Microtrends. They seem to be on everyone’s mind. Whether it be the clean girl aesthetic, messy girl aesthetic, Y2K, booktok, you name
it; there’s a microtrend somewhere on the internet that people are emptying their bank accounts to fit into.
Sure, you can buy an aesthetic. You can buy clothes that make you fit into a box. With online stores like Shein and Amazon, the
opportunities are endless. Like with cheap clothes to fill your closet or books that you’ll never touch that sit on your shelves to make
you look more learned.
I can’t lie; I fall into these trends with every late-night doomscroll as I attempt to reclaim my time spent during the day on school and
work. I’ve bought all the protein snacks, the tiny Y2K glasses and a multitude of beauty products that were once the big thing on
TikTok and I just had to have them.
But how many microtrends end up rotting at the back of your closet, or products left to expire on your shelf because you can’t use
them before the next microtrend pops up that needs you to buy into it?
Overconsumption seems to be the norm for our generation, and one trend sticks out among the rest. Hygienetok.
Hygienetok seems to be a product of the clean girl trend that has been flooding For You pages for the past couple of years. Videos
showcasing elaborate 10-step shower routines often feature shelves overflowing with products, while only a few actually get used.
These routines usually involve multiple body washes, a body scrub, some combination of expensive hair care products and an ever-
growing number of body lotions and oils to use after the shower.
The creators of these videos treat this as if it should be the norm, but it’s not. It can’t possibly be normal to have hundreds of
body products sitting on a shelf just waiting to be used.
The average person uses one body wash, maybe a scrub, shampoo, conditioner and possibly a lotion after.
Now this isn’t to say that hygiene is bad, or that having a multi-step shower routine or expensive hair care means that you have
succumbed to some sort of evil corporate scheme. This is more to say that we should really only buy products we plan to use.
If you are buying something because it’s trending on TikTok, check your shelf and see how many lotions and body sprays you
have stacked up from the last Bath and Body Works mega sale. Or how many TikTok microtrends you bought into to use once and
never touch again?
A part of being a conscious consumer is recognizing when a trend has gone too far, and this trend is one of them. It’s making ordinary
people like you and I feel dirty for taking a normal shower without having an array of options to choose from.
In the age of social media, trends spread like wildfire, and it can be hard to keep up when
the “next best thing” is just a scroll away, both mentally and financially. Don’t stress yourself or your wallet this year trying to keep up with the trends. You and your shower routine are fine just the way they are.
