How Much Could Cosmetic Maintenance Cost Over a Lifetime?

A special report titled “The Beauty Advantage” on Newsweek‘s website includes “The Beauty Breakdown,” an interactive feature that estimates what a lifetime of cosmetic maintenance will cost a “modern diva.”

Gathering data from a number of sources, such as the Professional Beauty Association and Allure magazine, it looks at beauty costs for American women from their early teens through age 50 plus for treatments for the hair, face, body, and hands/feet. The lifetime total cost it comes up with: $449,127.

For those in their 30s and 40s, it included facial treatments like microdermabrasion, Botox, and lip plumping and body treatments such as varicose vein treatments and waxing, in addition to hair care, tanning, manicures, and pedicures. For women in the 50 plus age range, chemical peels and deep line wrinkle fillers were added to the facial regimen.

The lifetime total spent on the face was estimated at just over $314,000—more than treatments on hair, the body, and hands and feet combined.

The feature argues that spending money on these treatments may not be “frivolous.”

“Economists have long recognized what’s been dubbed the ‘beauty premium’—the idea that pretty people, whatever their aspirations, tend to do better in, well, almost everything. Handsome men earn, on average, 5 percent more than their less-attractive counterparts (good-looking women earn 4 percent more),” writes Jessica Bennett in the article “The Beauty Advantage” on Newsweek.com.

A Newsweek survey of 202 corporate hiring managers found that:

• 56 percent said qualified but unattractive candidates are likely to have a harder time getting a job
• More than half recommended spending as much time and money on “making sure they look attractive” as on perfecting a résumé
• When asked to rate nine character attributes in order of importance for job applicants, looks came in third, behind experience and confidence, but before where an applicant went to school

(image via Newsweek.com)