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Ask Ugly: Is a makeup routine really mindfulness?


In her monthly column about beauty culture, our columnist takes on the blurring of the line between the beauty and wellness industries

The idea that the slow, deliberate application of blush and contour paired with deep breathing relaxes the nervous system seems plausible at first; some forms of meditation do center the sensation of touch. In The Body’s Edge, the medical ethicist Dr Marc Lappé points out that traditional meditation methods tend to encourage stillness, as “excessive cutaneous [skin] stimulation can be the bane of healthy psychic functioning”. When I am mindful and aware, a whitehead is no longer an unsightly, anxiety-inducing disaster that I need to destroy immediately with an antibacterial (a lie) but a 1mm-long manifestation of a natural immune response that will self-resolve in a few days (the truth).

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