Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: Morning Shed & Ageing Dread

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

It's Wednesday, which can only mean on thing... we've got to have a chat!There always used to be a sort of joke about how when we're asleep it is the only time we're not conforming to patriarchal beauty standards, when we’re free from being advertised to and commodified, only now the billion-dollar beauty and wellness industry has managed to infiltrate that, too. Women of the internet are sharing their 'morning shed' where they remove various layers of skin-care products and anti-aging aids. We discuss what we make of this new trend and hear from you at home, too!Thank you so much to everyone who sent in their thoughts, we love being in conversation with you. We would love it if you left a review and rating on your podcast player app as it helps others to find the podcast and us to keep making it :) Remember we will be back on Friday for the main episode - so we will see you then, enjoy! xxx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is brought to you by London Neutropics. Their delisious adaptogenic coffee is made with premium heaf-festered terra mushroom extracts and designed to help you stay balanced and elevate your day. As a huge procrastinator, I love the Flow blend because it helps me to stay focused without the crash. I usually have a normal coffee in the morning, but a second one would make me way too jittery. So instead, Flow has been the perfect hack for my afternoon slump. I love Flow for that exact reason. I've been drinking it instead of my usual afternoon coffee and honestly I massively prefer it.

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But first, the headlines from the EIC Newsroom. US President Donald Trump has defended sweeping tariffs on imports that sent shockwaves through global stock markets, saying, quote, sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something. Marie Le Pen has been barred from running for public office for five years after she and her party were convicted of embezzling millions of euros of European Union funds. The far-right French

politician was a leading candidate to become the country's next president. Russell Brand has been charged with rape, indecent assault, oral rape and two counts of sexual assault, say police. Brand will appear in court in London on 2nd May, according to the Metropolitan Police, which began investigating him in September 2023 after a range of allegations. On Sunday, Molly Mae Haig shared the first photo of Tommy Fury on Instagram since their split, after confirming that they were quote, working on their relationship. Two civil servants were caught trying to buy Five Guys burgers on taxpayer-funded card. Kate Ferguson for The Sun wrote,

A government insider who spotted them said, People have complained about greedy civil servants, but scoffing posh burgers at taxpayers' expense takes it to the next level. Chaos has now understandably ensued on X with a great debate over whether or not Five Guys is posh. Blue Origin faces backlash ahead of its historic all-female spaceflight with Katy Perry. It's so much money to go to space, Olivia Munn said during an appearance on Today

with Jenna and Friends, adding that all the rocket fuel can't be good for the planet. Quote, there's a lot of people who can't even afford eggs. I think it's a bit gluttonous. Earlier this year, Katy Perry announced the trip on Instagram. She wrote, quote, I am motivated more than ever to be an example for my daughter that women should take up space pun intended. That's why this opportunity is so incredible so that I can show all of the youngest and most vulnerable among us to reach for the stars literally and figuratively. I am honored to be among this diverse group of celestial sisters include Jeff Bezos's bride-to-be Lauren Sanchez, film producer

Keri-Ann Flynn, TV personality and broadcaster Gail King, as well as Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Wynn and aerospace engineer Aisha Bo. Comments under the post have been turned off. John Lennon's half-sister Julia believes he should have been played by a Scouser in the new Hollywood film. Sam Mendes is making four films, one for each Beatle, and Lennon is set to be played by Harris Dickinson. But asked if she would have preferred somebody from Liverpool, Julia Baird said,

Yes, of course, no one else can get that Liverpool intonation. Nobody. And that's everything from the EIC Newsroom this week. There always used to be a sort of joke about how when we're asleep, it's literally the only time we're not conforming to patriarchal beauty standards when we're free from being advertised to and commodified. Only now the billion dollar beauty and wellness industry has managed to infiltrate that too, because women of the internet are sharing their morning shed where they remove various layers of skincare products and equipment. I can't quite think of another word that they wear overnight in an effort to embalm their usefulness. This usually includes

mouth tape, sometimes face tape, a type of mask, hair colors, a bonnet, a nose clip, pimple patches, chin straps, lip stain, that peel-off one, which I actually really want to try, but maybe not overnight. I feel like that'd be very drying. And sometimes they even wear stuff on their stomach, usually cast oil with like a waist wrap thing. No idea what that does. There are loads of variations on this and I get really sucked into watching them on my timeline. So then I get fed even more and more extreme versions each time. And after our conversation episode a couple of weeks ago on morning routines and modern masculinity, we thought it was only fair to cover this too. I did actually ask my sister who's a dermatologist about this and she just shook her head and laughed and

said don't do it. So girlies, I turn to you. Are you shedders? Good God, no. It's just, I feel like labor to me, beauty labor, is honestly having to shave my legs. And the idea of just adding more, adding more, adding more to that plate that feels stacked as fuck already. I just, I can't do it. I actually can't. No, me too. And I actually feel like the joy as I get older

and as I've tried so many like little hacks, little beauty things, trends, and realized they don't work is taking things away and doing less and less. And I know that the idea of this is do more to do less overall. I think that's bullshit. But just the idea that, you know, I realized, oh, I don't need to do this anymore. I don't need to have multiple different serums. I've got one of each. I go to bed and wake up and it's such like it's a few steps and so many fewer than it used to be. And I feel like that's the joy of my life. So the shed to me is terrifying. I don't want to slag off too much and only in case you actually do do it. Do you have any kind of sheddys, sheddables? No, I remember finding out when like when I was maybe in uni that you had to like wash,

actually wash your face, not just sort of like pour it with a face wipe. I was horrified. I still actually kind of hate washing my face because I hate liquid dripping down my arms, which is like a thing you can buy these hairbands. So no, I don't do a morning shed. I am tempted by mouth tape because I don't think I do it as much anymore,

but I can snore really badly. In fact, it's one of the things that really scares me about if I ever do meet anyone again is I basically just don't sleep right at the beginning because I don't want them to find out that I snore like a steam train. When me and my ex first started dating, I'd gone to Italy by myself and he came out to join me for the weekend.

And on the first night I woke up and he was gone and we weren't serious at all. We'd just met and I was like, oh my God, he's left. And then I looked at him and he had wrapped himself some towels in the bathroom and gone to sleep in there because I was snoring so badly. So that is the extent. So that's why I'm like, maybe mouth tape. I actually did, I even did like a sleep things. I thought I'd sleep up near.

So mouth tape, I would do it for that reason, but no, anything else. I do cleanse, I moisturize, brush my teeth. Then it's straight to bed for me. That's the extent of my routine. This is where I wanna deploy that famous, definitely fake quote from Marilyn Monroe, which is like, if he doesn't love you at your worst,

he doesn't deserve you at your best. That's what I was feeling when you said that story about the snoring. I'm like, no, if they love you, they'll do it. They'll put up with it. But I wanted to say what you said, Beth, was really interesting, because that's such a thing that's happening.

You said doing more to do less, which is a massive movement at the minute, which is like loads of reels about being high maintenance to be low maintenance. And it's often attributed to getting things like permanent makeup, whether that's microblading, which I have had actually, or tattooed lip liner or Botox. Because this idea that we're being sold at the minute is quite a clever way of re-narrativeizing it. It's like, actually, you're going to really save time if you just get all of these really extensive procedures or do this morning shred thing. Shed thing, I keep wanting to call it

morning shred. But every single thing coming out from dermatologists, doctors, skincare experts, they're all like, just sleep for another hour and you'll probably actually look better. I just, I think it's crazy. And we had a message, which really made me laugh from Ellen that said, deeply unsheak, deeply joyless, individualism and consumerism is at its raging peak. Rest in peace to being horny and insouciant. I will fly the flag by channeling Marilyn, Dolly Parton and Charlotte Tilbury and only sleeping in Chanel number five and my day old makeup. That is so good. I also love the word insouciant. We don't use that enough.

What that just made me think of is it's like we got all these things done, the permanent makeup, the keratin hair, and essentially it means that we never even, you know, there's no moment where we have to look as quote unquote ugly as we are. Like there's no moment even when you're alone, when you look as you are, you've always got something that keeps you back from that brink. Don't worry, I've always got my makeup on. That's actually quite a depressing idea. I know that it's not always as extreme as like tattooed brows, eyeliner, lip liner. And then I have seen a treatment where it's like, you always look like you've got foundation on, which did fill me with a bit of horror. I know it's not always as extreme as that, but like always having the hair done, always being ready to be like plump

and ready to go. It's like, you never have to look as you look, which is what you look like. And I think that is really sad. Even in like your restful moments, you're like, don't worry, I look fit. I just hate that. I agree. And also, I don't know,

something about this is just so depressing for the sheer fact it's like pushing the idea that your true self is your ugly self. And there is so much more you can be doing constantly to stop people from seeing what you actually look like, which, you know, jump scare is so grotesque. But the irony is these videos, the way they look, it literally looks like a post-operation aesthetic, the amount of kind of slings around your jaw, they're like peeling away of things,

it literally looks like somebody who's had a nose job and they have all those bandages wrapped around their face. That is kind of grotesque, that kind of image is very scary and very unsettling. It's very horrifying. But the actual horror that's being pushed through this trend is that our real selves are undeserving. They're kind of so grotesque. You need to go to such extreme lengths to make sure that the minute you wake up, you are your butterfly. That's the thing that people should be seeing, not what you actually are without layers and reams

of masks and tape and God knows what. I mean, the tape thing is interesting because it's like lots of people are saying that that's meant to be like anti-botox. And in a way, I'm kind of like, that's kind of harmless and the mouth tape for snoring is meant to be really good. I do really want to give that another go. I don't know if I drool, but the times I've tried it, it's just, I wake up

and it's not there. The thing I think about is like how wild these women look and like you were saying Beth, that, you know, no one ever gets to see you looking imperfect, but they are going to bed, they have so many things on their heads and their faces. Like someone actually did send in a message saying, are these people not having sex? Which I agree with, like, what are they? How are you doing anything? In fact, how are you sleeping?

I would not be able to sleep with this much stuff on. I actually am quite a neat sleeper. I don't think I move around too much, but there is no way in hell that I wouldn't suffocate, sweat it all off. Probably have like really weird nightmares. It just feels, it feels deeply wrong to me. Yeah, I think it's needless, a lot of it,

as your sister would have easily seen, I've seen dermatologists up and down being like, a lot of this stuff, you're kind of messing with the pH of your skin, the balance of your skin, you're probably not, unless you're using the perfect thing for your skin, you don't want that on there all night. I think mouth tape is meant to be good, yeah, for, cause sleeping with your mouth open for various reasons. Maybe that is not great. And I do that. And actually, anything

that makes you sleep better genuinely for you is worth doing. But a lot of it's needless. A lot of it does just inhibit you from getting good sleep. And I was thinking, oh, but maybe it is just bullshit advertising. But no, I guarantee if we're seeing it, some people advertising it, it's because other people are doing it. I mean, I remember at university, I had acne for the first time and I used to go to sleep with a face full of Manuka honey on my like, and I'm not good sleep at the best times. Like I, and I did every single single night I would slather this sticky, disgusting stuff all over my face in the pursuit of beauty. It was kind of like my own beauty shed. And thank God I stopped doing it because whether it worked or not, I was like, I'm not sleeping well. I'm waking up covered in sticky bits. I could never have a sleepover with a man.

It really was. It took over everything. And I think this is similar because it's like, well, I've got to have my pills and potions. And the minute you start doing it, the minute you go, this is the only thing, this is working for me, and then you have to do it forever. And I do worry about a younger woman who'd go, I'm curing aging, I'm never gonna age, and does it for her whole 20s. To find one, nothing's really changed.

And also, she's panicked about it a lot. She stopped herself having, you know, impulsive fun, sexy sleepovers, stopped herself going places she won't be able to take her sheddable items. I really think it can take over. I've got a great message from Lauren who said, I feel these super routines could be about seeking control when the world feels so chaotic. I think it's about that. I also think it's about having to control aging from a young age, which I'm so glad I never ever felt.

I never thought about aging until I was about 29. I think much younger women are thinking about aging the minute they turn 18. And so their entire twenties could be taken up with this kind of nonsense. And I really, really have fears about that. I also think there's an element of there's a perfect way to be doing everything. And I guess it goes back to things we've said about optimizing every part of our life. So even, you know, the hair rods for curling your hair, there's this obviously huge movement at the moment that heat is so damaging for your hair. And it's not just, you know, you're putting all of these lotions and creams and this like jaw tape so that you don't have to use Botox, you're being natural in every way possible. You're doing it for your hair as well. And I've definitely gotten sucked into this huge movement,

I guess, and started getting panicky when I'm on holiday and I don't have access to all my hair serums and stuff like that. And I have to just remind myself, it's literally fucking fine. It's not a big deal. Like, who cares if your hair is damaged? Is it really that life or death?

And I think with this, I don't know, it's just reinforcing this idea that you could be having perfect hair, but to do that there is a cost. You have to lie upright, not on your side, because that would damage the curls and the rods. You have to be doing all of this stuff all the time. There's constant ways that you essentially, there's the right way to be doing things and there's constant ways that you essentially, there's the right way to be doing things and there's a wrong way. And I don't know, I just think life is short,

fucking get the curling tong, who gives a shit? You don't need to spend 45 minutes putting Olaplex on your hair every weekend. It's fine, we live, we survive, we make memories, it's okay. Yeah, and I also think that obviously any kind of beauty thing always has this undertone of control and, you know, beauty standards and stuff, but there also was something like as a young girl and even now there's fun in self care.

It's fun to have your friends around and buy a face mask and super drug, put cucumbers on your eyes. Similar to you, Beth, at uni, we were always looking at recipes for face masks because we couldn't afford them. So we'd like find a brown avocado, mash it up with a bit of someone's yogurt, put a bit of honey in there and sort of sit in front of the TV watching Love Island with that on our faces.

It probably gave us spots, but it was more of the ceremony and it actually was always a communal thing. It was like, let's give each other a pedicure. We'd put those little toe dividers, which by the way, one of my favorite tweets of Beth recently was she gave herself a manicure on the beach using the pebbles on the beach as the toe dividers. I just thought that was absolute genius. But

that kind of, there's joy to be had in self-care where actually it's just like a silly funny thing. Like I know those peel off face masks, especially on some super drug, do nothing and probably damage your skin, but God is it really fun to peel one off. So I do like doing them every now and then. And we lose everything as being turned into a chore. So even then, even though that had its own roots in kind of problematic understandings of women's beauty and the amount of time that we have to spend looking after ourselves and pink tacks and all the rest of that, at least we were having fun with it. And at least it was tied in with like community and socializing and probably hot chocolate with some marshmallows.

Now it's this sort of like private in the dark before the kids wake up, a lot of these videos, these women, there's things called oil pulling, which I remember being a big thing before, which they kind of like swill coconut oil, which is absolutely disgusting. But apparently that does actually clean your teeth. I mean, some of these things I am interested to try. I have tried that, I will say.

I did try that for a while. Because it's like an ancient remedy. And I do feel like if it is natural ingredient, I mean, again, this is my own programming. I really liked it. It did, my mouth felt a lot cleaner. I was having problems with, you know, like I've got tooth pain, I've got this, they were pearly whites. I was obviously still brushing my teeth, taking care of them. And so maybe I'm a bit of a sucker, but I think anything like

that, I don't have to go and buy single use products. That's oil, that exists. I'm telling myself that. You should try it. I do love having feeling like my mouth is really clean. So maybe that is one of the things, but it's just the length of time and I don't like watching that. There's one of the videos we shared, there's a woman doing it and it was really upsetting how much oil she put in her mouth. We got a few messages that I thought were really interesting. Matilde said, it's a late capitalist nightmare. The level of pointless consumerism is horrifying. And I definitely agree with that point because we are just constantly being sold to this

idea that there are so many gadgets, potions, lotions, serums, everything that we could be buying to make ourselves beautiful. And this is probably just the most extreme version I've ever seen where it's multiple unnecessary bits tied in together and under one trend. It is so extreme in that way. Like how much money, unnecessary money is being driven towards these things that we do not need. I know the beauty industry is just like a mad place anyway. And we're constantly being advised that, you know, we could wear the sleep mask, we could wear this thing, we could get a moisture surge, this, that and the other. It's just never ending, isn't it? And I feel like at some point we have to just take a look at it and think they're absurd, this trend is absurd, sleeping is

a normal thing. We can't keep getting bought into these concepts that are, I don't know, at this point getting more and more beyond silly. Yeah. And I think it's interesting because my sister always says like, often people ask her about like what products are good and like, does this work? And I will ask her the same and she'll be like, to be honest, really everyone needs quite a simple skin routine.

You probably need specific for your skin, but you don't have to be spending loads of money. But she always caveats that with, if you love buying La Mer for 10 pounds and it brings you joy and you enjoy applying it, do it. If you can afford it, go for it, but you don't need it. I think there's a level of that where it's like, if you're really enjoying something and there's a process to it, which is it brings you calm, there's so many little things that I do which are really superfluous that I don't

necessarily need to do, but I'm like, this makes me feel happy and it does something to me. I think that this doesn't feel joy, it is like, how many more things can I add on? And also literally none of them do anything apart from like the hair curling and maybe like the mouth tape and a few of the other things. All of the creams and stuff they're putting on overnight, it's not doing anything. And also with the aging, I mean, we've done a deep dive on aging, so you can go and listen to that if you haven't yet. But there was, we could probably do eight more deep dives on it. But as you said, Beth, more and more young girls are getting nervous about it. More and more people are getting Botox younger. More and more people are like not living their lives and doing silly things that

I think you're supposed to do in your youth, make mistakes and stay out late and maybe try a cigarette, get a bit drunk, get burned by accident because you're running around in the sun. Those aren't good for your health, but overall, even public health, England says this, that like all of the things that actually cause an individual to be truly sick is normally about not having access to community, not having like economic stability. Someone who lives a really unhealthy life on paper, as in like smokes, smokes, cigarettes, drinks, loads, whatever, might outlive if they have really good community and they're financially stable and they're happy, they feel happy, they have low levels of stress,

will probably outlive someone who does loads of like health things but is extremely stressed, doesn't have a sense of community, doesn't feel like they are happy in themselves. Like there's so many ways where we can cut up health and try and put these metrics on it. When actually it's so much more about like the holistic way that you're living your life. And I think we're really, really losing that. And there just doesn't seem to be any joy in this trend. And we did have a message and I do agree with this, which was said, surely a lot

of this is just click bait, like how can they sleep like that? And it's like we said on the Ashton Hall video, like how much of this is literally just trying to get people to watch the videos and boy, do I watch them. And someone else also said, all I can think about when I see these is that it's like if rich people from medieval times who took baths and stuck leeches on their bodies and did gold leaf masks were transported to 2025 with a TikTok account. I think I agree with all of that. And I think it makes me, I feel very reassured. I think people do have their head screwed on right. I think to go back to what you said Noni about like, one let

people enjoy things but two like all of us actually do do these things. I think it matters the degree to which we engage with them and why we're doing them because I think if you were saying like I'm doing these things because I want to never ever age, I'm frightened of aging, I think I'm a minger if I don't, I'd be like well that is quite different than do you know what I feel like I'm caring for myself doing this and it costs, you know, not very much money, it takes up a fraction of my time. I think, you know, minutes of our day, maybe an hour a week or whatever it is, a fraction of my net worth. Whereas I think if people are doing this each night or doing something quite elaborate each night from a very young

age, it adds up to like a third of your life, especially if you're spending the night wrapped up, spending the night mummified, you know, the ratio of time spent thinking about beauty, engaging in beauty, engaging in worries about aging. It becomes sort of most of your waking life. And I think you cannot, we did not land on the planet to do that. And we got a great message actually from Meg, who said, I hate this trend so much, it's so performative. And she ends them, It's a great message. I think we can post this one on Instagram. She said, when I was 20, I used to go to sleep in my makeup and half hearty take it off with a makeup wipe in the morning. It makes me so sad to think of young women thinking they have stole all this now. It's just bleak. And it made me think, yeah, actually,

it's quite anti-joy. Like I really want to let people enjoy things. I do. I think that's a great message to have, but none of this is happening in a vacuum. Let women enjoy things I think is like for ugly shoes and like, you know, obsession with one direction. It's not about this mass digital performance of being scared of aging and extreme beauty standards, which I think is poison and is amazing for beauty brands,

amazing for advertisers. I want women to enjoy things, but I want the play and the joy and the silliness, the kind of going out, falling asleep in your makeup. Just the way my youth was not misspent for doing things like that, like falling asleep in a huddle with your best friend, you've shared a makeup wipe, you've got one pint glass of tap water for you both to share, you wake up in the mornings and you're too excited to go out and it's summer holidays and go to the park, kick a football around, drink cans, listen to music. You're so excited to do that. You would never dream of having anything that takes away from that. And I think that's the joy that I just want everyone to have access to and not have it robbed off them by big beauty and advertisers essentially. And some of these older women who I do think are sort of charlatans who are, you know, commission paid

TikTok products using that as a way to sell and make money with their commission, and snare young women into this cult of anti-aging beauty, mass control. I think we're all acted on by beauty standards, but I think at least there's fun to be had. And I think if it's your entire night taken up, your entire morning, entire evening, I think something's gone terribly wrong. One thing I also wanted to talk about was the Carrie Bradshaw quote that's used for loads of these videos, which is, maybe you have to let go of who you were to become who you will be. And Allure had a really good point on this. And I think it's true.

It's the equivalence. Yeah, the false equivalence of personal development with physical optimization. This idea that you're becoming a better person because you are in theory, because of these videos, becoming physically more beautiful. And I'm so sure we spoke about this in our beauty deep dive, which you should also listen to. Two parts, very good. But it's this idea that if you are a beautiful person, you are a better person. There's a moral weight put on the fact that you could be a better person by looking more beautiful. And I think that is a really insidious message behind a lot of

these things. And I know it's kind of, I know it's a bit of a wink-wink having that quote behind loads of these videos. I don't think it's super serious, but at the same time, I think, I don't know, I just don't really like that either. I think that message is not new. I think it's something that is promoted through social media. This idea that you're kind of a bad lazy person if you don't try harder, if you don't try to look more beautiful, if you don't put the effort or the work in. So I think that's also a kind of insidious part of this trend that made me feel a bit unsettled.

What did you guys think? Yeah, I agree. And it's kind of making me think it's just actually really sad because there is a part of me that thinks, God, this is ridiculous and I just let it pass by or maybe feel like, God, I hope that these women aren't influencing younger women. But then I really think about the roots of where this has come from and much like the

message you read out about control, Beth, about in a chaotic world, but also control in a world where everyone feels, as you said, Richira, that beauty is something that we owe to the world. Beauty is something that women have to present at any given time for safety, for respects, in order to be successful. And so what it's tapping into is a very actually genuinely real need as a woman to feel like you have the necessary level of prettiness in order to get the privilege of that, which is just those really fundamental basic human rights, like being respected and people liking you. Because our likeability is so much down to how attractive people find us, especially men.

And so I think people are asking this maybe is like, if I do this, this will grant me freedom from that stress. Because as I'm getting older, thankfully, a lot of my insecurities aren't necessarily melting away, but I've just decided to get more used to my face, to just accept this is how I look, that's the shape of my body, that's the way that my nose looks. I've tried tweakments in the past and then I've not had them, but I'm really working towards like, also I think there's another part of it where I'm like, so many people have seen what I look like now. If I suddenly try

to like drastically change it, they'd be like, well, that is a new. So that's weirdly quite comforting. But I think it's actually just really, really sad when you really, really boil it down because it's people desperately seeking an exit from what is a preposterously large pressure put on women from such a young age to be more than just themselves. Whereas men, obviously, as we spoke out with Ashton Hall, that is changing, but men more often than not wake up in the morning, they might have a quick shower, they brush their teeth, they put their clothes on and they leave the house. And I have felt jealousy about that from such a young age and also felt jealous of thinking, God, they look so

good just doing that. And we've just been trained to see that men's natural state with whether it's spotty or wrinkly or aging or whatever it is, is attractive. Whereas women, we're only attractive when we are our best selves. And unless you are one of these gifted by the God's most beautiful women in the eyes of certain societies, beauty standards, then you do have to do all of this work. And so it's sad because I think instead of much like diet culture, trying to fight that and trying to work towards acceptance of how you look, you can feel unhappy and you can make changes if you want.

Everything's up to your own personal choice. Instead of that, we've gone the other way. Like someone said, the devil works hard, but capitalism works harder. We've now just seemingly gone back and we've gone, right, fine, I guess we have to accept this. I guess we do have to stay as young, as hot and as gorgeous as we can. Social media is absolutely part of the problem in this. And in order to do that, we're finding means to get there. And that is just, I guess, really, when you really break it down, just devastating.

The most common kind of counter to this that I've seen is other women saying, wow, we are never making out of the patriarchy. And I think what you said there about, well, this is in its way, it's an attempt to escape one of the pressures of the patriarchy. One of the ways that the patriarchy does seek to other and harm women, which is to call them ugly and then to, quote unquote, like try and deny them the joys of life, the rewards of life because they're not physically attractive. Obviously that is not true, but it is one of the most compelling arguments. It's devastating. It's the idea that even asleep, even unconscious, finally arrest from living in this world at this particular time, we as women are meant to be passively continuing our fight against being ugly. We are kind of meant

to be multitasking, even in that time, to be pretty, to like, to be able to appeal to a hateful world, to be as beautiful as possible in service of a male gaze, which we know is, you know, can be such a hateful gaze at times. And I think I was very tired looking at that. It reminded me again, what we said in our beauty episode, every hour you give to beauty and the pursuit of youth is an hour you don't have for other things. It's an hour you don't have for experiencing living in the world, being at peace, genuinely in some kind of communication with yourself or loved ones that is about something deeper. And I wonder actually about myself, like, when I have handed over 100, 200 quid for Botox thinking, okay, this is it, I'm actually inviting peace in, I'm

keeping hatred at bay. Am I in fact just inviting more in? Because I'm like scared of my future aged face, which is coming, if I'm lucky, it is coming for me. We all get old. However many pills, potions you take, you will get old. You will have an old face. Am I just saying I hate you now and I'm going to hate you later? And my final point actually would be my final point is to say what you said about like, it's like the morning shred for men. To go back to Meg's brilliant message, she wrote, it's the same thing as the morning routine guy. It's competitive. I'm doing more than you nonsense, except actually, I think it's worse. At least the morning routine guys make a pretence of journaling, fitness, reading. There is nothing in the morning shred

except beauty and maintenance, which is so hollow. I think that's an important point actually. What we're seeing as aspirational is it is the taking off and putting on of beauty apparatus. I know his is performative, but it is. He's spending time spiritually by reading, I think it's the Bible. He is spending time journaling. That is the encouragement they're getting. Whereas I think what we're seeing in our kind of how-to guides is pills, potions, here's how you look younger. And I think what kind of example am I setting myself? What kind of example am I being set? And what kind of example are the people being set? It just feels not just a silly trend, it feels like a kind of omen of worse to come and the direction that we're rapidly heading in and just I want

us to sleep man like if there's one thing women deserve it's a good night's rest. I completely agree with you in comparing it to the Ashton Hall video because that's the thing I was thinking about as well. There is just no semblance of self-improvement on an interior scale at all and it reminds me of the substance where it's like this elusive idea that there's a perfect version of you just constantly out of grasp and you're lurching towards it every time you pour more hours into doing all of these things and you feel like you can become her, you can become her, she's just there, she's just there. If I do this one more thing, maybe

if I add these three more things to my basket, if I do this, I don't know, go on a diet, blah, blah, blah. But the whole system is rigged to fail much like diet culture. It's been said so many times that diets put the owners on you for failing when really, you know, they're too low calorie. They just, all the odds are stacked up against you to fail. But the point is because they're built up to make you feel bad, you constantly shame yourself into going back, going back, yo-yo dieting,

all that kind of stuff. And I feel like it's a similar thing here where, because rather than working on any kind of interiority and self-acceptance and radical self-acceptance, like you mentioned, and only you affect this idea that this perfect version of you is just within grasp. So you'll just keep shaming yourself and berating yourself if you mess up. If you one day don't have time to do the shed, if you don't have enough money to put into this new project that apparently

is going to get you the skin that you want. It just feels like rather than getting us to a place of healing, I guess, healing ourselves through the worst of beauty culture and diet culture that we've been forced to live through, it's just putting the owners back on us to blame ourselves, shame ourselves, work harder. We're on a treadmill of just self improvement, but with no kind of end goal in, because it's just impossible to get to that perfect version of you. It doesn't exist. We are the perfect versions of ourselves as long as we're happy and at peace. My last thing to say on this is what I'm noticing as well is the boundaries of who is being targeted in terms of with beauty maintenance has really expanded. It's gotten much, much younger. There are videos of seven-year-olds doing three-step skincare routines, asking for retinol for Christmas.

Also, and this is not a good thing, so I'm not quite sure how to frame this or explain it, but I'll sound it out as I go along. They used to this idea that as women got older or when they got into relationships or maybe when they had children, that they would kind of start to check out from all of that beauty maintenance. That was kind of really only applied to women who were single or who were famous or whatever. And I'm not saying that that rhetoric, this idea of like letting herself go was a good thing, but actually culturally, it was kind of accepted that you were allowed at some point to take a break from that extreme level of maintenance once you found a mate. It was kind of like that was how it was viewed. Now it's

expanded to the point where actually women at every age and people like Chris Jenner spring to mind are still fighting, clamoring to appear as beautiful and as gorgeous. And at some point it's like, when do we just get to be old women? And that idea of like, you know, confidence comes in your fifties, everyone used to talk about that because you finally don't give a fuck. And it seems like more and more older women do give a fuck, are feeling that pressure, are feeling that level of insecurity that we used to ascribe to women in their 20s. And I do think that in your 20s, it's an understandable time to go through

a confidence of crisis. And maybe it's almost like a rite of passage, but at some point, hopefully you get to your 30s, you start to relax a bit more into yourself, you know yourself better. And one thing I will say, like for anyone listening, having been through lots of these things and actually like really struggled with my body image

and disordered eating when I was younger, and then being online, having had comments about calling me ugly and stuff, really struggling with my face and thinking about getting stuff done and then kind of coming out the other side of that. But then going through pockets. When I feel bad is usually when my mental health is bad.

The first thing I do is I attack how I look. When I feel my most beautiful is when I'm just fulfilled in my life, you know, when I'm moving my body regularly, when I'm seeing my friends, when I feel like I'm like on top of my to-do list, when I am trying to look after myself a bit more, it will be nothing to do with how I look. I will just feel gorgeous because I feel like me, myself, and I feel fulfilled in every other area. When I start to feel very unhappy in how I look, when I start degrading myself is when I'm probably feeling a bit lonely, when I'm probably maybe not looking after my health, when I'm in a bad place mentally, that's when it really starts to

when I'm kind of inside myself in a negative way. To quote Jemima Kirk, and actually Chloe Laws did a really good piece on this. The famous Instagram story where she goes, I think you might be thinking about yourself too much. Chloe Laws wrote about really good piece on this. It's a famous Instagram story where she goes, I think you might be thinking about yourself too much. Chloe Laws wrote about this and was like, she's actually got such a good point. Like sometimes we're, and I do this, and actually depression often weirdly is a lot of this. It's sort of just being in your own head, thinking about yourself, narrativizing your own woes and it can become such a trap. And I think thinking about your own beauty, thinking about your own aesthetic can become

this sort of like Russian doll thing that keeps expanding and growing layers and layers and layers to the point where you can't escape it. And actually not thinking about it and finding other areas of your life or other ways to fulfill yourself genuinely just makes you feel more gorgeous. So yeah, I don't know.

That's just, I think that that is a really good way of looking at it. Sometimes to make something better, you don't attack that thing, like look outside of it. And Oni just said, hobbies are hot. Yeah, so true. Thank you so much for listening and for all of your opinions and takes on this topic.

We love being in conversation with you all. Remember to give us a follow on Instagram and TikTok at everythingiscontentpod. And please, please, please give us a follow on Instagram and TikTok at Everything Is Content Pod and please please please give us a review wherever you listen if you haven't already. We'll see you as always on Friday. Bye! This episode is brought to you by London Neutropics. Their delisious adaptogenic coffee is made with premium heaf-festered taro mushroom extracts and designed to help you stay balanced and elevate your day. As a huge procrastinator, I love the Flow blend because it helps me to stay focused without the crash.

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