I loosened my pocketbook for a week in the name of self-care
By Callie Jordan
I remember scrolling on Tik-Tok one day and being barraged by mental health, wellness, and healing content. What I noticed was an over-reliance on fancy and expensive candles, serums, and bath bombs that seemed to me to be more of an easy product promotion and a lazy, short-term fix rather than genuine self-care. Even so, I had noticed the popularity of this influencer trend in my own circles. I had family members who were brand representatives of wellness companies and were constantly trying to sell me things. This bugged the hell out of me, and I refused to quite literally buy into the nonsense.
But here’s the thing: I’ve never given the trend a chance. I owed it to myself to see what it was all about and why I was so averse to the idea of it.
I decided I was going to commercialize my self-care routine and see if money and products can buy happiness, peace, and fulfillment as well.
I had one simple rule for my week-long challenge:
1. I had to use a different product each day for five days in a row in the place of my traditional regimen.
Before I even got started, I was getting caught in a spiral of anxieties. I worried about being a phony, but I told myself to buck up: Maybe I would find that I really did enjoy and benefit from this version of self-care and look at purchasing heavily marketed self-care items in a new light. If nothing else, I’d get to try some new gadgets, switch up my routine, and maybe even relax for a bit.
Day 1: Crystals
To kick off the week, I decided to recover a pricey amethyst crystal cluster I bought on a childhood vacation to the Grand Canyon. Originally the crystal sat on my dresser, displayed as a nifty souvenir. But now, I was repurposing it.
A quick search told me that my crystal was considered a good beginner stone and would help my mind and body achieve balance and rest. Apparently, amethyst is ideal for meditation practices. I then began what is known as “crystal healing".
I sat cross-legged on my yoga mat, holding the stone in my hand and repeating affirmations and my personal intentions. I looked like a crazy, nervous wreck chanting to the mythical anti-anxiety gods. Then I laid down and placed the stone on my third eye, the space between my eyebrows and forehead. I was sure I looked ridiculous, but supposedly, the crystals healing properties and energies were somehow realigning my chakras.
Before I absolutely gave up for fear of feeling sillier than I already did, I started to somewhat enjoy this brief moment of relaxation. The feeling of running my thumb across the edges of the rock grounded and soothed me.
Day 2: Journaling
After my venture into alternative crystal therapy, I decided I needed to return to basics. I went to Target and bought the most elaborate self-guided journal. The journal I chose had a prompt for each day’s thoughts, fun stickers, and quotes. I have to admit the crafty layout made me excited about writing.
However, I figured out pretty quickly how much I really didn’t want to fill the pretty pages. It felt like so much effort to answer a prompt about my day, and kind of pointless too, unless something exciting happened. It was way easier for me to leave it on my bookshelf and totally forget about it.
Nonetheless, I picked a prompt I liked, out of order, and set off in my response. When I finally looked up from writing, I was surprised how much time had passed and how much blank space I had filled. It was cathartic and somewhat soothing to recant the memories of the day.
I wrote about my family, my parents, and my cat because I missed them at college. It felt good to finally release what I had been holding onto so tightly inside.
Day 3: Lotion
At this point, I felt like I was doing such a good job keeping an open mind and staying on course, so I treated myself and splurged on a nicely scented foot and body lotion from Ulta. The lotion I chose was called Hempz and came highly recommended by the woman at the store helping me. It smelled like a weed cloud to me, but it also had hints of banana and coconut, which I thought made up for it.
When I got home from the store, I was hesitant to reach for it because of my sensitive skin and previous reactions to new cosmetic items. But I kept reassuring myself that the ingredients checked out, and I finally took the plunge.
That night, after work, I rubbed some into my hands and began massaging and kneading the mixture onto my legs and feet. It was a simply heavenly experience, and soon I realized I had used a fair amount of the bottle already.
This was by far something that I could support. It wasn’t until now that I realized how tight and tense I was and how I had failed to nurture my body with touch.
Day 4: Squishmallow
By now, I was feeling relaxed and quite pampered. I felt confident enough to walk into Walgreens and buy an adult plush as a sleep aid. I chose Ziggly in part because he was a cheaper, mini version, but also because he was a green zombie with a stitched-up forehead, and I like to be spooked.
On my first night with Ziggly, I was unsure what to do with him. Because of his mini size and round shape, I didn’t know where exactly to place him. I started out using Ziggly as a prop for my head to watch a show in my room, and pretty soon, I had fallen asleep. When I woke up the next morning, I realized I was now, suddenly cuddling and holding Ziggly tightly to my chest.
I didn’t think a stuffed toy would make a difference, but when I woke up, I was incredibly well-rested and relaxed. Ziggly’s soft green zombie skin and fluffy insides calmed me down and made me feel safe and secure. Using Ziggly made me feel less alone, and he was the perfect company at college in place of my regular sleeping partners, my cats.
Day 5: Herbal tea
To end my week, I turned to a cup of hot tea to help me wind down and reflect. As a novice tea drinker, the options were utterly overwhelming at Wegmans. I finally settled on a simple box of Bigelow’s Cozy Chamomile. It didn’t look too intimidating, and the tea was caffeine-free. I was ready to begin.
Using my Keurig, I boiled the water into my favorite mug. I steeped the tea for 3-5 minutes and waited until it was tolerable to drink. At first sip, it tasted like absolutely nothing but flower water.
I was just starting to get bummed out that I had gotten ripped off when I noticed more than half my cup was gone, and I actually liked the sensation of holding the hot mug in between my hands and feeling the tea warm up my unusually cold body temperature. Holding the hot liquid in my mouth and then swallowing it down my throat felt especially good because I had a Summer cold. Pretty soon, I noticed that my body felt less inflamed, and my sinuses were now clear.
Post Commercialized Self-Care Routine Experiment
By the end of my week-long challenge, I realized that I had come away with some positive and even enjoyable experiences. I understood the appeal of buying products as a form of self-care, and when I let myself be vulnerable, I learned a few things about myself, too.
At the root of my reluctance to embrace the self-care buying craze was a deep-seated belief that I didn’t deserve it. It’s not that adequate self-care hadn’t been modeled for me, and the importance of it had never been imparted but rather that I had a type-A personality. I prided myself on never taking breaks, always going the extra mile to get ahead, and being my harshest critic. If I was gentle with myself, I believed I was wasting time and money that could be devoted elsewhere. In this way, self-care became a rare luxury for me instead of a necessity to be invested in and cultivated every day. Besides, I was young, healthy, and extraordinarily busy. I could do all the self-care I wanted at the end of my life when I had nothing better to do and the means to do it.
But buying these products wasn’t self-indulgence. Maybe I won’t continue to buy in the place of other self-care practices, but an occasional purchase here and there I found to be a great and beneficial pick me up that I now look forward to. I no longer feel like I need to prove myself or wait until I am exhausted and burnt out to break down and buy self-care products. I changed the metric in my relationship to self-care to see that I am allowed to buy on days even when I am not so productive because simply surviving through the day is an achievement of its own. Buying products helps remind and affirm to me that I am human and navigating life is hard, and I have no guilt for that.