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Personal Finance For Women

Beauty, Botox, and Bleach: The Hot Girl Hamster Wheel in 2024

July 1, 2024

Culture, Feminism, Spending & Saving


Listen & follow The Money with Katie Show: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

For this week’s Rich Girl Roundup: After a few Rich Gals wrote in looking for an update on our Hot Girl Hamster Wheel episode, we decided to sit down again and talk through how we’ve adapted our routines since seeing through the glossy, Sephora-sponsored matrix. How have we adjusted our own routines and spending over the last two years?

Rich Girl Roundup is Money with Katie’s weekly segment where Katie and her Executive Producer Henah answer your burning money questions. Each month, we’ll put out a call for questions on her Instagram (@moneywithkatie). New episodes every week.

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Our show is a production of Morning Brew and is produced by Henah Velez and Katie Gatti Tassin, with our audio engineering and sound design from Nick Torres. Devin Emery is President of Morning Brew content and additional fact checking comes from Scott Wilson.

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Katie:

I would like to live in a world where women are not pressured to look and feel 25 for their entire lives. I want to live in a world where women can age and look their age and it not be unappealing, unattractive for them not to become invisible over the age of 40 unless they’re injecting themselves. It is so fundamentally unfair the ways in which women are expected to police their appearance, to conform to norms that we just do not expect from other genders.

Katie:

Welcome back Hot Girls and Hot Boys to the Rich Girl Roundup weekly discussion of the Money with Katie Show. As always as I am, Katie Gatti Tassin, your host, and every Monday, Henah and I are going to use the segment to talk through your questions, your interesting money stories, your feedback, and more. Here’s a quick message from our sponsors.

Okay, Henah, how are we doing today? What are we talking about?

Henah:

I’m good. This week’s question came from several of you. So shout out to Rich Girls Carly, Catherine, a couple other ones. Basically the gist was “We need Hot Girl Hamster Wheel updates, any cheap go-to ideas now that we’re off the hamster wheel. Can we talk skincare, makeup, hair stuff, capsule wardrobes? What would you do differently?”

And so first, I guess we should provide some context as to what they’re referring to, but I will say that that original episode was so enlightening for me because I’d never been someone that spent a lot of money on that stuff because I didn’t make that much. But now I have always thought two or three times about never going down that road again after hearing what you had to say.

Katie:

Yeah. Man. Okay, so refresher, right? Hot Girl Hamster Wheel. The easiest way to describe it is that it’s the way that every dollar you spend in the beauty world, beauty being a very broad term here, functions like a commitment to spend more in the future because each and every treatment, service item, et cetera, must be maintained. Your body is going to naturally reject it.

And so the original episode, we had a fantastic writer join us, Jessica DeFino. She’s just brilliant. We will link it in the show notes. I definitely recommend listening to it if you’ve never it before, but I appreciate the fact that we’re being given this outlet to talk about it again, because I am always down to talk about the Hot Girl Hamster Wheel and modern femininity and womanhood and the lovely expectations therein.

Henah:

Well, I think what we can do is start with maybe what our routines were before and where they are now. And so mine from 2013, basically until the pandemic is: a haircut once every couple of months, which really looks like twice a year, nails because mine grow like weeds and kind of the only thing that feels necessary for my body, brow threading because your girl’s hairy, and maybe some daily makeup if I was going to work at the time. But in the pandemic, I basically nixed all my daily makeup, and so haircut and nails were the same thing. So I have a very simplified routine today, but I’ve actually spending more than when that episode came out. So I want to talk about that, but what was your routine? I know you used to do the whole shebang.

Katie:

Whole shebang, Barbie status was the goal. I wanted to look as much like a blowup doll as possible. So my old routine was, yes, 2013, give or take to around 2019, cut and color. So every couple months I would be getting my hair cut, but also highlighted…

Henah:

And that’s what like $200 a pop?

Katie:

Minimum. Nails. So every two weeks I was getting manicures and pedicures.

Henah:

Two weeks?

Katie:

Yeah, give or take. Maybe I’d stretch it to three, but yeah, it was twice a month.

Henah:

Oh, I go every four to five weeks. I don’t even care. You could see the growth on here already and I just don’t care.

Katie:

Yeah, yeah. We’ll talk about that. Yeah, Henah, we can see the growth. Most kidding.

Henah:

It’s actually unprofessional, Henah. Go get that fixed.

Katie:

Yeah, we know. What if I just became so bitchy in this episode?

Henah:

Became?

Katie:

Oh, all right. Okay. Tans like spray tanning or at home tanning, while you said your girl’s hairy, your girl is pale. You girl is pale. We know, we can see. Eyelashes. I had eyelash extensions, not for the entirety of 2013 to 2019. That was a year that I had eyelash extensions during the big craze in 2017, I think it was. And pretty expensive makeup. I bought expensive makeup and it was makeup and skincare was one of those things that I was just constantly feeling compelled to try new products and be on the search for the holy grail. So it wasn’t just what I was using day to day, it was also the constant acquisition and trial and experimentation with things that kept me always on the lookout and on the hunt for what is the product that’s going to fix my life.

Henah:

Oh my God. Did you have that? What was that one eyeshadow palette that everybody had?

Katie:

The Urban Decay Naked Palette.

Henah:

Yeah. And they still have it. And do you see the reels about the jokes about using them today?

Katie:

No, because they’re what, 8 years old now? 10 years old?

Henah:

Literally 12 years old. My college roommate had one. And I saw a reel that was like when I used my Urban Decay Palette in 2024, and they put some eyeshadow on, and then the next scene is they turn into, what are they called? The fish in the water in the Hudson, what is it called? Radioactive. Radioactive. They basically become radioactive.

Katie:

I was like, what is the next shot? Their eye like puffy and red, just inflamed and bleeding.

Henah:

The girlies could not let that one go. I understand why, but…

Katie:

The Naked Palette, oh my gosh.

Henah:

When you added this up before, I think it was like $400 or $500 a month, is that right?

Katie:

It was between $300 and $400 a month on average for all of that. And I go into more depth in the episode itself about the math and what that meant, and at the time, what that represented of my take home pay. But the long and short of it was I could not afford it.

And so my cold turkey routine was I would say roughly 2020 ish, maybe 2019 through around 2022, which was basically none of it beyond haircuts. And I would get the occasional balayage because my highlights had grown out so much, and so I wanted them to blend the roots with the grown out highlights.

Henah:

Well, that’s your point about it becomes an ongoing commitment that you now have to do because you did it the one time.

Katie:

Yes. And then it grew out so much, and I would see myself in the mirror with brown hair and be like, ah, it’s hideous. Which brings me to 2022 onward, which is like, we’re blonde again. Surprise.

Henah:

I truly forget that you’re not actually blonde. I think about this all the time. This is my Roman empire, actually.

Katie:

Well, my natural hair color is the color of my eyebrows and the color of the inch of hair that you can see, it’s not that color.

Henah:

But I mean, I’ve always just known you as blonde.

Katie:

As blonde. Yeah.

Henah:

So that was before. Okay, so I have my routine today, but I’ll talk about that. What is your routine today?

Katie:

Cut and color. I am really though thinking about making a change. I am thinking about really trying to embrace the natural hair color and get them to dye it, the natural color one last time. You know what I mean? And then letting it be the natural color.

But I really have a hang-up about it, and I think I kind of talk about this in the episode. This is also the first chapter in the book is the Hot Girl Hamster Wheel. So yeah, I just have a hangup. It’s one of those things where I just feel like I look better blonde. I know. The reason that I think that is because I was raised on a study pop culture diet of Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, all these thin blonde white women that I equate being blonde with being pretty, I look at myself naturally and I’m like, not pretty.

Henah:

Oh my God, stop.

Katie:

I need the blonde.

Henah:

I wonder if you bought a wig of your natural hair color and tried that for a week and just…

Katie:

Kind of got used to it.

Henah:

Yeah. Just to see how you’d feel about it before you actually do it.

Katie:

Yeah. Well, the other thing is most people look better with their natural hair color because for whatever reason, the colors that are appearing on your body, skin, eyes and hair that naturally go together tend to look better than when you’re artificially changing one or some of them.

Henah:

She’s an evolutionary biologist, everybody. Yeah.

Katie:

The second time that we’re talking about eugenics and this, no, I’m just kidding.

Henah:

I would be very curious. Would you stop doing cut and color, and just kind of ride out the cut?

Katie:

I still get haircuts. I feel like that’s just in the episode, Jessica talks about what are you doing for function versus performance? And she mentioned sunscreen. That’s functional. That’s not like an aesthetic choice in the same way that wearing foundation is an aesthetic choice. To me, haircuts fall under that realm too. Haircuts, they are aesthetic, but they’re also just kind of taking care of your body thing.

Henah:

Well, I ask because, and I’ve talked to you about this at my wit’s end, I have to wash my hair every day. If I go a second day, I mean, it could be up, but I cannot have it down. And I genuinely consider shaving my head all the time just to…

Katie:

Oof.

Henah:

Not deal with it. I’d wear a wig. I have too much caught up in my self-image being in my hair. I was curious if you ever felt the same way of just overwhelmed from your hair and being like, I don’t want to deal with it anymore.

Katie:

I think I get bored with it a lot where I’m just like, ah, it’s just not doing anything for me. But I do have a friend that shaved her head during the pandemic, she’d really curly hair, and she shaved it and bleached it, and it was a really cool experience for her. She said that she also had a lot of worthiness and beauty, myth and femininity tied up in her hair. And she said that when she shaved it, she felt like liberated in a way that she wasn’t expecting, and she wore it buzzed for a while. Now it’s short and curly, but that’s interesting. I didn’t know you were considering doing that. That’s kind of fun.

Henah:

I don’t think I would ever actually do it, but I think the overwhelm of having to wash and dry and style your hair every single day just gets to a point where I’m like, bro, can I just shave it and wear a wig?

Katie:

I have no idea how I used to do that. I probably style my hair, blow dry it and do something with it once a quarter. It is wet and then air dryer in a clip.

Henah:

I can’t let it air dry. Once I wash my hair, I have to blow dry it. It is just a whole thing.

Katie:

Why do you have to blow dry it?

Henah:

Because otherwise I’ll get se dermatitis or whatever on your scalp and air drying. It is really bad for that. Oh gosh. It just creates more room for the bacteria or whatever to grow.

Katie:

Oh gosh.

Henah:

It’s a long story. I didn’t have this problem when I grew up. And then once we started moving to states with different hard water, soft water, it became a whole thing.

But my whole life, I’ve never been able to go more than a day without washing my hair. And I tried for four years basically from the pandemic to now to go two days and it still wasn’t working. And then I eventually found an article that said, that’s not a real thing, so you could just not feel bad if it doesn’t work for you. And I was like, great. Now when you see me with my hair up, it’s usually because I haven’t washed it in a day. But otherwise, I don’t go out in public with my hair up. I don’t feel confident in that. Which relates to why my current beauty routine is actually the most expensive it’s ever been.

Which I actually went back through my Copilot, to see what my spending was for beauty and personal care outside of the thing that I’m doing now. It’s actually been completely level. The numbers have been pretty much always the same. But I did start a new expensive beauty thing, which is electrolysis, and that essentially means I got laser hair removal on my face. It did not work. It made things a lot worse. And so I’ve always had kind of issues with just facial hair. I have PCOS, so that’s really common, blah, blah, blah.

And so eventually I really wanted to do electrolysis, but it’s just very expensive. And so if you’ve listened to the previous Rich Girl Roundup where we talk about our “Fun Fund,” I’m using our “Fun Fund,” my share of it towards this electrolysis, but it’s $140 per hour and you could do half an hour for $90, but it just makes sense to do the hour for $140. So it’s very painful and horrible, but it is making a difference. And so that is kind of my most expensive thing that I’m doing.

Katie:

It also sounds like relatively invasive. What is it?

Henah:

So you have to let your hair on your face grow out, and then they take this little needle and a laser like electrical current, and they take the hair with a tweezer and then they zap it so that it kills the follicle inside of your face. But because women have hormonal cycles, it takes many cycles to get to that point where it’s fully gone. And so that’s why I have to keep going in, but it’s also really painful. And so I’ve been wearing lidocaine. My electrologist was like, buy that thing for hemorrhoids and just slather it all over your face before your sessions. And so I’ve been doing that and it helps a lot, but it’s also like each individual follicle if my face is being burned out and it really does hurt and it’s not fun, but it is working.

Katie:

This reminds me though of, okay, to me, the Hot Girl Hamster Wheel and beauty norms are a classic example of an area of life that is systemic and culturally pervasive, and yet can be influenced by individual choice.

So my guess is you feel as women, you shouldn’t have hair on your face because the other women who naturally have hair on their faces also remove it because there’s an agreed upon thing that, well, women shouldn’t have hair there. Same with shaving your legs, shaving your underarms. Women are supposed to have the appearance of hairlessness little children, which is creepy, and we’re not going to get into that.

But Jessica kind of brought that up about the more people that opt out of upholding a beauty standard, the less power that standard has, which is generally speaking better for everybody, which is where we see, I mean, injectables are social contagion at this point.

There was an interesting finding from some plastic surgery statistic that found a increase of nearly 20% in the last couple years of minimally invasive cosmetic procedures. So I’m thinking we’re talking maybe things like that, but Botox filler, things that are like, you’re not going under the knife. You’re not getting plastic surgery technically, but these things are expensive. These things are relatively invasive. These things can be painful.

And I do think that while to your point when we’re talking about electrolysis or we’re talking about Botox or we’re talking about fillers, these are not things that you’re going to look at any individual person and shame them for participating in it because ultimately it’s like that broader question of choice in a system and where are you going to shun participation and maybe disadvantage yourself in order to make a statement about a vote for the world you want to live in.

I would like to live in a world where women are not pressured to look and feel 25 for their entire lives. I want to live in a world where women can age and look their age and it not be unappealing, unattractive for them not to become invisible over the age of 40 unless they’re injecting themselves with stuff. So I at 29 have still, not at the old age of 29, have still not gotten Botox or filler or any of that, but it’s hard.

It is hard because there are so many women that I see that have it that I look at my face in the mirror and I go, you got wrinkles, you got some wrinkles. And I would like there not to be wrinkles, but obviously you can tell I get animated about this. And I feel strongly about it just because I think that it is so fundamentally unfair the ways in which women are expected to police their appearance, to conform to norms that we just do not expect from other genders.

Henah:

Oh, a hundred percent. I think at first when you were talking, I was like, oh, she’s attacking me for getting electrolysis. And I realized that’s not what you’re doing. But I do think when I was growing up, people would make fun of me for having sideburns or they would call me a gorilla or they’d call me an ewok or they were really, really mean.

Katie:

These are very creative specific insults.

Henah:

Thank you. An Ewok. Yeah, a wookie. That’s what they were called.

Katie:

That’s horrible.

Henah:

I just got made fun of a lot for having a lot of hair. So obviously, yeah, that stays with you. But also because I didn’t really have that much hair before I got laser hair removal and it made it worse, that really ruined my self-confidence to ever go outside with my hair behind my ears, to even wear my hair up to do any of these things.

Katie:

It’s like what Caroline said in the conversation that we had with her, and I think Jessica said the same thing. Yeah, it makes rational sense that you’re going to participate in these things. Your life will be better if you do. People will treat you better. Yeah, you’re going to get paid more. People are going to be nicer to you. You’re going to be treated with more respect.

Henah:

But even outside of that, this was so much for my own, it was not for the affirmation of other people to be like, wow, she doesn’t have hair on her face. I don’t care if I have hair on my face to that extent, but to me, it mattered to me. So that’s why I did it.

Katie:

But I think it mattered to you because other people made you feel bad about it. You didn’t come out of the womb feeling insecure about you or natural.

Henah:

That’s true. I mean, yes, my parents, my mom and my grandma spent apparently a lot of time using towels after baths to try to rub the hair out of my arms. It was a very big piece of shame, horrible, essentially, that I grew up with.

Katie:

That’s terrible.

Henah:

And I don’t blame my mom or anybody, please don’t go after my mom. But I just think that it’s a very common critique, especially because everyone I grew up with was European or white passing essentially, and they hadn’t really seen people with hair. And so it was very much like a, whoa, why are you hairy? Anyways, to your point, yes, it is very culturally…

Katie:

I mean, I get it. I also, for the record, would like to live in a world where women don’t have to shave their underarms or their legs, but I do not have the courage to not shave. But you know who does? Florence Given. There is a woman that I follow online who has pink hair, doesn’t wear makeup, is so confident, so comfortable with herself. And I noticed in a video the other day, she has hairy legs, she has hairy underarms, and there was a little piece of me that went, maybe if she can do it, I can do it.

Henah:

You totally could.

Katie:

And I think that’s where the individual power of, same with my friends. My closest friends don’t wear makeup. They just don’t really seem concerned about their appearance in that way. They don’t really wear makeup, they don’t get Botox. They’re very embracing of natural aging and just what they really look like. And when I hang out with them, I really feel more confident because I don’t feel as though I am the odd man out for not partaking in those things.

Although again, it is so easy to lose that because you are being constantly pelted with messages that tell you you should look a certain way. And so you have to really work hard to fortify the belief system that you, or to make that vote for the world you want to live in of like, well, I don’t want to live in a world where women are expected to uphold these standards. But it is hard. It really is.

Henah:

It also reminds me someone I got lunch with. I’m very open about being anti-diet culture. I’m very open about setting boundaries, about talking about losing weight. And it was lunch with somebody I didn’t really know very well. And they were talking about how some joke about how they’ll eat something so someone else doesn’t have to and have the additional calories. And I was talking to my nutritionist in that time. I realized I have fortified my own social group to be so anti-diet culture, that being out in the world with someone I didn’t really know and hearing that messaging just made me feel shitty again.

And so I was talking to her and my nutritionist, she’s just kind of like, well, you’ve done a really, really good job of setting boundaries with people that you’re close with where that’s not the thing that you think about 24/7. But then when you go out in the real world, the real world isn’t like that. And I think it’s the same way with how people really got comfortable with themselves in the pandemic and then realized once they had to go back out in the world, that they were being judged at exactly how their makeup was done, exactly how they dressed for work that day.

Katie:

On a hopeful note though, on that point, my friend that shaved her head, we were talking about it when I cut my hair, I used to have very long hair and I cut it above my chin and it is now growing out again. But I told her I was really nervous to cut it. I was like, I don’t know, I just feel really attached to having long blonde hair. I feel like it’s just this very, it’s like armor that again really adheres to conventional attractive standards for what a woman should look like. So when I cut it, it kind of felt like I was being like, no, I don’t need it. I’m not going to have a hairstyle. I don’t even, because I think that it’s what I should look like or what makes me attractive.

And she was like, I just want to let you know that she’s single. She was like, when I shaved my head, I have never gotten so much attention from men because I was so confident. She was like, it’s all energy. She was like, you should not overthink. I got way more attention when I cut my hair short. I felt like me and I was acting like me. And that was not that anyone should shape their choices about their aesthetic preferences to what is the opposite sex going to find most appealing?

But it was kind of nice, and it’s something that I think about a lot of like, oh yeah, human beings, if your core concern is being attractive to other human beings, human beings are attracted to confidence and we are playing up the quote risk that you’re taking by getting off the hot girl hamster wheel and acknowledging that pretty privilege is a thing. And yet I think it is very gratifying to remember that choosing to not participate in conventional beauty standards does not mean that you are definitionally condemning yourself to a life of rejection and being a hermit because no one will ever deign to look at you unless you have a spray tan. That’s not true.

So I do think that that’s worth saying explicitly, and I am often comforted by that whenever I’m like, I want to dye my hair pink, but what if the boys don’t like it? My husband’s like, what?

Henah:

Actually, my husband has really inspired me to experiment more because he’s been getting different glasses. He’s been trying different jewelry, he’s been trying different outfits.

Katie:

That’s amazing.

Henah:

Jumpsuits. And I’m like, I should try that more.

Katie:

He’s expressing himself in fun ways.

Henah:

And I’m like, so I really don’t like shopping. It stresses me out. I like to be Mark Zuckerberg where things are just the same every day. And sometimes that makes me feel less than when I’m out in the world and I’m not dressed as nicely. And then I’ll be like, oh, I have to go shop for stuff and then I will try to find stuff as a curvy person and I just give up and it’s kind of this cycle. But he has, I’m wearing different glasses today.

Katie:

The glasses are working for you. I like them. They’re quite bold.

Henah:

Thank you. Thanks. It’s just encouraging me to express myself in ways that I would not have considered before. And so to your point about the confidence of just trying, I think if I had shown up when you first mentioned my glasses and been like, “thanks, they’re really nice.” That gives off different confidence in me being like, “oh my God, thank you so much. I’m trying something new. I dunno if it’s working” and you were like, “it is working, it’s fine.” I do want to talk about the products that they asked for glow up recommendations that are affordable. So I do have five holy grails.

Katie:

Oh, okay. I have a few products that I really like as well that I’ll recommend.

Henah:

I spent many years doing product reviews, so I have reviewed hundreds and hundreds of products, and I think you’ve also said this, but most of the skincare ones are fake. I’ll just throw that out there. So the ones that I swear by are the ILIA tinted lip balm. If you are ever a person who’s in the Morning Brew Slack in the Tea Room,I literally recommend this once a week in there. I like Biossance’s skincare, their vitamin C oil is really good, Cerave because I’m a cheap bitch and it works, Briogeo for hair because I have that weird scalp, fine hair oily system thing ,and OEA body oil. That is a God tier product. And obviously sunscreen, but what are yours?

Katie:

So I was going to recommend for my fake blondes out there now that I’ve just made my diatribe against why I’m not going to dye my hair blonde anymore. Here’s how I keep it blonde. The L’Oreal EverPure line, I use the purple one. I really like these. They’re very inexpensive drugstore products that I find work really, really well. I like their shampoo and conditioner more than I liked, which made my hair fall out. Olaplex is very expensive and my hair did fall out.

Henah:

Oh my God. In clumps?

Katie:

Yeah, pretty much. There’s a lawsuit, an ongoing lawsuit with Olaplex right now for that reason.

Henah:

One time a hairdresser told me to buy Olaplex, and then I looked it up and there was thousands of women being like, oh, my hair also felt, oh my God.

Katie:

I don’t know if it’s a keratin thing, there’s too much keratin or it’s putting too much protein in your hair. But yeah, mine fell out. That was not fun. I also tried Oribe products, very expensive shampoo and conditioner that left me very oily. There are some things in life where if you pay more for something, you’re going to get a better product. I have not found that to be the case with hair products.

For me personally, I really do like the L’Oreal EverPure line and would recommend it. I only use shampoo and conditioner. I kind of mentioned earlier, I don’t really heat treat my hair, I just let it air dry, so I’m not really using post-show product, which is nice. I prefer it that way. But there’s that.

I also like my holy grail moisturizer is the Embryolisse moisturizer. It’s like a French pharmacy brand. I think it’s like 30 bucks, which is pretty expensive for a moisturizer, but I think it has shea butter in it and it just works. It moisturizes really nicely. It’s a good base if you are going to wear it under makeup. I get the unscented sensitive skin version. I’m pretty red and can get blotchy if I have fragrance and other things on my face. It doesn’t get sticky, it doesn’t get greasy. It’s just a really good moisturizer. It’s like the only moisturizer that I’ve actually consistently stuck with. I’ve used it for years and anytime that I’ve run out and used my husband’s Cerave moisturizer, I do notice a difference in how moisturized my skin feels. The moisturizer from Cerave is thinner than this one, so it is kind of thick. If you are really, really oily or you don’t like a strong moisturizer, it might not be for you, but I would definitely recommend that. And then oil cleansers.

Henah:

You were doing a Manuka honey there for a little bit, right?

Katie:

Not for moisturizer.

Henah:

No, for cleansing.

Katie:

Cleanse. Yes. And then when that ran out, I used the end of my jojoba oil, which I really did like, and then I ended up getting another oil cleanser from a brand called Paula’s Choice. It used like a sunflower oil. I ran out of that and ended up replacing it with a Burt’s Bees oil cleanser. But yes, I am big fan of oil cleansers. I don’t know why they don’t dry me out for whatever reason.

Henah:

Do you do that double cleanse thing or?

Katie:

No, just oil. And I guess if I have makeup on, I will use those reusable, what are they called? They’re like reusable cloth, terry cloth material. So you don’t have to buy makeup remover, you just use the, you get it wet, you wipe your makeup off, you throw it in the wash, and then you can wash your face.

And to your point about skincare, yeah, I don’t really use any other skincare because I am of the mind that it doesn’t really do anything. Like the periods of my life where I’ve bought expensive serums and creams and the incremental, maybe it does a little bit, but the incremental gain of the product is so marginal for the amount of time, effort, and money required to uphold a long routine, and so I totally get why some people do it because they enjoy it. I think some people really enjoy the ritual of skincare, and so it’s a bigger thing to them. It’s purely functional for me, and I feel like the cleanser and oil cleanser, regular moisturizer gets me 80% of the results, so I just leave it at that.

Henah:

I’ve tried all the things and I’ve just realized I’m just going to go to the dermatologist because they will figure it out and have a solution way faster and more cost effective than me trying all the different products.

Katie:

Being at Sephora buying seven different products.

Henah:

And I was on Spironolactone for two years and my skin was perfect, and I was like, it costs $10 a month. And yes, some people don’t like that. Obviously you’re not supposed to take that if you’re trying to conceive whatever, but didn’t know that. I do think that sometimes it is more helpful to go to a dermatologist and just pay the copay and get real answers than to try to mine whatever you can off Amazon reviews.

Katie:

Totally. Yeah. Everyone’s skin is different. That’s why I kind of hesitated to give actual recommendations or product stuff because just because it works for me doesn’t mean it’s going to work for the person listening to this.

Henah:

Well, we have affiliate links if you want to try them.

Katie:

No, we do not have affiliate links. She is kidding.

Henah:

Kidding. We don’t actually. Okay. Capsule wardrobe. I actually do have a capsule wardrobe for just my basics, but I know that you also went on a one day shopping spree or something at Madewell, I want to say a couple years ago. How has that gone? Are you still doing the capsule thing?

Katie:

Yes and no. I say yes I am because I haven’t really bought much else, so it’s not like I’m like, ah, I tried it and now I have an exploded wardrobe of stuff. Again, it’s not really that. The challenge is that I don’t leave the house that often.

Henah:

Same.

Katie:

So I don’t really need nice clothes or a full wardrobe, if you will. But I think that where I’ve landed on this is that in retrospect, probably wouldn’t try to do it all on the same day. I was a little excited, and so I was really limited to what was in the store that day. I think I would probably—

Henah:

Did you give yourself a budget? You were like, oh, I’m spending a thousand dollars and whatever.

Katie:

I think I wanted to spend under a thousand. Okay. I think it ended up being like $800, but I’d probably only buy the basics, like true basics white T-shirt, plain jeans, like a button down. I think there were things at the time, I was a little bit in my Christian girl autumn phase still, and so there was a little more plaid and a little, there was some pieces. It was like a hat girl moment, the OG Instagram followers. Remember my hat phase? My hat phase was necessarily limited by the fact that the circumference of my head is enormous. And so all of the hats that are in those trendy little boutiques would just sit on the surface of my head. Nothing fits me. So…

Henah:

I don’t remember your head being that big. Is it true?

Katie:

Henah, my head is giant. It is size extra large.

Henah:

Oh. Okay. Jovanni’s head is huge.

Katie:

My head is huge. I bet you our heads are the same. I will measure my head and send it to you.

Henah:

Thank you. He gets sized out because when you go to Warby Parker and you get to pick your frames, they don’t ever have enough wide selections for him in stores.

Katie:

I know my head is bigger than Thomas’s hats that fit him don’t fit me, and he is six feet tall. Wow.

But yeah, I probably would only buy the basics. And here’s the thing. Conceptually I’m totally on board with fast fashion is terrible. You should not support it. I love the idea of investing in really valuable quality pieces that you’re going to wear for a long time. However, my challenge is that my style, I feel like changes year to year. So something that I really love and might be willing to spend hundreds of dollars on because it’s going to last a really long time is something that in a couple of years from now, I’m probably not going to really like. And so that’s why I say I probably would’ve focused a capsule wardrobe more on pure basics, things that you’re never going to get sick of. And then for statement things or I don’t know, things that are a little more out there and more like, oh, the style that I’m into right now probably would stick to more like a Rent the Runway.

Henah:

That was mine, too.

Katie:

Experiment with it. And then if you are obsessed with it and you really want to keep it, you can buy it and keep it. But I have never bought anything from Rent the Runway. I’ve just, sometimes I will actually rent the same thing again if I want to wear it again. But I know that people have mixed emotions about the rental clothing companies, but I personally have found them to be fantastic.

Henah:

Well, I think sometimes I find them frustrating because I am curvy, so whatever size they tell me in one brand will be different than another brand. It is really hard for me sometimes, but when we were getting ready to go to Italy, I was like, I’m going to buy new clothes. And then I started opening up all these taps of all the different stores and blah, blah, and I just got so overwhelmed and after a couple of days I was like, screw it. I’m just going to do Rent the Runway. And I ended up doing the one month membership where it’s like a hundred dollars, but you get five pieces.

Katie:

That’s what I did for Paris.

Henah:

I got four dresses and a top, and it made me feel cute in Italy, although I wasn’t in a ton of photos or something to prove that I had cute stuff on.

Katie:

But you knew you were cute.

Henah:

But I knew I was cute.

Katie:

And that’s what matters.

Henah:

Cuter than normal. I am quite cute. I’m baby, and that I wasn’t spending a bazillion dollars on stuff I was not going to wear often. To your point, I also don’t leave the house that much, which is kind of where I’m at now, where I do need a refresh in my closet desperately. So I was contemplating working with a stylist. Tara’s stylist actually. We were talking a little bit. She also understands curvy bodies and she has wardrobe styling options. But since I work from home and hasn’t been an urgent…

Katie:

Totally

Henah:

“Fun Fund” thing for me to do.

Katie:

Yeah, you’re not going to prioritize it if; the thing is, I wish I enjoyed, speaking of Florence Given, I love her videos. She always wears the most eccentric crazy outfits and always is dressing for the mood she’s in. And then there’s me who has the same Lululemon align tank top in literally 12 colors because it’s basically, I wear the same tank top and leggings and sweatshirt pretty much daily. So it’s like there’s really not a reason for me to invest a bunch of money in clothes at this phase in my life.

Henah:

I have an interesting money story that I think is going to tee us up to a really interesting, well, we’re actually covering it on the show. It’s about spending dysmorphia. And this one person wrote in, and I should clarify that the story itself is interesting, but I am not judging the person they’re referring to is choices. I just think it makes for an interesting conversation.

This is somebody named Kate. They said, I recently traveled with someone who’s a young lawyer. She lives in a house, her parents own and splits any other expenses with her fiance. So she’s able to spend a large portion of her income on travel, food, clothes experience, and spending that much time with someone with that much expendable income is giving me spending dysmorphia. But it was a good perspective on how even moderate generational wealth can unlock a slew of Instagram or the expendable income experiences.

She talks a little bit about what their spending habits are like, and I followed up and I said, okay, so what kind of purchases are you seeing? What was giving you that spending dysmorphia? And she said, a business class plane ticket, a hundred dollars on an entree for most of our meals. Uber’s everywhere. We were in New York City, and I expected to take a mix of Ubers in the train and every single ride she said, we have to take Uber. I’m seven years older than her. And so I thought, and this is the person writing this, they said, I’m seven years older than her. So part of me was like, am I just an old millennial who has lost touch with what things cost? Well, I’ve been busy, or is this not normal spending is paying for daycare, making me cheap, and…

Katie:

Which if it were, valid.

Henah:

A hundred percent. But she said, my favorite. This one made me laugh because I thought of you. She said, my favorite purchase that she didn’t like getting shade [for]. So I guess she bought this, then her fiance made fun of her, was a custom Taylor Swift American Girl doll. My Swiftymillennial heart wants one too, but not enough to drop hundred dollars on it. And so.

Katie:

I’m like, sorry, I have to end this episode. I just learned there’s a custom Taylor Swift American Girl doll, and I’m suddenly busy. I have a conflict.

Henah:

She said, sorry, I have to log off. But I asked her, I said, so do you know how much she makes if you are in this scenario and how much you make? Do you know how much she makes? And this was the thing that really surprised me. She said, $125,000.

And not that that’s not nothing. That’s obviously a high income. But I also found it interesting that this person was buying $100+  entrees for everything, buying business class seeds, buying these things. I know you’re not paying rent, but that stuff does also really add up. And after taxes, I would just be surprised that you’re able to pull off Uber everywhere you’re able to spend that much eating out or whatever.

Katie:

What is that after taxes? Like $7,000 a month?

Henah:

Damn. I don’t know. That was fast math you just did, maybe eight.

Katie:

Well, I’m just thinking a hundred and I’m… rounded down. $120K is $10,000 a month, and I’m assuming roughly 30% is probably taxes.

Henah:

Yeah, $7k or $8k.

Katie:

I don’t know. You know what? If you’re not paying rent, $7,000 or $8,000 is a lot of discretionary income. I think if you are getting your needs met, and that is truly just your fun money.

Henah:

Yeah, that’s

Katie:

A shit ton of fun money. You can do a lot of stuff.

Henah:

I think part of this is she said that this friend of hers also has a sizable inheritance, which she fully understands how to shield, but is expecting to get it at some point. So I think part of this is, I don’t know how aggressive she’s also saving for herself on the side. I think she is spending.

But it did make me remember quite a few experiences where I had spending dysmorphia and I was like, oh my God, is it me? I went with my best friend shopping once, and this was when she was making probably what I make now, but back in 2017, and I was making $50,000 a year.

Katie:

So things also cost 25% less than they do now.

Henah:

But she spent a thousand dollars on a pants suit, but she didn’t think twice about it. And I remember being like, a thousand dollars is my entire paycheck at $50k or whatever it was. And it definitely set me down a spiral for years. And so I understand where Kate is coming from with how that must make her feel some type of way to be around that kind of wealth. Also, this person’s substantially younger than her, so I don’t know.

Katie:

It’s very easy to lose perspective. I think when you are constantly surrounded, you really only have your comparison set. I guess my takeaway from this episode, everything we’ve talked about so far, we’ve had a really wide ranging conversation, but to tie it into a bow, I think my takeaway is should be very intentional about the people that you’re spending your time with and who you’re allowing to influence your perspective. Because the media is one thing. The cultural content that you’re consuming is one thing, but the actual human beings that you’re spending your physical time with are going to have a huge impact on what you think is normal, A normal way to look, a normal way to spend.

Henah:

A hundred percent

Katie:

Whether you should you have hair under your arms or not. These are all things that you social group is going to influence. And so I think that actually this is a perfect, I’m sure you did this intentionally, but this is a perfect money story for this topic because it gets at that same underlying discomfort and tension that we feel as humans, which is like, how do we make choices that are true to us and that our really, truly good for us when the manufactured set of options we’re choosing between sometimes makes it, you’re like in a fun house mirror. It’s sometimes easy to forget that. Like, oh yeah, I don’t have to choose that or, yeah, that’s not normal.

I mean, you’re in a very privileged position. We’ll say if you have $7,000 to $8,000 a month of discretionary income that you can spend freely without concern either because someone else is paying for your life or you have an inheritance. Or to your point about not judging that person, same. I mean this earnest, that’s great for them. I’m happy that they don’t have that struggle, but if you do have a normal life and you’re around that, it’s very easy to forget that. Yeah, exactly. That is the total exception to the rule.

Henah:

Well, it reminds me of that quote. You are the five people you spend the most amount of time with, and thankfully for me, that’s like you and my husband and three other people. So I have a very grounded sense, I think, of how I spend and how I save and all of that. But the second I’m with people who make two or three times what we do, I always feel less than, even though historically speaking, my husband and I are doing pretty well for ourselves. And so yeah, I think that that makes total sense.

Katie:

Well, and also to be fair, not just compared to your past selves, but compared to the aggregate population, you guys are doing great.

Henah:

But that’s what I’m saying. I’ll message you and I’ll be like, oh my God, look at all this progress that we made, and then I’ll turn around and have dinner with someone who makes more than me and be like, oh, I suck. I need to do better. So I have to also be nicer to myself.

Katie:

And that’s why I love people like Chelsea Fagan who pays herself the fifth high salary in her company and talks about why she pays herself that amount and how she basically was like, I have enough. What am I going to do with extra money? My needs are met. My husband makes enough money. We’re good. I don’t need to be the highest paid person in my company just for ego points. And I think, again, it’s like the more you see people out there making countercultural choices, the more you feel empowered. And so with that, we’ll send you forward that you as an individual can affect change by opting out of systems you do not want to participate in, and you can influence the people around you.

Henah:

Amen.

Katie:

And we’ll see you on Wednesday.

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