It’s difficult enough being a woman in a patriarchal society that holds us to unrealistic beauty expectations, without having people constantly comment on your looks. If you shave, someone will shame you for it. If you don’t shave, even more people will shame you for it. If you wear makeup, you’re “trying too hard." If you don’t wear makeup, you’re, “trying to be unattractive." I mean, the list of things you should never say about a woman's grooming habits, but end up being things that the collective "we" feel ridiculous confident commenting on, is kind of (read: completely) upsetting if not utterly ridiculous. If you go get a facial, you might be “vain,” but if you don’t take care of your skin, you obviously need to start. If you shape your eyebrows, it’s not the “right” shape, but if you don’t pluck or wax, you must “not care” about yourself. It is freaking exhausting.
The thing is, no one should be commenting on your personal grooming choices. No one. At all. The fact that some folks feel entitled to list every single thing they think is “wrong” or want to “fix” about you (or any other woman) is just mind-boggling. Even celebrities aren’t exempt from people scrutinizing their looks. You'd think that, as a society, we would have continued to follow that cliched, "don't judge a book by its cover" saying, but that seems to go right out the window once we graduated kindergarten and started listening to advertisers. It's as shame, honestly.
So, In case you (or someone you know) need a refresher course on what’s appropriate to say to a woman about her looks, here’s all the things you definitely don’t want to say about any woman’s grooming habits. Trust me, this list is much longer than the list of things you can actually, or should actually, say.