, and how good we look it is never good enough for more than five minutes before someone moves the flag another mile away. Because it’s not enough to be the boss, now you need to have glass skin too. We need to face up to the fact that the patriarchy has made some serious gains in the last couple of years and this constant bombardment of beauty culture (an industry that is now worth more than US$700 billion worldwide) is just another manifestation of it. We need to stop spending so much of our hard-earned money playing this game.
I already earn less than some of the most useless men I know (and not because I haven’t negotiated hard on salary, believe me). I refuse to be financially penalised twice for being a woman by having to spend half my wages on beauty products and procedures as well. Fuck that shit.
If I haven’t ruined your morning coffee, below are some of the things I’ve learned beauty-wise that do work. Most of them are free or very cheap. Two of them cost real money and I’ll tell you why I do them.
No endorsements, no adverts, no bullshit beauty supplements. Because none of it matters. What matters is continuing to break through the glass ceiling without breaking ourselves.
WithPockets X
What I’ve learned about beauty
1. Always remove your makeup at night (no exceptions)
I use CeraVe or Neutrogena face washes from the supermarket because no one needs to spend more than $12 on soap. I always wash my face twice to get the sunscreen off properly. Doing this will, over time, make a difference.
2. Eat vitamins from food
I grew up in a part of London you don’t see on Instagram (although I’ve been enjoying watching Legends on Netflix, a lot of which is filmed down the road from where I went to school in Green Lanes). It’s not a wealthy place and many of the girls I grew up with had noticeably worse skin than the middle class ones I met at university (although in general they had a healthier attitude to life). There were two simple reasons for this: diet and poverty. They’re linked of course, but, of the two, diet is the one that’s easier to fix. Cut down on fast food, eat a banana and your skin (and your vital organs…) will thank you.
I’m not a GP, so I’m not going to dispense medical advice, but there have been a million peer-reviewed studies to show that if you have a balanced diet, you probably don’t need supplements. It’s cheaper to just eat well.
3. Moisturise by the gallon - and not just your face
Not so long ago I was pretty unhappy with my neck. It seemed to be ageing at a different rate to my face. This was because my skincare regime stopped at my chin. Once I started remembering to use the products I use on my face on my neck and decolletage as well, everything began to look a lot better. No surgery needed. The moisturisers I use are Simple, Weleda Skin Food, and occasionally La Roche Posay Cicaplast Baume B5+ (which is on sale in a chemists somewhere at least once a month). They cost me between $10 and $38 a tube.
4. Get a good haircut
This is one I do spend money on. There’s no potion or lotion available that makes you look better than a good haircut and maybe some strategically placed highlights. Taking the time to find a cut and colour that suits you - and a good hairdresser - is genuinely one of the best things I’ve done beauty-wise.
5. Be honest about the trade offs
Some people have great skin with minimal effort but most people can achieve better skin by drinking plenty of water, eating well, and cutting down on alcohol, sugar and caffeine. I am not prepared to do the latter three because I like good wine, cake and strong coffee and taking those things away makes my life noticeably less pleasant (not to mention less pleasant for those around me). Having perfect skin would not make up for their loss. I gave up smoking in my 20’s and that’s as far as I’m prepared to go down the path of abstinence. I’d rather die happy as a crone than be miserable but look 10 years younger.
6. Find a way to make 10 minutes for yourself
I was given a red light mask for my birthday. These are obviously very expensive and it was a very lovely gift. I have no idea if it does my skin the slightest bit of good but what it does do is make me stop and stay still for 10 minutes a day and just enjoy a podcast. I’ve never been able to stick at meditation but the routine of this just works for me. Probably the greatest benefit I’m seeing from it is better mental health, and that’s definitely worth the investment.
7. Remember: no one looks perfect all the time
Below is a picture of me (to those of you reading this who know me, yes I did finally learn to do a good selfie at the age of 46…). There is no filter on this picture but there is a) make up b) a flattering angle and c) spookily great lighting.
I do not look like this all the time. Sometimes I look very tired. Other times I look like I’ve walked through a hedge backwards after stepping outside into the soup that is Sydney right now. Almost everyone you’ll see online today if you look at social media has done the three things above plus they’ve added filters and insane amounts of retouching. And, increasingly, many of the women you see on Instagram are actually AI - and it’s getting harder to tell.
No one looks perfect all the time. And life would be incredibly boring if they did. Do not part with your money (the money that, if you’re a woman you probably worked twice as hard to earn) to people who tell you they can ‘fix’ you. It’s not you that needs fixing.
What are your cheap beauty tricks? Or do you think it’s totally worth the money? Let us know…