Reminder: You don’t NEED a glow-up
For anyone who has been on social media for more than 5 minutes, I am sure you are aware of the beauty community/influencers, in particular, ' glow ups'. But for those of you who have not ventured into this side of social media yet, let me summarise it for you.
To put it quite simply, a glow-up is where you change your physical appearance ( mainly ) for the better. There have even been examples of this in shows such as Ugly Betty, Pretty Woman, and Miss Congeniality, since the dawn of time at this point. The term ' ugly duckling transformations' was a term used before social media came up with a ' glow-up'.
So, shows have been portraying glow-ups for years, and let's be real, every once in a while we put on a face mask, change our hair, or buy new clothes. The great thing about change is that it can signify growing up, portraying an emotional transformation, or simply a new chapter in your life. Even I recently dyed my hair darker to match the Autumn season coming up.
If so much good can come out of altering your physical appearance, such as confidence, why am I going to be so negative about it?
Because there is an inconsiderable amount of pressure, especially on TikTok, to 'glow up', when you don't need to! Now, you may have read an article published by Dazed recently about glow-ups (The Makeover Trap: How we all got addicted to the Glow-up). And it makes a fair point, it has been drilled into us from an early age in movies, etc that we must appear appealing to the male gaze, and a lot of these changes are no longer for ourselves, they are to impress exes or new boys at school ( not to sound stereotypical ), but it is true. We do care about our looks, even if that makes us 'vein'. It is human instinct to try to look attractive to others.
However, I think there is another element that is playing a part in this Glow up trend. Emotional Marketing. Brands are honing in on people's (not just women's) insecurities, to sell products, and they have been doing so for years. 'Consumer insecurity has noticeable effects on consumer responses'( Keech, J. 2017). And I can't lie, I am guilty of it.
I have recommended products that I use to make my skin, hair, etc better. It is within the nature of influencers to promote products to their audience. To do so, claiming a product took them from what they looked like pre-glow up to post-glow up, of course, people are going to run to buy whatever it is they are selling. We have even seen it go as far as people promoting nose jobs and filler, normalising these processes. Companies even come up with new features that we should be insecure about, all to make a profit.
The more we see these types of videos on social media, the more the audience is coerced into believing they need to have a glow-up too. Influencers don't sell a product just because they say it's good, they sell it because they look good, and apparently, this product is why. As much as pampering yourself is an amazing form of self-care, the push to always look better, and that you are not doing enough now, encourages the feeling of insecurity. This feeling is what brands grasp onto to lure you into making a purchase.
If you have been pushed into having a glow up because of social media, there is no reason to feel shame, in fact, I think most people at this point have done it. We often forget that we do not need to look a million dollars every day, catch me on a Friday afternoon and I will most likely look like Hagrid from Harry Potter ( no offense to him, lovely guy ). I guess what I am trying to say is, you probably do not need a glow-up, you may just need a breather from the endless scroll of social media. You probably don't need that product, you may just need to wait until you finish the one you have now to try a new one. There is no rush, there is no perfect, and trust me, the influencer probably doesn't even use that product.
