When Pamela Anderson stepped out make-up-free at Paris Fashion Week last month, it was hailed as a “revolution”. Anderson seemed to be taking a stance against the sweetness standards she has been subject to and helped perpetuate throughout her profession by embracing her age. It was a call which helped bolster a vision of beauty that has been gaining ground over the past few years – one where looking ‘natural’ reigns supreme. 

If the sweetness industry is to be believed, we’re entering a recent era of self-acceptance. Individuals are eliminating full-cover foundation, contouring and heavy eyeshadow in favour of more ‘off-duty’ looks, resembling “status skin”, “no make-up make-up”, “clean girl make-up” and “five-minute face”. There’s also been an increase in people dissolving their filler in pursuit of a more natural look. On TikTok, there are countless videos of individuals eulogising famous faces with little to no make-up, with captions like “natural beauty all the time wins”. 

On the face of it, this might sound like a step in the fitting direction. But the concept people have been free of the shackles of oppressive beauty standards due to ‘clean girl make-up’ and the likes should raise suspicion. As the author Rian Phin pointed out, what we’re really seeing is a recent set of demands on women, and the prizing of “biological capital” above all else. “Beauty [has] shifted to being concerning the semblance of biological advantage fairly than skill,” Phin wrote, “away from high glam make-up baddie skills […] into natural girlie who woke up beautiful.” Minimalist make-up, says Phin, is favoured since it implies inherent genetic advantage.

There are the explanation why we prize a natural look over a heavily made-up look – and it’s to not do with self-acceptance. It’s about concealing the labour that goes into meeting the sweetness standard, and attaching an ethical superiority to women who don’t must try to be beautiful. “This helps obscure the incontrovertible fact that the things which are expected of ladies in the general public sphere are really expensive and effortful,” says Jessica DeFino, a beauty critic who writes The Unpublishable newsletter. “The concept there may be a ‘natural’ way for a girl to look is inherently patriarchal, sexist and capitalist”.

This labour is increasingly being poured into skincare, which exploded in popularity in the course of the pandemic. In line with one recent survey, for the primary time in three years, Gen Z spent more on skincare than make-up. Somewhat than chasing the type of “skill” Phin described, women are actually being encouraged to devote their time, money and energy into achieving the right dewy, glowing complexion. This often requires much more effort to take care of through extensive skincare routines and things like chemical peels. 

The shift towards an emphasis on natural beauty is commonly traced back to the pandemic. “In a technique [lockdown was] an actual step back from beauty pressures,” says Rosalind Gill, a sociologist and writer of Perfect: Feeling Judged on Social Media, “but in one other way, it’s actually capitalising yourself, using that point as a method so as to add value to your appearance”. 

Gill’s research showed that the pandemic was a time by which people launched into “beauty projects”, resembling giving their skin a break to enhance their complexions, or cutting their hair short to assist it grow longer. Together with searching for ways to enhance on our ‘natural’ appearance, in accordance with Gill, spending much more time on social media at home and gazing our appearances on Zoom helped to fuel recent beauty anxieties. “It intensified women’s worries about their appearance,” she says.

The rise in ‘natural beauty’ hasn’t been about using less products, but ones which carry different guarantees. Alicia Lartey, a beauty author and esthetician, says that for the reason that pandemic, she’s noticed more demand for things like lash serum and foundations which double as skincare. “It’s just mimicking this ‘natural’ look,” she says. Normally, the make-up utilized in campaigns has develop into less creative, Lartey says, as the main target has shifted away from skill. “The looks have develop into rather a lot more boring,” she says.  

Likewise, the pursuit of a natural look hasn’t resulted in less people choosing surgical procedures. Somewhat, it’s helped fuel the recognition of things like ‘baby Botox’ that are intended to look more natural. Actually, for the reason that pandemic, there was an increase in people getting tweakments and filler. In a 2022 audit, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPs) found that demand for Botox treatments rose 124 per cent in comparison with the previous yr, with their members carrying out 6,639 treatments last yr. 

Achieving the natural beauty glance through products and procedures is pricey and time-consuming – much more so than heavily made-up looks. Botox, for instance, often costs around £100 to £350 for every treatment, depending on the clinic and the realm being treated, and frequently must be topped up every three to 4 months. It’s unsurprising, then, that cosmetic debt is on the rise, with more people overspending in pursuit of the right face.

Because of this, natural beauty has develop into related to those wealthy enough to avoid getting work done that appears “too obvious”. Together with being rooted in classism, Larety also notes the racial element. “When you consider the ‘no make-up’ look, it’s definitely attributed to the very wealthy, very Eurocentric looking people,” she says. “It’s a display of proximity to whiteness. Especially relating to certain features – like having a broader nose, having greater lips – which have are available and out of the mainstream trend.”

‘Natural beauty’ because it’s been sold to us by cosmetic corporations is a sham. It has nothing to do with acceptance, fairly it exposes how the goal posts are all the time shifting for ladies.

Still, there are methods women can reclaim the concept of ‘natural beauty’ from the sweetness industry. DeFino sees Anderson going make-up-free as significant, and says it’s vital to separate what she’s doing from natural beauty commodified by the industry or clean girl make-up. As she points out, Anderson isn’t using her bare-face to sell us any products or procedures. “[Anderson] is just not constructing this concept of a natural beauty,” she says. “She’s just not wearing any make-up… I feel it’s very clear that she is reconsidering the sweetness standards that she adhered to, and is deciding she doesn’t wish to buy into that anymore.” 

Nevertheless, it’s value remembering that if Anderson didn’t adhere to certain beauty ideals, she wouldn’t necessarily be receiving the identical praise. Being thin, white, and wealthy enough to have access to certain products and procedures has allowed her to age in a way that’s more aligned with the sweetness standard. “That basically should shine a lightweight on how embedded beauty culture is with white supremacy,” says DeFino.

‘Natural beauty’ because it’s been sold to us by cosmetic corporations is a sham. It has nothing to do with acceptance, fairly it exposes how the goalposts are all the time shifting for ladies. If the rise of ‘natural’ beauty teaches us anything, it’s that we’d like to let go of the concept there may be a ‘natural’ way for ladies to look, and as an alternative embrace a vision of beauty that permits our bodies to only exist.

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