On the web, everyone appears to be pre or post-makeover. Women are posting themselves on TikTok asking to be critiqued, while dedicated accounts like @glowsupgal are guiding them through aesthetic transformations. Sephora tweens need to expedite that post-puberty metamorphosis via elaborate skincare routines, and men are re-shaping their faces based on recommendations on #looksmaxing forums. It’s as if we’re all on a collective journey towards aesthetic self-actualisation, which may very well be realised at any moment by the correct product, hack or tweakment. In other words, we’re all obsessive about makeovers.

In fact, the makeover isn’t a novel concept. Magazines have long shared beauty and fashion suggestions with a susceptible audience. While we’d associate the makeover montage with noughties teen romcoms, they’ve been a part of our storytelling tradition since not less than 1634 and the primary published version of Cinderella. 

However the digital age has put makeover culture on steroids. Overnight, we could procure feedback on our appearance from anyone with an online connection, and within the 2010s the “glow up” phenomenon – the web epoch’s iteration of a makeover – was born. Fast forward to the pandemic, and the “zoom boom” saw rates of cosmetic procedures skyrocket attributable to widespread disillusionment with how our own faces looked, glaring back at us in our morning meetings.

Our appearance is one among the most important ways we express ourselves and our identity, so it’s not surprising that we might feel compelled to change it, particularly after a major life event. Breakups, job changes or the death of a loved one can all make aesthetic changes feel like “a strategy to mark a fresh start or regain control,” says Dr Veya Seekis, a psychology lecturer at Griffith University. We’ve also been taught by popular culture that a makeover will aid you in your quest, whatever it might be: popularity (Clueless, Mean Girls, Jawbreaker), romance (Grease, She’s All That, My Big Fat Greek Wedding), profession (The Devil Wears Prada, Working Girl), or social standing (My Fair Lady). And this message from the media isn’t entirely misleading – people who find themselves deemed conventionally attractive are over 20 per cent more more likely to be called back for a job interview, and are perceived to be more socially expert, trustworthy, confident and competent.

It’s comprehensible, then, that so a lot of us long for the ‘after’ effects of a makeover, but sometimes the method itself is just as desirable. Makeovers tinker with the brain’s chemistry in a way that feels good, says Ida Banek, a psychologist and the co-founder of Ouronyx, a clinic that mixes “psychology and self-acceptance”. Cosmetic procedures have “a direct impact on the activation of brain circuits which might be highly related to reward and feelings of delight,” she explains. “It’s a correlation with dopamine in our brain in a way that can boost that energy through a sense of internal reward. We feel more content, we feel stronger about our own goals and our ability to realize them.”

The aesthetic makeover has also undergone somewhat of a rebrand in recent times, partially attributable to its entanglement in self-improvement culture. While the makeover movie canon traditionally saw women revert to their more authentic selves following an epiphany, today, aesthetic transformation is usually considered an admirable quest. “Those concepts of the male gaze, of patriarchy, have been redesigned through post-feminism to feel like something liberatory, to feel like something empowering. So this concept that even asking other people for judgments on the self is by some means a sort of positive experience,” Dr Adrienne Evans, professor of Gender and Culture at Coventry University says.

Asking others to weigh in in your looks has develop into typical of digital makeover culture. On some level, it’s clear why: it takes all of the decision-making out of 1’s own hands and plays into that movie fantasy of a team of experts suddenly appearing to alter your look (and life). But, be warned, this is a high-stakes gamble. “Crowdsourcing by asking other people what it’s that they don’t like about your appearance is a very, really dangerous game,” says Dr David Sarwer, a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, who’s been doing research on the intersection of cosmetic surgery and psychology for over 30 years. As much as someone might imagine they need objective feedback, he says negative commentary will affect their self-perception over time.

This chimes with the experience of Texas-based hairstylist Shayla Langley, who recently shared a “what’s my blindness?” video to TikTok. Her lip filler had been heavily critiqued previously, so she figured the video would function prime “rage bait.” She was right: it was met with vitriol, but despite her foresight, it still got to her. “I felt like if 17,000 people felt like I needed to make changes, then I had gone unsuitable somewhere,” she laments. She has since begun dissolving her lip filler. 

“[The internet] heightens the danger and the potential for, on the lower end, emotional distress and, at the upper end, violence and that sort of lack of self,” explains Dr Evans. Even when the makeover feels satisfying within the moment – plus the praise and a focus you get in consequence of it – the high is mostly short-lived before you begin in search of the following hit. “The downside is that our brain also gets used to that recent image in our mirror very fast. So in three to 4 weeks, we forgot where we began. In a month from improvement you are feeling like, ‘oh, you understand what? I may have one other cycle,’” Banek says. This will result in perception drift, whereby patients lose sight of what they really appear to be. 

So what’s the answer for individuals who feel like they’re trapped within the makeover paradigm? While messages of self-love and body positivity might appear to be the reply, Dr Evans argues that, along side unattainable beauty standards, they will actually cause a paralysing dissonance. “It creates a contradiction that ideologically keeps people in place… In case you don’t know whether you’re meant to like your body or keep working on it, you’re less more likely to challenge the traditional expectations of what you’re meant to be.” As an alternative, Seekis recommends embracing body neutrality, a trend which stresses a concentrate on the body’s functionality. “In my research, we found that young women who viewed just 12 minutes of body neutrality content reported higher body satisfaction, appreciation for the way their bodies functioned, positive mood, and fewer comparisons.”