"Time Spent on Personal Appearance" Poll Commentary

[queerbychoice]

First of all, I have to say: I really love you people. You explode stereotypes so thoroughly!

Of the people who read my journal and answered my poll, the males spend (or at least claim to spend - based on both genders' self-reported times) more than twice as much time on their personal appearance as the females. The males spend equal or more time compared to what females spend on every single aspect of their personal appearance except makeup - and only one third of the females who answered my poll even wear makeup anyway. The two genders spend an approximately equal amount of time (though the males' time is larger to a statistically insignificant degree) on hair washing, hair styling, putting on clothes, and purchasing clothes and other personal appearance items. The males spend approximately twice as much time as females on miscellaneous personal appearance activities, and way over twice as much time shaving and earning the money they need to purchase all their expensive personal appearance paraphernalia. (Only about half the females who answered the poll shave at all, and those females who do shave spend only the amount of time that the very fastest males who shave only their faces spend. Every single male who has answered my poll spends at least fifteen minutes shaving per week.)

jezbian wins the prize for least time spent on personal appearance. She's followed by transientdyke, lilituc, lacorneille, donutgirl, exterra and piman, in that order (approximately). Stand in awe of their minimalism! These are people who can get out of bed and into the car in two minutes flat every morning!

But boyfunk wins the prize for most time spent on personal appearance - mostly by apparently buying very expensive clothes, which he also spends considerable time shopping for and deciding which of to wear each morning. Stand in awe of his exquisite wardrobe! He's followed by rhekarid, noplacelikehome, chisparoja, spreadsothin, heron61 and celestialfire. Each of them spends at least 11 hours per week decorating their bodies to perfection - never a single hair out of place.

Nearly half the people who answered my poll would like to strike the entire human race blind. Wow, you people are scary! But c_est_moi is the only one of you who claims to currently be suing an employer for beauty labor money.

sankta points out: "BUT GAYLE, HEALTH DOES REQUIRE US TO CHANGE OUR CLOTHES EVERY DAY IF WE HAVE A SEVERE DUST MITE ALLERGY! DUST MITES EAT FLAKES OF HUMAN SKIN! IF THEY MOVE INTO MY CLOTHES, THE END IS AT HAND!!!$!@1" Yes, okay. Also, for people like me who have very severe chronic dandruff that requires continual dousing with state-of-the-art unbelievably expensive extra-strength Nizoral dandruff killing potion to prevent our heads from bleeding profusely all over, hair washing is really more of a health issue than a personal appearance issue too. I mean, I doubt that anybody's ever died of dandruff, but bleeding profusely from all over one's scalp day after day certainly can't be considered "healthy." And several people mentioned skin care products which I don't necessarily consider to be a "beauty" issue either. I mean, acne hurts, and if you don't make some effort to keep it under control, it can develop into massive carbuncles (clusters of boils), and after that if it gets even worse, the bacteria leak out into the whole general area and you wake up with the entire left side of your face swollen up like a football. (This happened to me once in college. I know what I'm talking about here.) That's a pretty tangible ill health effect if you ask me. So there are a lot of blurry boundaries between what's done for "beauty" and what's done for "health." But if you're doing something to cure physical pain, I'd count that as "health."

jezbian comments: "isn't tooth straightening like a twenty-four hour a day for three year ordeal? did you mean whitening?" Whitening would also count, but I meant tooth straightening. Not all 24 hours a day, because obviously you're free to do other things during most of it - but I meant the time spent in an orthodontist's office where you can't do anything else. (And what's this about a mere three years??? I'll have you know that I underwent various orthodontic appliances continuously from the ages of seven to twenty.)

Comments

[yay4pikas.livejournal.com]

More like, ten, since I have to brush my teeth and find my clothes/books. But it means EXTRA SLEEP! Which is always good.

That's a pretty tangible ill health effect if you ask me. So there are a lot of blurry boundaries between what's done for "beauty" and what's done for "health." But if you're doing something to cure physical pain, I'd count that as "health."

Yeah. I'd include discomfort, too -- I wash my hair every day largely because of dandruff, and while I can go a week without showers backpacking, it's itchy and generally unpleasant. If I can't stand my own smell, that's a bad thing.

Oh, and I did have braces for two and a half years and a retainer for another three or so, but in my case this had more to do with health reasons (I had to have eleven teeth removed because there was no room/some were grown into the bone/one adult tooth was missing, and so the large gaps had to be closed) than cosmetic. But that's all done now, thankfully. >.<

I do care about my appearance, but only minimally, and I don't find the idea of covering myself in makeup and hair products attractive, so I don't do it.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I'm frankly shocked that anyone can spend less time on their personal appearance than I do, yet somehow I appear to be barely under the average number of hours for females who answered my poll. And you spend less than half the time that I do. But all I even do is wash my hair, cut the split ends off, wear clothes . . . I'm impressed at how you managed to halve my hours.

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

Well, keeping in mind that you probably have an atypical sample compared to the population at large, perhaps we are fitting stereotypes after all...

[deadinmotion.livejournal.com]

You're still just jealous of my hat box.

[rhekarid.livejournal.com]

Really? I'm near the top? I always felt I spend very little time on it, overall.

[spreadsothin.livejournal.com]

I wash and brush my long hair, and put some form of chapstick on. And clothes.
Also, my entire makeup collection and hair products comes from my theatre-needs. I use them very occasionally offstage, and they're very mandated onstage.
Once one is established as a professional actor, they can write these things off they're taxes.

[luinied.livejournal.com]

Yarr... I need to work on moving faster in the morning to become more minimalistic.

Or maybe I could grow a beard. And freak out everyone I know.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

It would be more interesting for you to rank so high in time spent if you were still declaring yourself fully asexual. Then I'd get to point and demand to know why it is you're spending all this time beautifying yourself. As it is, I merely have to wonder how many Gackt look-alikes live in Galt for you to attract.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Freaking people out can be fun!

[mobledqueen.livejournal.com]

I didn't have the time (due to severe exhuastion) to fill out the survey, but the truth is I used to be one of the minimalists (ie- Slobs with neglect dreds)but I have am recently suffering from a severe case of vanity/social anxiety which has me dressing up, so to speak.

[sankta.livejournal.com]

I had braces twice, totalling seven and a half years, and they're threatening to give me ANOTHER SET. I think I've told you about my teeth; what's wrong with yours?

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

What was wrong with my teeth was that I needed lessons on the correct swallowing motion, as detailed in my "10 Stories You Hadn't Heard About Me Before" post.

[yay4pikas.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't include normal-shower time, because I view that as hygeine/mental health. But also -- do you still have the long hair in your icon? Because mine is really short now, which means it takes two minutes to wash and 30 seconds to comb. When I had long hair I spent half an hour per shower combing the tangles out with conditioner, and a fair amount of time brushing it dry.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've had the same long hair since I was eight years old. It doesn't really tangle much though - it used to, up until puberty, but at puberty the whole texture of it changed drastically for the better and now it rarely gets any tangles. And I don't even own a comb or brush - brushing it just causes the ends to split, and doesn't really provide anything useful. The only real inconvenience is that it takes a long time to dry, but I just wash it in the evening and let it dry overnight by itself.

[exterra.livejournal.com]

I kind of cheated because I didn't count my baths. But you see, baths are something I don't do for cleanliness per se, but for the experience of lying immersed in hot water while reading books (I have an old clawfoot tub which is over one foot longer than modern tubs, very comfortable for long baths). So if I counted baths, I'd probably add an hour or two extra each week. If I just want to get clean, I take a quick shower (every other day).