THE QUOTE, “Here are high maintenance things I do to stay low maintenance,” might be a confusing statement. However, it does make a lot of sense for people who are part of the beauty community.
It’s premised on several high-maintenance preparations that a person can do to stay low maintenance in the long run. By putting it into perspective, there are a lot of preparations that can be considered as high maintenance.
In this viral trend, the high-maintenance routine is a combination of procedures that you do regularly to last for a long period of time and be low maintenance.
Being low maintenance, on the other hand, means that on a daily basis, you don’t need to do much (e.g. wear a lot of makeup, retouch every second, worry that you look worn off already, angling in pictures) to look and feel beautiful.
High-maintenance routine
A high-maintenance routine can be a lot of things. It can be whitening your teeth, changing your hair, drinking food supplements or beauty vitamins, waxing, and more.
High maintenance means that it’s not an easy task; it means that you must either put so much effort into a specific deed or you need to pay handsomely to get it done.
For the female population, examples of high-maintenance tasks are visiting the salons, buying several skincare products, and more. This is to ensure that the effects of such procedures will last longer than a day.
The purpose of such a high-maintenance routine is that there’s no need for short-lived preparations to achieve beauty. For instance, instead of using fake lashes whenever you get ready in the morning, you can now get fake lashes that last up to a month.
High maintenance because of high cost?
If you’re going to invest in procedures that give you results that will last for a long time, expect that you need to pay big time to achieve the beauty you want to possess.
In a way, it’s called high maintenance because you need to shell out a lot of money. To get high-end results, you need to also have large denominations of paper bills that can buy your way into beauty.
Some procedures like getting your hair and nails done can go up to PHP 5,000—and this depends on the style and the place you’re going to. It can even be more expensive for some salons.
However, this is because the results do make you feel beautiful and confident. It magically makes you feel so much better about your physical appearance because you’re investing in yourself.
So, it’s worth it but not practical.
P for patience and pain
High maintenance routines don’t necessarily mean that paying handsomely is the only option one has if one wants to get into the concept. One can also do home remedies.
However, home remedies need a lot of patience. Since you’re doing all of it on your own, you need time and focus to start such routines and make sure that you maintain the process even after you get results.
Some of these are doing your own wax through sugaring, while others do their hair with egg whites, using lemon and calamansi as exfoliators. There’s a variety of things you can do to be “low maintenance,” it really just needs patience.
Besides money and patience, what you need is bravery because some of these procedures or parts of the routine can be extremely painful. A mixture can taste awful or feel weird so you need to have the courage to push through it and wait.
You need to close your eyes and wait for the process to be over. Beauty is pain indeed.
Does it work?
It does. Then again, it is a high-maintenance routine—there’s a lot to unpack. At the end of the day, you need to weigh the pros and cons when it comes to the processes in the videos that show their own routines.
What works for them might not work for you, considering the aspects of money, time, capability, and more. It’s important to find the perfect routine that will work just fine for you.
Do I have to be low maintenance?
Being low maintenance daily can be alluring to this generation where time is expensive. But sometimes, not being low maintenance is the most rational and practical option.
However, if you can and want to invest in high-maintenance products and procedures, why not give it a go? If it’ll make your life easier and if it helps you mentally, there’s no one stopping you.
Everyone wishes to be low maintenance, but the truth is, no one really is. Everyone tries (even if they don’t look like it), so enjoy your time taking care of yourself instead of the probable results.
The fact that you took the time to make yourself feel special is more than enough to make you beautiful.
With reports from Ashley Kristieanne Ignacio
