When Beauty Practices & Personal Values Clash
Let me ask you something that's been on my mind lately...
Do the beauty products and practices you use actually align with what you care about most?
It's a question that stopped me in my tracks a few years ago, and I've found it to be surprisingly powerful.
Most of us have values we hold dear — perhaps you value simplicity, environmental stewardship, health, authenticity, or compassion. But how often do we actually examine whether our daily beauty routines support these core values?
For years, my bathroom shelves were crowded with products in plastic bottles, containing ingredients I couldn't pronounce. I prided myself on being environmentally conscious in other areas of my life, but somehow, my beauty routine had become a blind spot.
🍃 I began to notice the contradictions:
I valued simplicity, yet my routine was anything but simple with its dozens of products and complicated steps.
I cared deeply about our planet (even wrote a book about it), but I was creating a steady stream of plastic waste with my empties.
I believed in being financially responsible, but I was spending hundreds of dollars on products that rarely lived up to their promises.
I claimed to value authenticity, but I was constantly trying to hide or "correct" my natural aging process.
The disconnect was jarring once I actually took the time to see it.
That awareness sparked a beauty “revolution” of sorts in my life — a deliberate shift toward practices and products that truly reflected what mattered to me. (I've done this in many areas of my life, from food prep to yard maintenance to clothes buying, but today we're talking specifically about beauty.)
This alignment wasn't just satisfying from a philosophical standpoint. It actually simplified my life, reduced my environmental footprint, saved me money (more to spend on the grandkids 😁) and perhaps most surprisingly, made me feel better about my appearance.
When I discovered face yoga, it felt like finding the missing piece. Here was a practice that:
Required no products or packaging
Used nothing but my own hands and awareness
Connected me to my body rather than alienating me from it
Focused on enhancing health and natural vitality rather than "fixing" perceived flaws
Could be practiced anywhere, anytime, with no special equipment
Costs nothing beyond the initial learning investment
Empowered me rather than making me dependent on products
Now, I'm not suggesting everyone needs to adopt an identical approach — your values may be different from mine, and that's as it should be!
Perhaps convenience is truly important in your busy life, or you genuinely enjoy the ritual of a multi-step product routine. Those are valid priorities too.
The key is consciousness — making choices that intentionally align with what we value rather than defaulting to what the beauty industry tells us that we "need."
When we bring our beauty practices into alignment with our deeper values, something powerful happens. The nagging sense of disconnection fades. We feel more authentic. And often, we find ourselves feeling more beautiful as a natural result.