BEING HER with Margarita Nazarenko - 173: Why Vain Women Win

Episode Date: July 12, 2026

→ Join The Unbothered WomanTHE SELFISH RESET — Live Call with MargaritaThey told you vanity was shallow.They told you caring about how you look made you stupid.They told you self beautification was selfish and vain and bad.They were afraid of what would happen if you started liking yourself.In this episode, Margarita breaks down the truth about beauty, vanity and self adornment, why it's never been about men, why it's one of the most powerful things a woman can do, and why the women who invest in themselves get more of everything.In this episode:1. Everyone cares what they look like, drop the pretense2. Pretty privilege is real — use it strategically3. Looking good changes how you behave, and that changes everything4. The word bimbo was invented to keep you from investing in yourself5. Vanity is self investment and self sacrifice is not love6. Your appearance is your first communication7. If you're a mother, being vain is your duty8. Vanity and self hatred are completely different things9. To be desired, you have to desire yourself first10. Beauty and youth are temporary. Self adornment doesn't have to beIf you've ever felt guilty for caring how you look, disconnected from your femininity, or like you're waiting to glow up after something instead of right now, this episode is for you.Being Her is your no-filter space for woman empowerment, relationship advice, confidence, feminine energy, and living life completely on your own terms.Love you lots like jelly tots xxSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Baby, they told women that vanity and caring how you look is a sin and it's bad because they were afraid that women who paid attention to themselves would eventually start liking themselves. Yeah? Looks don't matter. Your soul matters. But in this world here, this tangible world where things are material, They are trying to keep you ugly to keep you down. They're trying to tell you it doesn't matter.

They're trying to make you believe that if you self-beautify and you give more to yourself and you look after yourself that you are vain, you are yuck, you are disgusting, you are like a Kardashian, you are vacuous. All you care about is you butt bots and boobs and rah, rah, rah. You clicked on this and my mic died. And it's raining because this is going to be an evil little episode, okay? We're going to discuss the reality of this world and what it means to be a woman and vanity and self-butification. Because how we've warped it in modern society isn't where it is, baby girl.

It's not about youth. It's not about any of that. And it's not about the male gaze. It's about how you see yourself and how you can manipulate the male gaze. Yes, I said it. if they are so easily pivoted by beauty, then why not pivot them? Because let me tell you, if you've ever argued with a man while you look good versus arguing with a man while you look like a rat,

you will know that you won the argument very quickly when you looked good. And why not use what we have? If they are confused and bamboozled by beauty, then let's use it. Furthermore, as a woman, as the feminine, the more you put into yourself, and the more you like yourself, the more the universe likes you. That's just a formula. If you were a man listening to this, I would say give more. Give more to the universe.

Give more to those around you, because then the universe is going to reciprocate and love you more as you are designed to give, right? Be more vain. Use your pretty privilege. I don't care if you think you're ugly. You could be two points less ugly. It's not a point system, but you could do something for yourself. You could beautify yourself.

Did you know that in ancient Rome, soldiers used to beautify themselves once they were of a certain rank of manhood? They used to wear a certain regalia. They used to look a certain way. But when you were a boy, you were scruffy. You were just a boy, you were a kid, you didn't used to wear gold and adornment. Adornment is a historical thing. It's lasted throughout history, through many, many decades of what that means through Norse cultures, Russian cultures, all kinds of cultures, African, Everything has self-beautification.

But no, we're taught these days, oh, you're so vain, you only care about what you look like. What does only care about what you look like mean? That is so stupid. I've had times in my life and we'll go into motherhood and beauty and all these things later, where I stopped thinking about what I looked like. I stopped thinking about what I looked like. It didn't matter to me. And those were not the times where I put my best foot forward.

Having had a daughter now as my second child, I care more about what I look like than I did when I was younger because I want her to see me and to see me as a damn Disney princess and be proud of me and you might be watching this and you might be like, but still you're ugly. I don't care. I'm prettier for me than I was when I didn't understand how I would look good. You understand what I'm saying? It's about where,

it's about competing with yourself, not about other people. We're not trying to be supermodels here unless you're of a supermodel status, then go you. I'm going to talk about it at a point structure because that is how my brain works, okay? I'm a Virgo, so that's what we do. Number one, the first place when you're working with beauty and who you are and getting the most of what you want, because I'm a strategist, I just want you to get what you want out of this world and that is all I want, okay? I don't care about everything else, like your happiness is your responsibility, but I want you to get what you want, right? And putting your best foot forward in terms of how you look is going to help you get there.

The first thing you need to drop is this stupid conceived notion that you don't care what you look like. Everyone cares what they look like. Even people who super let themselves go. Even people, do you know, I've been the most inspired in my life by several people I knew who were in their 90s that my mom used to know. And they would still wear lipstick and wouldn't come downstairs unless they looked a certain way. That spoke to me so much of the pride in themselves that they had, the way they put themselves into the world, how they presented themselves. And beauty how you present yourself is not universal. It doesn't mean we all have to wear red lipstick.

Okay, calm down, Amanda. Calm down. But it does mean it's your version of beauty. And I said it before and I'll say it again. I said it five years ago, I'll say it again. Beauty is manufactured. Yes, there is a natural beauty. Everyone has a natural beauty that is their own

and that is a heritage that they carry. You see these white cheekbones? That is an Nordic self-face, okay? That's what happens when you have it, right? And you need to embrace that, first of all. Your own, certainly unique beauty. If you're fighting against it, you're fighting or losing battle. We might as well, you know, forget it.

But if you are somebody who then can add to it, manufactured beauty is what Marilyn Monroe did. It's what Sophia Wren did. It's why you're confused and convobulated in your mind and you think, oh, I'm not beautiful. No, you just haven't worked out your phenotype and your archetype and you haven't decided to work with it, embrace it, and be like, I'm a badass.

Okay? Yeah? I spoke to someone recently who said to me, oh, I wish I was blonde like you because I have long, dark hair and I don't look as cute or innocent. I don't know what word she used because my brain turned off. And in that moment, as she was saying it, I was thinking, you know what's funny? There's a whole myriad of blonde girls who wanted to look like Kim Kardashian a few years ago with the long black hair and all her sisters, right? When you start competing against the type of what you are, that's when problems happen. The world wants us.

The beauty industry wants us to not. work with our type. It wants us to change our nose. It wants us to change our face structure. It wants us to do all these things. But it doesn't want us to adorn ourselves and love the body that we're in, okay? And when I say the body that we're in, I don't mean accepting your body and all the atrocities you've done to it by bad diet, lack of looking after yourself. I mean to love yourself as you are, right? But everyone that is point number one, it cares about what they look like is just a matter of fact if they've let themselves go or not. And if you let yourself go, that's fine. That's absolutely. fine. We're going to pick you back up again. Some women just lie about the fact that they don't

care about. I don't care. It's about my brains. You can't read a book and care about what you look like at the same time. Stop telling me dumb stuff. Yeah? I was born at night, but not last night. Women say that when they don't care is a defense mechanism, right? Or they're so damn in tune with themselves and so damn beautiful that they don't care, right? I've seen once I went to a modern ballet style thing. I saw a girl so beautiful. She obviously didn't care what she looked like. And I can tell that because she was so damn beautiful. That's not the rest of us, okay? Number two, pretty privilege is real.

In this world that's built by men, pretty privilege is real. I want you to strategically get everything you want out of this world. And you can be offended that I said that. You can cry about the fact that I said that, but this is the world we live in. Welcome, hello, to the further regions of the city. This is where we live and we can fight it or we can use it and then fight it. You know what I mean? Yeah? Appearance affects first impressions, even to women.

I think women dress up for women more than they dress up for men, okay? Attraction, opportunities, and mainly and more so how you feel about yourself. I will say it till I'm blue in the face. When you decide that you deserve a little bit more time, I watched my mum taking hours to do rituals like cream her body, like not hours within one day, but like over my time growing up with her, she used to take hours to do her makeup a certain way, to always moisturise her skin, she used to put ice on her face, like the beauty rituals I have from that woman, that I didn't deploy because I didn't understand that those rituals aren't to make you more beautiful. They are to make you feel more beautiful.

And then for you to not care about what his dusty, crusty ass thinks about you, because again, when I say get unbothered and you're like, but how? You need to crowd out, like with diet, with good food, the bad food that you are wanting to eat. You need to crowd out the time and attention that you have for him with the time and attention you give to yourself. I now understand at my big age of 38 that my mom was not sitting there and going, oh my God, I need to put this ice on my face and this papaya. She used to make a mask out of papaya and banana, right? She wasn't doing that because she was like, oh my God, that's going to change my skin, even though she looks amazing. She was doing that as a beautification ritual, like some kind of Egyptian goddess.

You understand? That the thing you worship expands and how much you love yourself is how much men and the universe will love you and grant you favor. If you put yourself last, they will put you last. And we need them to work for us, men in the universe. They need to work for us, okay? Because we create life, even if you decide not to, that is still the portal that you exist as, okay? Appearance can affect a lot of things. And it can liberate you.

It can liberate you to say, I'm worth the time to do this. I am worth the energy to do this. I need more sleep. I need good food. I need all these things. And you can sort off. Okay. Sorry to interrupt the podcast, but I've got a little domestic chat to have with you. Okay. I have a problem that I don't realize I had and I found a solution so I thought you might enjoy it. When it comes to a home and I've been building my house and furnishing it and designing it for the last few years, you have either a beautiful rug that you're terrified to put in a real room with children or pets in case like life happens or you get something washable that looks like it belongs in an apartment with dorm students. I could not find the middle ground anywhere until tumble.

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It's a really, really clever system. They're safe for kids and pets and the designs are genuinely really, really beautiful, hand illustrated, and they look like something that you'd find in a high-end interior store. Over 30,000 five-star reviews and hundreds of thousands of homes have already made the switch. I ordered from Tumble and honesty, you should too. Machine-washable rugs made better for a limited time. our listeners get 10% off plus free shipping at tumbleliving.com slash being her. That's T-U-M-B-L-E-Living.com slash being her. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we send you. So I want to talk to you about something that genuinely changes how my home feels and that's wayfair. I'll be honest. I used to think that

having a space that actually felt like me was just a budget problem that I just needed to throw more money at it. And it kind of was until I found Wayfair. I ordered a rug recently and the moment it arrived and I put it down, the whole room just clicked. It's about those small pieces, right? That's the thing about Wayfair. The prices are genuinely surprising in the best way and the style options are endless and you're not bouncing between 12 different stores trying to piece a room together. So the price point is great, especially if you've got kids and you know that the piece might not last forever. Seating, lighting, storage, decor, it's all in one place. And if you're worried about quality, they have Wayfair verified, where products specialize vet everything by hand using a 10-point inspection.

Over 20 million five-star reviews from real people in real homes. If you've been putting off refreshing your space because of the price or not knowing where to start, just go to Wayfair. ordered from Wayfar and honesty, you should too if you like it. Ready to upgrade your home for Wayless. Head to Wayfair.com right now and shop all things home and get your space ready for less. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Number three, looking good can change how you behave and it will change how you behave.

You are less apologetic, you are less timid, you become more self-advocating, It is the ritual, again, like I said, and not so much the fact that you are a supermodel. And sometimes you really care about what you look like, but it can be at a deficit. When I was in my late teens, I cared about what I looked like, but in that kind of like, you know, body covering pillow over your belly because your belly might be a little bit squidgy way. And that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about taking time for yourself. And if you look good as the best version of you, it changes how you behave.

Even when I take my kids out and I wear the same old jeans, I get this habit of wearing the same outfit because I get so, I don't know if it's some ADD thing or something, but I get so in my head of doing things that I'm doing that I just wear the same outfit like Homer Simpson. But when I actually even wear something that is like a cool outfit to work out in, I don't work out, but like, you know, black leggings by Lulu Lemon or whoever, and I'm with my kids and I have a baseball cap that kind of matches. And I feel like a vibe. I'm like I'm nicer to people. I'm nicer to my kids. I'm more humorous. I'm all of those things. It changes how you behave.

And how you behave changes the opportunities you get. That is factual and actual, my friends, okay? Number four, the most dangerous thing that we are taught as women about vanity and beauty is that caring about our looks makes us stupid. Who do you think made up the word bimbo? And why was it useful? If it was taught to you, that means it was useful for somebody, predominantly society, culture, or romance? to make you feel that if you care about what you look like, you are stupid. Or perhaps it was intersexual competition.

What is that? It's when the same sex competes for something. If you are beautiful, you are a threat to other women. So Bimbo is a beautiful word that they use, that you care about what you look like, you must be dumb. And if you are dumb, then you are worth less. I know the most beautiful women who are also the most intelligent women, because beauty takes intelligence to cultivate.

You've got to understand what looks good in you. You've got to think about what looks good on you. This bimbo notion, I'm sorry. It takes brain power and understanding of how you are perceived in the world and style and all these things take time. And men do not get called a bimbo, okay, when kings wear their regalia, and Napoleon Bona part wears all this, that and the other one. And all of these people wear, all they got to wear, they don't get called bimbos or himbos, do they? Right. No, they don't.

And that's a fact. Vanity is self-investment too. We are told that it is selfish, and we are flipping that word. If you haven't heard the last podcast go and listen to that, and it's why selfish girl win at life. If you're spending all your money and time on your pet's children and husband and you're not giving to yourself, the loop that you're falling into is believing that self-sacrifice is love.

But you're going to get resentful and you're going to get angry. Your husband wants to see you beautiful and happy. Your children want to see you like a Disney princess beautiful and happy. I remember, and I know you will remember, write it in the comments, once my mom picking her from school and she was looking beautiful like she always did to me my mom seemed to me like the most beautiful human in the world and I'm sure yours was to you too and I remember her coming to the gate and I was like my mom is a hot my mom is hotter than your mama like I was so proud I don't know why like it didn't matter but there was some identity that shifted in me

where I was like yes this is me this is my identity this is who I'm going to be and I don't know it changed a lot for me. People telling you you're shallow, in other words, shallow, it's a shallow to be vain and, like, and spend money on yourself and buy yourself some nice mascara or lipstick or something. My mom taught me a law that even growing up, she was a single parent, she would buy something for me and she would, like, take 20% and buy herself like a Chanel lipstick or something. Or she'd buy herself something amazing for herself, because that taught me as well, self-love. Sacrifice did not teach me self-love. That does not teach you self-love. loving herself taught me self-love and how to love myself now how you behave towards yourself

teaches your children more than all your self-sacrifice ever could the unlived life of a parent is the worst burden on a child number six and this is serious your appearance is your first communication and now i'm not talking about vanity in terms of like botox fillers hair thing everything how you decide to make yourself look light blonde hair dark brown hair uh structured suit like i'm wearing right now because I'm about to go into a meeting. Everything denotes what you are saying. If you have fun jovial outfits, if you have whimsical outfits, if you have airy, fairy outfits, all these things denote a certain type of persona. People read something into your outfit and what you look like. Before you even open your gob, your little mouth there, somebody learns

something about you. And it is by no coincidence that everybody from Jesus Christ to Julia Caesar had a way that they dressed to denote something about them. It could be super casual, super cool. It could be very structured. It could be whatever it is, but it is curated. Curated being the operative word, okay? So you need to understand. It's about communication.

If you're in the business of communication, if you want to have online presence, it matters. I grew my social media with baby spit all over my husband's t-shirt that I was wearing and my hair up. That was at first not a conscious choice, but as it went on became a conscious choice because I was trying to appeal to the woman in her house who just wanted a friend to talk to.

And every time I would do my makeup more, all the comments were like, oh my God, you look good, you look so nice in your makeup and not actually listening to the message. So you need to understand and grasp the fact that how you look speaks to whoever you're speaking to. And it matters.

It really does matter. Number seven, if you are a mother, it is your duty to be vain. I don't care. What you're saying, this is where you can really change the world, okay? We are really expected to put ourselves last, and we do in every single aspect of self-sacrifice that exists,

but this doesn't have to be one. I want you to know that your children are watching you, and how you treat yourself is how they'll treat themselves. I've seen it in my mom. I want my daughter to see it. I want my son to see it. Animals care about what they look like. They preen themselves.

They preen each other, the bigger feathers. and that, how they look. It denotes power. It denotes health. It denotes all of it. And if you're confused about what vanity really is and what you should be working on, beauty is basically health. All the signs that you're trying to exemplify is that you're healthy. Clear skin, clear eyes, white teeth, healthy hair, fit body. It doesn't have to be a skinny body. It doesn't have to be a fat body, but it's got to be a fit body. All you're trying to denote is you're healthy and people respond to you that way. You see? Number eight, and I really want you to sit on this one, is that vanity in the concept that we're talking about it here and self-hatred and therefore

modification is very different things. I'm not telling you to go and do rhinoplastyes and changes of your face. As I said, you have to already like the type that you are and adorn that and beautify that and worship that God made you this way and love that, okay? Because everyone can do a little bit more for themselves and become a better version of themselves and it makes you proud that you did that for yourself. If you have self-hatred to the point where you're always modifying and changing, okay, and that is different to how I said manufacturing. Manufactured is like Marilyn Monroe sat down and she was like, what would suit me and make me stand out, okay? It's a blonde hair, okay, so certain makeup that I'm wearing, okay, it's these kind of dresses. That was a strategic thought

that she had and she made a character that way, okay? If you are constantly picking apart your face, I had a friend also who was always like, I'm not going out today because I don't look good enough. My nose is horrible so I don't deserve good things in life. She literally said this. I'll never find a partner, rah, rah, rah. That is not what I'm talking about. That is internalized from the beauty industry about how you should change yourself. I'm not talking about change yourself. I'm talking about like yourself so much that you give to yourself to make yourself like a goddess. You know there's different goddesses. One is a bit plump. One is slim. One is tall. One is short. You know how Greek goddesses are. One is goddess of love. One is goddesses of love.

love one is the goddess of the night. Stop being the goddess of, I don't know, trying to change yourself. That's not going to happen. That's not going to work. You've got to really love yourself. That's where it starts. Number nine, you are allowed to want to be desired. And to be desired, you have to desire yourself. Feminine sexuality is often tied to how much you desire yourself. It's almost like self-desire. I've heard Esther Peril talk about it a lot. Women do not feel in the mood for sex or sexual when they do not desire themselves as soon as a woman starts to desire herself desire her body self-adorn wear beautiful underwear wear incredible clothes wear high heels that make her feel beautiful suddenly she's feeling sexual and it saves a lot of relationships if you're confused and you're

like oh i don't like him maybe start liking yourself in terms of him who's your husband who's loyal who's amazing who loves you and you're just like i'm not feeling it how about you have a project of self-love you start to love yourself, you start to worship yourself, you start to put yourself in sexy clothes, you start to really, I hate the word, go on a glower, but a lot of women start to go on this vanity project of like putting themselves first, have this whole routine about how they're going to be themselves after they get divorced, and it should be a project that you're doing during the marriage. And number 10 is that beauty and youth is temporary in the way that we see it, like this youthful sexiness and this youthful, um, um,

look, but vanity self-adornment does not have to be. When you're a 90-year-old granny and you're putting on that lipstick and you're stacking rings till the cows come home and the gemstones and your incredible faux-fah coat, girl, like, I cannot wait. I actually can wait because I'm enjoying my life and I want it to, you know, take longer. But when I am this fabulous leopard print wearing granny, you cannot go gentle into that good night. you have to have a style when you're a crone you know you have to still have something about you that

people know that you value yourself because then they will not walk all over you they will not require things of you that are beneath you and they will not relegate you to being unseen which is a problem that a lot of women have and by that I don't mean out of the male gaze but I mean discarded and unimportant the world responds to you as you respond to yourself I want to know in the comments, what is the vain thing that you're going to do for yourself this week? Love you lost like Charlie tells. Bye.