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.

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BbSOaBuDrdo/?taken-by=badgalriri]]

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!

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/Bky3_donPyf/?taken-by=sephora]]

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.

Anna and Lucy DeCinque are identical twins, but they've gone further than anyone else to live up to that expectation. The 33-year-old sisters from Perth have reportedly spent $250,000 on procedures, including breast implants and lip fillers, all towards the goal of making themselves look as similar as possible.

This has led to get the nickname "the world's most identical twins."

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BojL73MhEvb/]]

The pair once had 14 beauty procedures over a two week period, but now in an interview with New Idea, they've revealed that they're going to reverse various treatments in search of a more natural appearance.

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/Bmli4t2hl7M/]]

“We honestly don’t know why we did all of that stuff to ourselves,” Anna told New Idea. "We regret a lot of things, and if we could go back in time, we would do things a lot differently."

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BpFQ61thRdl/]]

"The more popular we got, the more haters we had, and we were getting called everything from ‘plastic Barbie dolls’ to ‘fish lips.’ We wanted the biggest everything — particularly lips. We loved the look and feel of big lips. Now we realize they were too big.

“They stood out too much and were disproportionate to the rest of our faces. We were trying to follow a trend but we went too far.

“People would also call us plastic, saying we’d overdone it and now we’re admitting, we did.”

Two years ago, the twins lost their jobs working with the elderly at a nursing home and hated how they looked, apparently considering putting an end to it all. “We didn’t like what we’d done to ourselves and it felt like we had a monster in our brains," Anna added. “We thought that people thought we were gross.”

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/Bpr29qTnUK3/]]

Now, doctors prescribed anti-depressants, leading to a major change in attitude for the girls, who now say they are beginning to accept who they were. They've decided to ditch their hair and lash extensions, fillers and tattoed liner leading to a far different look. “We feel like we look 20 years old now,” Anna said.

In addition to this, the twins have attracted more controversy for their personal life - in which they are both dating the same man, Ben, and sharing the same bed.

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BqOfMbAhWvq/]]

"We would like to have babies with Ben," they previously shared in a video, before detailing how they want to get pregnant at the same time:

"Oh my God, just imagine if you got pregnant... and I didn't get pregnant. But imagine if we did get pregnant at the same time. At the end of the day, that's not really a call we can make. And that's when nature comes in I think."

"We know there's a lot of people out there thinking "what the f***" but at the end of the day, it's our bodies, it's our life.

"You've just got to respect our choices. We want to have babies with the same man and we want to get married with the same man."

[[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiZFd50FkiY]]

In this latest interview, they have claimed that they are turning away from facial injections such as botox, and hoping to reverse the microblading on their brows and their tattooed lip liner.

"We've learned from our mistakes," Anna said. “We’re more confident, and happily look people in the eyes now.”

Do you ever think about getting an extreme makeover? Not a new haircut and shiny shoes, but a wholly different, provocative, daring new look?

Most people will fantasise about it at one point or another, but very few actually have the guts to go all the way with it. Jade Lyne, a former contestant on the British TV series "100% Hotter" in 2016, is one of those people. When she first appeared on the show she was praised by the panel of experts for her 'natural' good looks. But now Jade has totally altered her appearance with lip fillers, cosmetic surgery, and fake tan, to transform herself into a 'real-life Barbie.'

Jade has spent her £7,000 ($9,000) inheritance to totally transform her body, and now earns around £1,000 ($1,300) as a fetish model on her own webcam, providing kinky videos to paying followers who send her requests. But it's hard work being a real-life doll; Jade has to apply fake tan every single day, and she takes approximately five hours to do her makeup. However, since she's earning over twice the national average, she doesn't mind so much.

Commenting on her new job in a recent interview, Jade stated:

"I get paid by the minute, so I do have some quiet days, but if you put the time in, it pays well. Obviously, a lot of it is taking off my clothes, but there are also lots of fetishes out there I had no idea about. Men have asked me to pop balloons on webcam, smoke, or show off my feet – this has opened up a whole world of things that people are into ... But lots of other people don’t like it. I’ve been called every name under the sun, but I don’t really care. It’s a job at the end of the day, not a reflection of who I am. When that laptop is on, I’m working, but when it’s off, I’m a normal person just like anybody else."

She added:

"I got my boobs done when I was around 19. It wasn’t purely cosmetic, I had lots of problems with my natural chest. It was asymmetric, and my nipples were inverted. It made me incredibly self-conscious. Nobody ever saw my chest. Even with my boyfriend at the time, I’d always keep my bra on and would stuff it with loads of tissue. I went from an A cup to a G. I haven’t had any other surgery yet, but I’d love the full works if I could."

Jade believes that her new look has had a negative impact on her love life: but now she's lucky enough to be with a new boyfriend who doesn't mind her extreme appearance, and she still gets plenty of attention from strangers online. "I’ll get loads of creepy, explicit messages from men on Facebook, she stated, "but I know they’re only doing it because of what I look like. I just ignore them ... I love being OTT. Whatever the weather, I’ll be glammed up in a dress and heels, because that’s what makes me happy."

I guess the thing to take away from all this is that it's important to be yourself no matter what. After all, there's someone for everyone out there.

A woman who has spent nearly $320,000 on plastic surgery left a TV show shocked when she revealed what she used to look like.

The moment aired on the second series of Olivia Attwood: The Price of Perfection, where Olivia spent six 45-minute episodes diving into everything from weight loss to wild makeovers - and even tried cosmetic treatments herself.

In a jaw-dropping scene, Olivia and her camera crew flipped through a scrapbook showing a woman named Alicia’s pre-surgery photos from about nine years ago, back in 2016 when she was 18.

Though her hair was already platinum blonde, Alicia wore a far more casual look. Olivia reacted with a stunned gasp: “Oh. My. God.”

Curious, Olivia asked: “Do you think this girl had any idea how your life would be and how you'd look?”

Alicia straight-up said no, but added: “To people who really knew me back then, knew what I was like, it wouldn't be a big shock because I've always sort of been quite outgoing and confident and sexual and stuff like that. I just needed to find my niche, you know?”

Alicia hasn’t held back when it comes to surgical investment, undergoing breast implants, lip fillers, and rhinoplasty. Olivia asked if surgical costs ever forced her to skip out on anything in her life. Alicia replied: “There's never been anything I didn't do just because I had my plastic surgery.

"I choose my health and my looks over everything so I spend a lot of money on the stuff I put into my body such as food and that kind of thing. And I spend a lot of money on getting the right kind of filler, the best products.”

When Olivia asked whether Alicia would ever wake up wishing to look like her former self, the answer was emphatic: “No, this is so much fun! I just have such a fun life and I would never want it to change.”

Olivia previously dubbed injectable cosmetics a “national issue.”

Speaking to MailOnline, she said: “There are a lot of people injecting a lot of stuff into themselves and when you actually ask the questions about what's in them, they don't have the answer.

"That highlights a national issue which is really important we put a light on. At worst, these things are dangerous and at best, it's salt and water that you're injecting and you're basically just washing your money down the drain. Either way, people need to be informed about what they are putting in their bodies.”

She referenced Lemon Bottle Fat Dissolving treatments - costing up to £250 - and noted that even professionals often didn’t know their ingredients.

Olivia added: “It was a double-edged sword because I hated the fact [the clinician] couldn't answer the questions because I'm like, ‘We have to tell this story now’, but obviously, it didn't look great.”

Olivia Attwood: The Price of Perfection is available to watch on ITV X.

Featured image credit: ITV X / Olivia Attwood: The Price of Perfection