Ep. 614: Pretty Girls Make More Money

Ep. 614: Pretty Girls Make More Money

February 18, 2026 · 32 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the impact of makeup on women's income and societal treatment, exploring themes of pretty privilege and the patriarchy.

We know pretty-privilege exists, but is there another layer we haven’t been paying attention to? Some studies show that women who wear makeup make more money than their female counterparts that don’t. We’ve definitely noticed how much better people treat us when we look good—we do still live in a patriarchal society, after all—but is it worth it to start investing more money into your Sephora budget in order to get a raise at work? Whether it’s a case of feeling confident and therefore performing better, or just a case of good ol’ misogyny, this doesn’t feel like something we should ignore. Women who wear makeup are paid more [3:28] Grooming vs. pretty-privilege [6:49] Doing better when you look better [8:17] Are people putting more effort into their looks? [11:01] Everything is “viral” now [14:51] Looksmaxxing, softmaxxing, and hardmaxxing [15:58] Average is attractive [18:09] The difference teeth make [19:36] The energy component [21:37] Looks in business [25:06] Unfortunately, the patriarchy still reigns [28:43] Subscribe to The Lighthouse Letters https://dannyjdotcom.substack.com/ Don’t forget to leave us a review and subscribe so you never have to miss an episode! Comments…

People in this episode

Hosts: Danny-J Johnson, Jill Coleman

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Sephora

More episodes of The Best Life Podcast

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Best Life Podcast podcast page.