Our mothers and mother figures often shape our understanding of beauty long before we realize they’re even doing it. My own mom taught me how to wash my hair, helped me pick out my first razor before sleepaway camp, and reluctantly agreed to take me to the salon in eighth grade when I decided I needed ombré blonde hair. She taught me how to wash my face properly and the best way to hover over a running hot-water sink to imitate steaming during a professional facial, the same way my grandmother taught her. At the time, these didn’t feel like beauty lessons. They were simply everyday moments with my mom, many of which even occurred with pushback during fits of hormonal preadolescent rage.
We shared a bathroom my entire childhood, which meant I was surrounded by her beauty routine. Between the fancy shampoo she kept in the shower and occasionally let me use on the mornings I spent watching her get ready for work as I groggily woke up for school, I absorbed far more than I realized. It was always just folded into the fabric of our relationship.
Growing up, I watched my mom move through her own self-care rituals while balancing an intense full-time job. Every Saturday at 4 p.m., she’d head to our local Long Island salon for a blowout in preparation for her workweek. Every other week, she’d also return with a fresh French manicure, which is still her signature to this day. These appointments happened with such consistency that they felt less like beauty treatments and more like a rhythm of my childhood. I could measure time and the days of the week by how frizzy her hair looked or how chipped her square nails were.
Beauty, unbeknownst to me at the time, became the backdrop to so many phases of growing up. There was the brown eyeliner I stole from her bathroom drawer and smudged along my waterline in eighth grade, only to insist I wasn’t wearing makeup when she inevitably questioned me. The Clinique powder compact and Urban Decay Naked palette she bought after enduring dramatic teenage pleas that I absolutely needed them since “everyone else had them.” The dermatologist appointments she took me to for my scalp eczema and the comfort she offered when I cried about having to go to school with ointment in my hair. These memories were bonding experiences disguised as arguments, errands, and everyday routines.
The beauty industry is easy to dismiss. It’s often associated with unrealistic standards, overconsumption, and an obsession with resisting age—I see this every day in my job as Cosmo’s assistant beauty editor. But when I think about beauty in my personal life, I think about the people who taught me how to care for myself through every stage of growing up.
And the strangest thing about getting older is realizing that one day the teacher-student dynamic has changed. My mom taught me everything I know about hygiene, self-care, and makeup. Now, as an editor, beauty lover, and chronically online Gen Zer, I find myself constantly informing her, too.
I bring home care packages filled with LED masks and curl creams whenever I visit. I explain ingredients, demonstrate sculpting tools, and try—unsuccessfully—to convince her to wear a new perfume. She sends me podcasts about aging and women’s health. We are still learning so much from each other, just in different and more modern ways.
That’s what I’ve come to understand about our shared beauty memories: The products and topics continually evolve, but the purpose never changes. They remain markers of our relationship, even when it’s something as simple as debating which body lotion we think smells better (nothing with a rose scent is allowed to even enter her bathroom).
I still call my mom in a panic when I get a bad haircut. She still texts me photos of her weekly blowouts. I tell her I love her natural curls as she disagrees, then smooths them down with a round brush and blow dryer in the same bathroom mirror where she taught me how to safely pop a pimple a decade earlier. (She still refuses to listen to me about some things, including the life-changing ease of the Dyson Airwrap.)
For my mom and me, beauty was not necessarily about looking better. It’s a way of looking after one another. Everyone defines beauty in their own way, but these days, I see it as a woman guiding her child through certain parts of life.
Our shared beauty rituals aren’t really about preserving youth. If anything, they’re evidence that time is passing, a record of our lives together. Over the past 26 years, our routines have changed and our roles have changed, but the practice of caring for one another has remained constant. It’s a ritual and love language I hope to pass on to my own future children, with her help, of course.
Jasmine Hyman is the Assistant Beauty Editor at Cosmopolitan, where she writes about the latest beauty trends and must-have products. Her most prized beauty possessions are a meticulous skincare routine and salon blowouts. You’ll also likely find her in bed reading a good book or endlessly scrolling TikTok (spoiler: it’s usually the latter) while listening to Harry Styles’ entire discography on repeat. Follow her on Insta to be inundated with pictures of her meals.
