“Since I put on a face mask and go out without makeup, I can sleep an extra half an hour in the morning.”

“I spent loads of money on lipsticks, but now they’re useless...”

“Don’t have to worry about retouching my makeup after putting on a mask.”

...

These were posted on social media platforms after the pandemic outbreak, highlighting problems that had previously been overlooked when people’s habitual lifestyles were changed. In recent years, cosmetics have gradually become an essential daily necessity for women, especially young women, the cosmetics industry is booming, but behind this seemingly normal trend lurks growing anxiety about women’s appearance. When the female image binding with “Beauty”, the pursuit of beauty on the perfect becomes a matter of course. It’s only been 30 years since Chinese women began using cosmetics in the 1990s, and now spend almost a third of their income on beauty products, among this, the development of the Internet and social media has played an important role in this. A large number of advertisements and marketing have divided the image of women into numerous visual criteria, women are gradually drawn into the consumerist trap of facial anxiety by following these criteria, spending time, energy, and money on appearance illusion, some even run up huge debts, at the time when they should be enriching themselves and amassing wealth.

And what do these women, trapped in the trap of consumerism by appearance anxiety, end up with?

A total of ¥8,316($1301) worth of cosmetics was used in the production of the work, which was collected from women who had shed their facial anxiety, from luxury brands to affordable alternatives. Standing 162cm tall and weighing 50kg, the wax figure is the ideal height and weight for an Asian woman.

The making process took a month, but only took 12,644 seconds to burn out and collapse under the weight of the wax, in the process, her head was burned into a shell, and her chest cavity collapsed at an astonishing rate, the image that has taken so much time, energy and money to create has either gone up in smoke or melted away, like women caught up in consumerism and facial anxiety, chasing the facial illusion until it crumbles in an instant.