There's a reason that celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Rihanna and Jessica Alba all have their own beauty lines. Yes, they all have a passion for makeup and want to make all-inclusive products for women around the world, but let's face it... they're mainly doing it for the money. The beauty industry is massive, and it's because so many of us are willing to throw our money at products we convince ourselves we don't want, we need.
I mean, it's kind of crazy to think about the fact that it's more unusual for a woman not to wear makeup. No matter whether you like keeping it light with just a BB cream and a slick of mascara, or a full-face that has been contoured, blended and highlighted to magazine-cover standards, it seems that not many of us are free from the widely-accepted notion that being a woman goes hand-in-hand with wearing makeup.
I mean, think about how much time and money we'd save if it was considered "normal" not to wear makeup, and we could just roll out of bed and head straight to work like most guys do?
Of course, these things are just generalisations - plenty of girls don't care about wearing makeup while more men are getting into it. After all, makeup is there to help us feel our best selves. And there's nothing wrong with that!
But the fact is, we're paying a lot of money on beauty and makeup products. Whether it's cleansers, foundation or eyeshadow palettes, research has uncovered that we're spending alarming amounts of our earnings of beautification products.
Research cited by the Daily Mail claims that women in the UK will spend on average £180,000 ($230,000) on beauty products in their lifetime. What's worse? That's the statistic for how much they won't even use. The report claimed that this sum equates to 5,856 products, meaning we only use about 10 per cent of what we buy.
A separate study from the US claims that American women will spend around $300,000 (£230,000) on their face in their lifetime. The US survey was done by beauty e-tailer SkinStore who interviewed 3,000 participants.
The results also showed that the average woman uses 16 products before they even leave the house - including facewash, toner, primer, foundation, mascara and all the rest. They reported that these 16 steps in the morning take on average around 10 minutes, with a nighttime skincare routine taking about seven.
It doesn't sound like much, and I know plenty of women who spend way longer on their makeup in their mornings with potentially fewer products. Still, if you were to consider that the average woman spends 17 minutes a day on her face, that's 6,205 minutes a year. That's about 103 hours, or nearly 4.5 days spent putting on and taking off makeup. Yikes!
However, we should note that the US survey only had a small sample size of 3,00o participants, and you can hardly say that their behaviour reflects that of the rest of us. I mean, $300,000? You could literally buy a small house by ditching makeup for that much.
As for the UK survey? The Daily Mail never attributed a source for their results. Plus, another study by Groupon conducted last year has much less dramatic results, stating that British women only spend on average £70,000 ($90,000) on beauty products in their lifetime. I say "only", but let's not kid ourselves - it's still a lot!
Maybe we should all think twice before ordering another eye-shadow palette when we're strapped for cash. Evidently, it adds up.
