It was around the third day at Glastonbury that I finally put my finger on it. I had been trying to figure out why, despite being cataclysmically hungover, sleep-deprived and caked in 72 hours worth of dried sweat, I was feeling strangely cheerful.
“Shall we get a photo?”, one of my friends suggested. As I scrolled through the pictures afterwards, I realised that, at going on for 5pm, it was the first time I had seen what I looked like all day. Because none of the toilets – and I’m using that word loosely – had mirrors in them, and I didn’t even attempt the two-hour queue for the shower, save for a few selfies, Glastonbury was the longest I’ve ever gone in my adult life without seeing my own reflection. After meticulously planning elaborate outfits, hair and makeup for the five-day festival – and vastly overpacking – I had ended up rolling out of my tent each morning, chucking on whatever was at the top of my rucksack, throwing my hair up and getting on with the day.
And my brain was thanking me for it – all the space usually taken up by fretting about whether this outfit made my stomach poke out, or if my skin was getting too oily, or whether my hair looked frizzy, was freed up for the glorious business of living: spending time with my friends and watching some incredible live music.
The average woman looks in the mirror around 34 times a day, according to a survey by Transformulas beauty. We reapply our make-up on average 11 times a day, and 89 percent of us carry a compact mirror in our handbags. It is a deeply unnatural and hyper-modern phenomenon, and impossible not to correlate with an increasingly insecure culture. During the the first year of the pandemic, when we were all confronted with our own reflections for hours a day on Zoom, UK plastic surgeons reported a 70 per cent rise in consultation requests.
While I wouldn’t categorise myself as an especially physically insecure person, like all women, I am certainly overly-self critical. And I have certainly had a breakdown or two (or three or four) in front of a mirror. So, after my liberating mirror-less week at Glasto, I decided – for the sake of journalism, and as a social experiment for my own mental health – to try going mirror-free for five days.
Obviously, raw-dogging your hair, makeup and outfits at a festival when everyone is equally as dishevelled is one thing. But going to the office, meeting up with friends, going on dates? A whole other kettle of fish.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to completely avoid all mirrors — outside of my own bedroom mirror, which I covered up, it was kind of out of my hands (I’m not sure my flatmates would have been too impressed if I had demanded we take down our bathroom mirrors). But I set some basic rules: I would cover my mirrors and avoid anything that would show my reflection as much as possible. If and when I did catch my reflection, I would look away as soon as possible.
Day One
The first day was probably the most difficult. I was going into the office, and I tend to put on makeup everyday – it probably takes me about 45 minutes to get completely ready when I’m heading into work.
I still did attempt to put a little makeup on, but with no mirror my options were limited, and I was done and dusted in 15 minutes. None of my colleagues made any comments (not to my face anyway), so turns out you can semi-successfully put on mascara without looking at what you’re doing.
Day Two
On day two I worked from home which made things simple for most of the day. But after work I was heading out to the pub with my friends, and I shocked myself by genuinely considering cancelling. I was anxious – what would they think of me if I turned up looking unkempt? Would they secretly talk about me behind my back, and wonder if I was going off the rails? Clearly, I still have some unpacking to do.
I did go, though, but when we all took a picture, I found myself dreading seeing the result – I thought that I’d see some kind of ogre staring back at me, messy-haired, smudged makeup and top on inside-out. But I just looked…normal. And when I told my friends about what I was doing, and asked if they had noticed anything different about my appearance, none of them had. Turns out, we’re all too busy focusing on ourselves to care that much about what anyone else looks like.
Day Three
The third day was perhaps the most revelatory. It was date night – my boyfriend and I were going out for a relatively fancy dinner. Usually, I would try on multiple outfits, start to feel a bit shit, and then inevitably go back to the first one, after wasting the best part of an hour hyper-fixating on my various perceived flaws.
This time, though, I opened my wardrobe, picked out a dress and simply decided I looked nice in it. There was no over-scrutinising, no time to stare at myself in the mirror and wait for my insecurities to inevitably materialise. And I didn’t think about how I looked the entire evening.
Day Four
Day four and five were slightly easier, as I was back at another festival. However this time we were glamping, so although the temptation of shop windows was removed, the bathrooms did all have mirrors. None were full-length though – so no risk of “does my stomach look big in this” – and, save for a drunken moment on the Sunday evening, I did manage to avoid them for the best part of the weekend.
Day Five
By the final day of my experiment, I was growing a little weary. It is quite mentally challenging to keep reminding yourself to stare at your feet while you brush your teeth, and focus on your fingernails while you wash your hands.
But, while the realities of a strictly-enforced no-mirror policy might be tricky, limiting my mirror usage is certainly something I want to incorporate into my daily life. It was only once I removed the stimulus that I realised just how much energy I waste each day worrying about what I look like.
I definitely had a few slip-ups. It’s only when you’re actively trying not to catch your own reflection that you realise how ubiquitous mirrors have become in day to day life. My phone screen, shop windows – it was a constant battle against the reflex to do a quick outfit check.
Walking into the bathroom and not looking in the mirror while I brushed my teeth or washed my face felt very unnatural. But I also started asking myself: why do I insist on staring at myself when doing these things that, for the most part, I don't have to see myself to achieve?
Granted, sometimes I look in the mirror and think I look great, and that might make me feel fabulous for the rest of the day. But, far more often than not, it is the other way around. That first look in the mirror in the morning is like a millstone around my neck, starting a cycle of negative reinforcement for the subsequent 33 moments in the day that I am confronted with my own reflection.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about my experiment was that no one even noticed. I had been so anxious of what other people might think – that I was unprofessional, or not making an effort. But, it turns out that the way I look is actually the least interesting thing about me. How liberating.
