Dec 2020: Skincare, Hinge, and other notes on desirability

Interpreting my irrational infatuation with skincare, my first time on Hinge, and more

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I’m saying that I want to be in love, but sometimes I just don’t want to be alone, and I don’t want to do the work of balancing what that means in what hour of whatever darkness I’m sitting in.

— The Weeknd and the Future of Loveless Sex, from They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abduraqqib

During quarantine I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on skincare products I know I don’t need. In April I conducted an Instagram poll amassing over hundred responses on the best eye cream, learned via TikTok that I needed toner immediately, and studied before and after Youtube videos of jade face rolling. I unwrap each brightly colored tin and dab moisturizers and essences and serums onto my skin with bated anticipation. Surely fifteen minutes of this exfoliating black sugar face mask will elevate my beauty to new heights, however negligible.

The irony is that by grace of the genetic lottery, I’ve never had a single pimple. I washed my face with bar soap until sophomore year of college. My friends ask how I shrank my pores. And yet I find myself draining my bank account over these products that result in mostly indiscernible change and expensive, colorful clutter atop my dresser. 

I know why I repeat this purchase pattern against basic logic. The promise of skincare is restoration to a natural state of beauty I already possess. I’m drawn to this affirmation of potential, that there is in fact a more beautiful version of myself I simply need to summon out of dormancy, one face mask at a time. While makeup highlights my inadequacies as a few swipes of blush give color to my cheeks or my eyebrows gain shape with a bristle, skincare reunites me with the baseline level of beauty I was always meant to have. 

I’m less enthusiastic about makeup for this reason. My five minute makeup routine consisting of only a few products has become a point of gross pride. Look, I am declaring. I am born with it. What I am saying is that there is vanity in minimalism. 

Of course, a ten-step skincare routine is in no way minimalist—it only manifests as such. In a Korean glass skin tutorial, I watch as a beautiful Asian woman slowly works her way through a collection of sleek bottles and tins. 

“This is an extra step, so I use this when I want extra pampering,” she says, brandishing a tiny bottle. I count: step twelve. 

When she emerges, transcendently radiant beneath the harsh fluorescent bathroom lighting, it is like there is nothing on her face at all. 

It had really good reviews and a Youtuber recommended it. So I bought it.

Over the last several months the skincare products in my daily routine multiplied as my makeup brushes collected dust. In isolation I perform beauty for no one but myself.  I search for transcendent radiance glowing within my naked face as I smooth Vitamin C serum onto my cheekbones. Even without makeup, I am still beautiful, I reassure myself.  

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One of my best friends casually downloaded Hinge a couple weeks ago, so I found myself doing the same while I slouched in bed, waiting for my face mask to rest for twenty minutes. I spent a good hour painstakingly scrolling through all my photos and agonizing over the appropriate level of quirkiness in my captions. Then I sent my profile out into the world. 

Through the next hour I swiped methodically through a dizzying assortment of men, inspected each prompt, zoomed in on grainy images. I hurried back and made minuscule edits to my profile to seem more palatable. Each like I received delivered a small, feverish rush. And when those likes didn’t arrive, I scrutinized my own profile once more, wondering what photos I could swap out, which prompt I should rewrite. How I could further optimize myself. 

After a couple days I realized I wasn’t using Hinge for its intended purpose and subsequently deleted the app. It’s not that I am looking for love, but I am looking for the reassurance that I am still worthy of it. During the lonely hours in my dark childhood bedroom, Hinge became a quantifiable indicator of my desirability. When the app informed me that I’d received a rose, a superlike that could only be used once a week, I was beautiful and desirable again, even as I sat in my glasses and pajamas. Simultaneously, as my likes inbox remained mostly quiet and empty, it introduced the despair that even this curated, optimized version of myself was ultimately undesirable. 

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Years ago, I realized I was trapped in a toxic cycle of comparing myself to a now inconsequential man’s hot ex. Yet I knew the solution to my insecurity could not come in the form of assurance that I was more stunning, more down to earth, more intelligent, altogether better in comparison. I had to divorce my appearance from my worth. In other words, the answer to feeling an absence of beauty was not to fill that void with affirmation, but to turn away from beauty altogether.

I deactivated Instagram for over a month and wore my naked face and basketball shorts to class for a couple weeks. I remember emerging from that fast feeling righteous and glorious, as if I’d transcended onto some higher astral plane that empowered me to stop stalking hot exes on Instagram and shower them in holy kindness if our paths ever crossed. 

Having worn nothing but sweatpants and no makeup for the last several months, I find my former zeal endearingly silly. I don’t feel holier or kinder or less preoccupied with my appearance. When I stare at my bare face in the mirror or my quiet Hinge inbox, I see the dormant, ravenous vanity that never left me.

2020 has exposed unhealthy behaviors and mindsets I thought I conquered and left behind. It feels strange to conclude this newsletter without some glorious revelation of how I rose above it all. Still, there is peace and relief in acknowledging the unending need for growth. For this, I am grateful.

My notes:

My good friend Joelle has a fascinating Hot girl transformation video that comes with a side of cultural commentary on beauty standards, so please check it out!

This doesn’t really feel like an end-of-the-year post to me, but I was really gripped over wanting to write about this topic (which, to be honest, could spawn essays upon essays, so let me know if you want to see more) over the last couple weeks. Even as I’m typing this now, I’m thinking, dang am I really going to press send and expose myself like this? I suppose I will, in the name of content.

I really wanted to add a 2020 roundup to the end of this because it is the end of the year… but alas, I couldn’t fit it in. You’ll have to make do with the cheeky book rec at the top of this issue.

If any of this resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it! Feel free to send me a DM @hairol.ma on Instagram or @hairolma on Twitter. I know it’s a cardinal sin to have two CTAs, but you can give this a subscribe or leave a comment below.