how could 10h and a few hundred a month change my life

ive been thinking of the time and money women spend or their looks - aside from clothes. certainly not a novel subject, even for me. but i was wondering what for instance my male neighbour or my colleague might be doing with the time, but also money, that i spend on my face or body. some men certainly spend time on 'superficial' endeavours, just as some women choose to stay au naturel. so im generalising hard. but statistically there is a big difference. its well known that there are certain expectations for women. even the most feminist of us might wonder why a woman looks “disheveled” or “tired” when actually shes just not wearing make up. and unfortunately it can affect our impression of them, their capabilities and professionalism etc… but too much or wrong kind of make up will do the same. you need to hit the right spot in the acceptable range of looks. (meanwhile theres not much men can do without others noticing and wondering why he seems too groomed… seems unfair?). well i got carried away. i am personally definitely going beyond what women “have to” do and sometimes possibly pushing the odds on appearing reliable and knowledgeable and other adjectives that suffer when too much pink is involved. its how i prefer to look and present myself and what feels right.

anyway i decided to do some calculations. kind of hard to estimate time spend on plucking eyebrows or make up...  but i did my best. and i did not include deodorant, shampoo or sunscreen and the activities related to them as everyone needs those. for salon visits i included the time the appointments take as well as commute, added up the minutes to get the total for the year and divided by 12 to get average for the month.

    Monthly cost / Monthly time

face and body care products (not incl sunscreen)     20£, 10min

make up 23£,  290min 

make up removal 3£, 20min

hair products, incl dye 12£, 75min

nail products (mainly polish) 5£, 15min

body hair removal 1£, 12min - half of this is plucking eyebrows. im glad i invested in laser earlier. i prolly spend less time on this than men spend shaving?

hair salon 19£, 17min

nail salon 38£,  64min

lash salon 73£, 88min

botox 51£, 22min

total in a month: 245£ , 613min  (10.2 hours)

i found it challenging to separate looks from ‘feels’, like in body products if i get a body oil to moisturise and just to feel good… it’s not really counting maybe? but also the time spent does not take into account the time it takes to choose these products, salons and book appointments etc. especially the time spent on investigating, researching and choosing the right products and acquiring them can add massively to the total. i think for all these, it could easily add 2-4h each month, on average. 

i could be reading microbiology 10h a month, but it would be a very different life and i would be perceived differently - for better or worse.