The Beauty Routine of a Nihilist

Most of us have a clear vision of what effortless beauty looks like. It's not necessarily uniform but it generally relies on some genetic algorithm that combines generous symmetry with some exaggeration of features that makes one alien and divine all that once. Doe eyes. Cherry lips. Supple, porcelain skin. Sometimes people just form in that configuration and sometimes people use a fair amount of cosmetic manipulation to get there.

Effortless is a concept, not a practice. You do all the work to create the image you want while simultaneously erasing all evidence of the work itself. It's the opposite of math homework. If you subscribe to a "less is more" beauty philosophy, now is the time of reckoning. What's the least amount of less you can do? How about nothing at all? Discard the vibe—the vibe is no vibe. The look is lookless.

A nihilistic beauty routine mostly involves one's self-surrender to their own face. If Werner Herzog was narrating a YouTube beauty tutorial, I imagine it would be him describing the thought process behind gazing intently, confrontationally, at one's own reflection while the frame gradually and steadily tightens, the camera slowly zooming into the eyes until it's swallowed up by the void within the pupils. It's not just about appearing effortless, it is embracing the inevitability of your own appearance. You are the sole beholder of your own beauty.

Step 1:

Your face—the one that's on the front of your head, you know it? Good. Get really, really familiar with it. Know your angles. Know your curves too. Know your hollows, your shadows, your dimensions, and your texture. Take it in and accept every part of it. The slope of your nose, the round of your cheeks, the shape of your mouth, your eyes—discard any previously held judgments about it. They are simply knobs and blobs on your face that help you smell, see, speak. They were built for that and they don't really care about doing much else. They stay in their lane. You do the same, brain.

Step 2:

Your hair: what's it doing? Go on, ask it. Yo, what are you doing up there? It won't respond. It's hair. It doesn't have thoughts and it can't talk. In fact, it's dead keratin. You wanna insult your hair? Go ahead. It feels no pain. Burn it, cut it, tug it—it shall persist. It keeps coming at you. You can pull it out, root and stem, and it will keep coming for you. The dead shall rise and so shall your hair. For a dead thing though, it can look rather animated in the wind and when you're doing dramatic hair flips. (Hair flips make for very effective punctuation.) Hair, too, is a tool for communication.

Step 3:

Your body is a magnificent and complicated machine. Electrified meat and bone. Squishy motors, specialists, all working in the dark, wet factory within them. It humbly does the work of keeping you alive despite whatever nefarious agenda you may or may not drag it into. The human body is a resilient thing. Its greatest obstacle is overcoming your own disappointment in it. As its manager, it's your job to give it the resources and support it needs to perform its many varied tasks. Best not to micromanage too much beyond that.

End of steps.

Don't think of this as self or care. Embracing nihilism in your beauty routine means that the idea of achieving a look is redundant because your corporeal being is the look. You have already achieved it simply by inhabiting a body. And your only choice is whether you accept it or not as it is.

Now, to answer the question you're likely wondering: No, creative expression does not undermine a nihilistic beauty beat! After all, we have souls that are always trying to express their soul agendas. With a strong foundation of nihilism as the primer of your beauty routine, whatever you choose to go on top does not add or subtract from the value of its base; rather, it frames itself in its truest intent, unencumbered by vibey diversion and embellishment. It is you as you always were and not how you present yourself to be.