You don’t need to be her: why the 'clean girl' aesthetic is problematic

Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:31 Defining the clean girl aesthetic
07:11 Recycled style (and racism)
10:37 Cleanliness = morality (and more racism)
17:08 So who gets to be a ‘clean girl’?
26:05 Gendered beauty labour (and “good” bodies)
32:41 Body neutrality (and capitalism) 
39:49 Wrapping up

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Bibliography 

Happy Fat by Sophie Hagen

[FishareFriendsNotFood]

Also with 'clean girl', the concept of doing SO MUCH WORK to convince people you're not doing any work is a fantastic encapsulation of the paradoxes of 'women's work' in general. So essential, yet so unseen.

[wurdnurd]

This reminds me of an Archie comic that came out in the late 80s: Betty and Veronica hear that "no-makeup makeup" is in fashion; Betty goes home to wash her face, while Veronica goes to the store and buys a ton of products. They go to Archie, who exclaims about Veronica's clean, glowing skin, while telling Betty that she's wearing too much makeup and should tone it down. The comic ends with violence.

[FleurTamara]

Telling us that you bathe once a week and that it takes 2 hours meant an incredible lot to me. I’ve been disabled since my teen years but have only in recent years begun to have real difficulty with bathing - it is SO EASY for it to feel like a moral failing to not be as clean as others are, as often as others are. Knowing someone like you who inspires me in my disabled life, bathes once a week too, is so relieving to hear honestly

[dracawyn]

Another (though admittedly much lesser) issue is that it helps perpetuate the idea that hygiene is inherently feminine. Which can result in things like grown men with severely internalized toxic masculinity going online to rant about things like real men having "skidmarks" in their underwear and bragging about not washing their hands.

[krupakhunti]

It's always hard for me to see the 'clean girl' aesthetic everywhere because as a CHILD I was bullied (edit: I remembered the exact word one girl called me which was "disgusting") for my oily slick back bun (which my indian predecessors have been doing for decades if not centuries). I had to tell my mum to stop doing my hair like that for fear of judgement and had not dared to walk out of the house looking like that for years afterwards, only for the same look to be co-opted and posted everywhere by a group (of mainly white women) in western society that suddenly changed it's mind about what I was ridiculed and traumatised by as a child. It always feels very unfair.

[FishareFriendsNotFood]

I'm also really tired of describing full grown adult women as a 'girl' because it's infantalizing.

[islamurphy]

On the topic of historical cleanliness, Bernadette Banner has an excellent video on the history of western hygiene, and debunking myths surrounding “all people in history stank”

[errorsinconduct]

Thanks for showing your no make up face, I'm 35 and I still have acne and I've had people call me out on it all my life

[wumologia]

To me the "clean girl" aesthetic feels extremely...boring? I don't want to look Subdued and Demure and Effortless. I want to look eccentric and fun. Because being fun takes imagination and inventiveness and also, the ability to pair up colours which aren't all neutrals.

[river.xn.paws]

"I'm not a clean girl"
*gasps in influencer*

[randomhuman_]

The whole idea that if you don’t look a certain way, you just “aren’t putting in enough effort” and are “lazy” will always be laughable.

Being places on time is a lot of effort, getting homework done is a lot of effort, remembering to brush my teeth is a lot of effort. I don’t have time to do a full face of makeup everyday, and when I do, i *want* it to be noticeable, because I worked hard on it lmaoo.

[AurelUrban]

I commented this under Shanespear's video as well when I originally watched it, but I will repeat myself here. Europeans in middle ages and before were much cleaner than what we give them credit for. they absolutely washed and cleaned on a daily basis, they just didn't "bathe" much. bathing meant a very specific act - fully submerging yourself in water. heating that much water was costly and time consuming, so it wasn't preferred. people instead washed with a wet cloth (and soap if they ad some) which gets you clean just as well. closing bathhouses during the plague also wasn't stupid, since those were places where diseases absolutely did spread. you didn't necessarily go to a bathhouse to get clean, you went there to sit in a tub of hot water that other people either previously sat in, or were currently sitting in with you.

and the white linen shirts... yes they were a symbol of cleanliness, but that had a basis in actual cleanliness. linen fabric has anti microbial properties and is great at wicking moisture away from the body, perfect for working class people who sweat a lot. plus linen is very durable when wet, so it can withstand a lot of laundering. this made it the perfect underwear that kept people dry and kept their outer clothes clean. people didn't wear white linen shirts just to perform cleanliness, they wore them to actually be clean. it was simply the most practical and sensible thing to do for those people.

Now, don't get me wrong, they were still very racist. they still believed bullshit about other cultures and there were definitely performative aspects of their clothes and looks and hygiene that were motivated by racism. but there is so much misinformation about the past and the people who lived long before us. and these myths about the stupid backwards people of the dark ages and the incredible progress and level of civilisation we have achieved since are just a different form of perpetuating white supremacist ideas.

[wildmntflower]

I'm so frustrated by the multiple aesthetics that seem to imply pastel and neutral colored clothes indicate the moral purity of the wearer. I used to not care about neutrals. They weren't for me, but now I hate them. My in-laws are size 1, super conservatively religious people who are, shocker, white. I'm a mixed-race person who adores jewel tones, and the closest to pastels I like is a nice turquoise. They have taken to setting color palette dress codes for family gathering "so the pictures look nice" but I do feel it's targeting only my husband and I and his brother who loves bright blue, too. There are generally 20-30 people at these gatherings, and we're the only ones who don't naturally gravitate to what I would call sad beige or white. They were "clean girls" before it was named. Now of course they're all in.

In my family's cultures, cheerful colors are celebrated, and wanting to wear joyous colors of prints is never, for a moment, considered to indicate moral depravity. If it's a party, why not dress cheerfully? And life can be depressing, so if you have the energy to get dressed, why not in something that will make you smile? We were dopamine dressing since before it had a name.

I was so thrilled at the rise of the term dopamine dressing, and at the proliferation of fun aesthetics we had for a while. It feels like every time we move in the direction of acceptance and glorifying self-expression, capitalism and racism and mainstream religions unite to oppress us again.

[melissahammer]

Body neutrality and saying i am more than just my body has helped me so much.

[SibylleLeon]

Only halfway through the video, so if you end up saying this, I'll delete this comment, I just want to write it down before I forget:
The clean, understated, "effortless" look that includes your "effortlessly" clean and beautiful home isn't even new in terms of white people's ideals - the 1950s called, they want their standards back! There are so many parallels - including the racism, which was a little more out in the open then but frighteningly, hasn't changed all that much...

[alexwixom]

I love the idea of neutrality. I have depression, and positivity is so hard to achieve that it often feels impossible. Positivity can be toxic if you can't buy into the idea. But I don't know if I ever thought to shoot a bit lower to achieve a more realistic solution.

[chrislevant]

As a nigh on 70 year old t-lady who has had her knee amputated 20 years ago I couldn't agree more with your comments about ableism. And gosh Jessica I absolutely adore your aesthetic and style. You're the woman I've wanted to be for the last 57 years ( giggle) 41:24

[notbroken]

I have two spoons today and that's not unusual. I have ME/CFS, Lupus, ADHD, Anxiety and am Autistic. Most days I don't even brush my hair. Thanks for making this video. Sending love.

[colowallo]

this is genuinely something i needed to hear. i've been struggling with chronic illness + depression and the absolute disgust towards my own body is something that eats me alive. its really good to remember that societal beauty and cleanliness standards are not the end all be all and i wish more people would talk about it. i'm glad you did tho c:

[zia_the_taby_cat]

Linen actually has wicking properties and does help keep sweat, oil and dirt off of the body, Abby Cox has an excellent video about cleanliness in the past, they did clean themselves, just not the same way we do for accessibility and time reason, a bath without plumbing is time consuming