"I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” —Audre Lorde
It’s a situation that most of us are all too familiar with: coping with the many stressors of our daily lives by indulging in a bit of self-care.
Oftentimes, when we hear the word self-care, we think of face masks, shopping sprees or fancy bubble baths. But what is self-care, really?
Society has blurred the lines between self-care and self-indulgence by framing self-care as a luxury and converting it into a consumable product.
The internet is littered with listicles offering self-care tips such as a $23 “bath tea” or an $80 face mask. Search #selfcare on Instagram and you’ll find almost 20 million posts. Self-care has, in many ways, become yet another means of conspicuous consumption, a trend that’s been watered down to be palatable to the mass market.
In fact, the self-improvement industry is worth nearly $10 billion and counting.
When we treat self-care as a commodity, it becomes an exclusionary practice; a privilege. Rather than valuing it for its intrinsic benefit, we see it as a status symbol or something to show off on our carefully-curated Instagram feed.
The high price tag we’ve attached to self-care makes it inherently inaccessible to a wide range of people. It’s become a lifestyle reserved only for those with the financial privilege to sustain it — white women in particular. Self-care should be for everyone — not just for those who can afford it.
Self-care is more than spa days and expensive skincare routines. In reality, the definition of self-care is remarkably fluid. It’s whatever you want or need it to be, and it doesn’t have to cost anything at all.
