I Tried Looksmaxxing for Six Months: Here's what Happened

So I did it. I did that thing everyone’s talking about on the internet, I'm sure at this point even your grandma has heard of it: Looksmaxxing. 

To preface, is this not what women have been doing for hundreds of years? Trying to enhance and maximise their looks because we realise society treats attractive people better? To be honest with you, I think I’ve been at it since I gained consciousness around the age of 12. Makeup, facemasks, hair cuts and colours, taking those questionnaires online about what colours suit you most, what shapes suit your body type, the list goes on and on. 

But for the last six months, I approached it differently, scientifically almost. I looksmaxxed. 

Now, you're probably thinking, “Why do we need you to tell us what happened? Isn’t it pretty obvious?” Unfortunately, I thought the answer would be pretty obvious, too: you get hotter, you feel more confident, people look at you differently. Life improves. But no. It’s not all sunshine and flowers. If anything, you simply trade in some negative aspects of life for new ones; you just look better doing it. 

To start, I think it’s probably best to give an overview of everything I did in the last six months:

• Full body IPL Lazer 

• Chin Filler

• Lip Filler

• Lymphatic drainage and massages 

• Teeth whitening 

• Weight loss 

• New workout routines focusing on toning and sculpting

• Weightloss 

• 10,000 steps a day

• Hair extensions and a new optimised hair colour 

• A myriad of supplements 

• Reset the positioning of my jaw (yes, I really did that)

And then the other things that a lot of women do on the frequent regardless, things like eyebrow tints, facial treatments, skin care routines, eyelashes, lip tints, makeup routines and so on. 

Now, I’d be a liar if I denied that I have ever looked better; I haven’t. I genuinely feel healthier, fitter and more comfortable in the way I look than ever before.

But, if anything, I feel less confident. 

I started focusing on my physical appearance more than my physical health, or mental health, or anything else, really. I neglected work, hobbies, and relationships. 

Every week became about optimisation, extensive maintenance routines, lasering, whitening, tinting, and dying. 

It’s exhausting to be honest with you. But the dark truth is, once you start, once you see the results, once you feel the difference, how on earth do you even stop?

I got to the point where I looked in the mirror in shock, my features had changed, some people didn’t even recognise me, I didn’t even recognise myself. Every detail, every aspect was about perfection, scientific ratios, optimisation, not self-love, not self-acceptance, not stability or wellbeing, just perception. 

I came to the realisation: am I doing this for me? Or am I doing this to reach the unattainable goal of perfection dictated to us by mathematical equations and AI ratings? 

I even caught myself measuring my face and scaring my best friend with talk about maxillae and balancing my lower third. 

I realised that once you fix one aspect of your appearance, another insecurity or fixation pops up. Suddenly, I was at an appointment with a cosmetic injector, listing off all the procedures I planned to get in the next three months. She gave me a weird look. And no, I'm not exaggerating. It was one of those head tilted to the side slightly, eyebrow raised, slight confusion looks, stopped me and said, “You're twenty-two, why do you need Botox? You don’t even have a wrinkle yet.” I defiantly told her “Botox would be a preventative measure”, that I never wanted to even develop a single wrinkle, I wanted to freeze my face, shrink my masseter muscles, lift my eyebrows, lock my nose tip in place so it wouldn’t even move a millimetre when I smiled. 

I understood at that moment, perhaps I was beginning to go too far. Perhaps I'd end up on an episode of Botched because of flying to Turkey for a €3000 nose job. Perhaps I’d reach uncanny status, like a spooky living doll. Who knows? What I did know was that I needed a reality check. And to be honest, that maybe parents everywhere are right, maybe it really is that “damn phone”.

Enough looksmaxxing, I thought, time to mental-healthmaxx. 

So after all of this, what happened was I came full circle. I realised it’s all good for the outside to be pretty, but at what cost? What about the inside? What about self-love, spending time with friends, going out to eat and not thinking about what workout you’ll do later, or dozing off imagining your next round of cosmetic procedures or what you’ll look like after your entire being is surgically enhanced. 

I began to question how many of the standards tied to conventional attractiveness in 2026 are things I actually find beautiful, rather than corporations dictating the latest trend in female appearance to me. We cycle through constant phases; in the 2000s, we had the standard at a size zero, where perfectly healthy women were shamed for being “too big”. Fast forward to the 2010s, and suddenly, women now had to be curvy and “thick”, BBL’s took over and were seemingly everywhere. Now, enter a little drug called Ozempic. We’re back to skinny again. 

I think what I’m trying to say is the female body should not be a trend, or something that goes in and out of fashion. And neither should our faces. 

It’s clear that in the 21st century, the goalposts of what “beautiful” is are constantly moving every few years, making it near impossible for even the most well-resourced women to keep up. 

Look at the Kardashians: get the bbl, remove the bbl, Ozempic, get the filler, remove the filler, get more filler, but just done differently this time to fit the new “clean girl” narrative we are being sold by marketing agencies. 

They have to shift the goalposts so we keep consuming: hello, the latest peptide “clean girl”  lip balm, goodbye Kylie Lip Kit.  

It’s truly exhausting. 

Not to mention how much of the female beauty standard is rooted in patriarchal culture and male fantasy. 

The truth is, beauty lies in imperfection; it lies in smile lines, frown lines, actually being able to perform expressions and move your face; it lies in feeling comfortable in who you are, in having a personality and heart as beautiful as you want the outside to be. It lies in experiencing life, not obsessing over how you look experiencing life.

It lies in wearing what makes you happy. Dyeing your hair that colour that brings you joy, not optimising your looks for the eyes of others. If you want to look a certain way, a way that the media is not pushing as the current “in”, go ahead. As long as you're happy within yourself, why care what others think? 

What makes Looksmaxxing different from the beauty culture of previous generations is the illusion of objectivity. Social media, facial harmony analyses, attractiveness scores and AI beauty ratings present beauty as something measurable and scientific. Rather than asking whether we feel attractive, we are encouraged to seek numerical validation from algorithms, turning self-esteem into a performance that can always be optimised further.

Many of these standards are presented as natural preferences when they are actually cultural expectations. Whether it’s body hair, wrinkles, weight, lip size or body shape, women are often taught that normal features are flaws requiring correction.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still continue to try and look my best, and yes, I will still get that Botox. But I’ll also be focusing on the inside, on my connections to other people and myself.

And who knows, maybe when I’m old and decrepit, looking back on life, I’ll realise thank goodness I spent money on a holiday rather than more laser hair removal on my legs.