Reclaiming My Beauty Routine from the Algorithm

It snuck up on me slowly. One product suggestion here, a tutorial there. A scroll before bed, a reel over coffee, a five-star review I didn’t even know I was looking for. Before I knew it, my beauty routine—the thing that once felt like a personal ritual—had become a performance choreographed by algorithms.

Every swipe of lipstick, every step in my ten-step regimen, started to feel less like a choice and more like a reenactment. I wasn’t getting ready for me anymore. I was getting ready for an invisible audience, curated by the For You Page.

So one morning, I stopped.

The Routine That Wasn’t Mine

I laid out everything in my bathroom cabinet. Serums I didn’t understand. A contour stick I’d used once. Three near-identical lip glosses in slightly different packaging—all promising “your lips but better.” It was a museum of good intentions and digital persuasion.

How had this happened? I used to enjoy the simple pleasure of moisturizer in the morning, the soft ritual of winding down at night with a splash of rosewater. But somewhere along the way, my beauty routine had turned into a checklist. I wasn’t choosing products because they felt good—I was choosing them because they were trending.

The algorithm wasn’t just shaping my feed. It was shaping my face.

The Quiet Unfollow

So I started unfollowing.

Not everyone. Not out of bitterness. Just… gently. I let go of the endless product hauls, the sped-up skincare routines set to dreamy music, the flawless morning faces with perfect lighting. Not because they were wrong—but because they weren’t mine.

Instead, I turned my gaze inward. What do I want in the morning? What makes me feel awake, alive, comfortable in my skin? The answers weren’t flashy. Cold water. A favorite cleanser that smells faintly like eucalyptus. A dab of tinted balm. No filters, no performance. Just small, sensory yeses to myself.

Rediscovering the Pleasure of Touch

The most surprising thing was how emotional the shift felt. When I applied moisturizer without rushing—without filming or thinking about its aesthetic appeal—I remembered that beauty can be tactile, not just visual. A hand on your own cheek. The weight of a brush. The scent of something familiar. This was presence, not perfection.

And it brought me back to the little girl I used to be—the one who watched her mother at the vanity, fascinated by the transformation that had nothing to do with beauty standards and everything to do with ritual. A private moment. A gentle claiming of time and space.

From Trend to Truth

The truth is, algorithms are brilliant at knowing what we might want. But they don’t know who we are. They don’t know the shape of your mornings, the texture of your grief, the colors that remind you of summer afternoons as a kid.

Reclaiming my routine didn’t mean throwing everything away. It meant asking: do I still want this? Do I enjoy this step? Or is this just inertia dressed as inspiration?