THE COVID-19 Pandemic Is Changing What I Conside “Essential” in Beauty

Allure contributor Jessica DeFino shares how a global pandemic is making her reevaluate what is (and isn’t) important in her daily routine — and life, in general.

I’ve typed the word “essential” at least a thousand times. I’ve used it to describe moisturizers and face mists, and makeup bag must-haves. In every instance, I lied. Well, maybe lied is an overstatement, but I didn’t tell the truth. I didn’t know the truth. Not really. This new, pandemic world has shown me that.

Here, “essential” is reserved for the workers who hold our health in their hands: doctors, nurses, grocery clerks, farmers, janitors. It’s set aside for life-saving measures, like sheltering in place and manufacturing ventilators. “Essential” applies to hand sanitizer and hospital beds, not hyaluronic acid serums.

I don’t mean to insult cosmetics. I’m a beauty editor — I enjoy red lipstick as much as the next red-blooded makeup enthusiast. But the fact is that the beauty products I’ve stockpiled over the years as if they were survival supplies are non-essential. It feels empowering to acknowledge that. Freeing, even. It’s pushing me to consider who I am without the face crèmes and foundation, to contemplate the difference between the things I want and the things I need. It’s forcing me to figure out what really matters, both in the midst of the current coronavirus crisis and beyond.

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew,” explains novelist Arundhati Roy in a recent article for the Financial Times. I see it happening already; there’s a renewed interest in holistic health, a reemergence of victory gardens, and an appreciation for nature, a quiet realization that the earth is healing. I can’t help but hope the beauty world will break with its past and begin again too, in all the same ways.

Take health, for instance, and this not-so-fun fact: Beauty products have “poisoned [people] slowly” throughout history, from the lead-based makeup popular in the 18th century to the mercury spot treatments of the 19th century. Not much has changed since then. In 2010, traces of lead were found in 100 percent of the 400 lipsticks tested by the Food and Drug Administration. As a beauty editor and a human being living through a global health crisis, how can I continue to promote products that potentially put our health at risk? How can I consider “clean” beauty a niche market instead of a necessary standard?