How Colonized Beauty Standards Disrupt Hormonal Health
How Wanting to Be White Is Messing with Women’s Hormonal Health
Colonized beauty standards are often treated as "aesthetic preferences" or cultural "norms". In reality, they function as chronic stressors in the body, and this is harmful. These standards prioritize proximity to whiteness in appearance, features, and physical presentation, shaping not only how women are seen, but how safe they feel in their own bodies.
Informally, this dynamic often shows up as wanting to be white or at least wanting to be perceived as closer to it. What is rarely discussed is the physiological cost of that desire. Colonized beauty standards are not neutral. They affect the nervous system, disrupt hormonal health, and contribute to chronic stress, for Black women most intensely, AND ultimately for all women.
What Are Colonized Beauty Standards?
Colonized beauty standards emerged from colonial systems that" imposed Eurocentric ideals as superior. These standards favored fair skin, lighter features, thinness, youthfulness, and specific body shapes, while associating darker skin and non-European features with lower status.
European features were linked to wealth, purity, and civilization, while colonized peoples were positioned as inferior. Over time, these hierarchies damaged self-esteem, promoted cultural erasure, and embedded the idea that proximity to whiteness equaled safety, desirability, and worth." -
Although the term “colonized beauty standards” is no longer widely used in everyday language, the standards themselves are deeply embedded in modern beauty culture. Their influence did not disappear, it normalized.
Why the Disappearance of the Language Is a Problem
The decline in the use of the term “colonized beauty standards” has not meant the decline of their impact. Instead, it has made their effects harder to name and challenge.
I am witnessing the long-term consequences of these standards, seeds planted generations ago, blooming dangerously today, both within and beyond the Black community. These standards are rooted in patriarchy’s obsession with the control and infantilization of women, and they were also designed to compete with the power of melanin and how Black people naturally age.
They are not neutral. And they are not harmless.
How Colonized Beauty Standards Create Chronic Stress
Colonized beauty standards create chronic stress through constant self-monitoring and performance. Many women are taught, explicitly or implicitly, to manage their hair, skin, body size, facial expressions, and presentation in ways that signal acceptability.
This often shows up through code-switching, hypervigilance, and reliance on beauty and personal care products to alter or suppress natural features. Over time, this pressure activates the body’s fight-or-flight response.
For some, the fight response looks like resistance, reclamation, and the conscious rejection of Eurocentric aesthetics. For others, the flight response looks like hiding, changing, or dissociating from one’s features, sometimes through skin lightening or excessive and harmful beauty treatments.
When this cycle repeats, the nervous system remains on high alert. Cortisol stays elevated. Regulation becomes difficult. What appears on the surface as a beauty issue is, at its core, a stress response.
The Link Between Chronic Stress and Hormonal Health
Chronic stress has a direct and measurable impact on hormonal health. When cortisol remains elevated for extended periods, the body prioritizes survival over repair, digestion, and reproduction.
This can manifest as exhaustion, anxiety, burnout, mood instability, and disrupted menstrual cycles. Many women attempt to address these symptoms by trying to “fix” their hormones through supplements, routines, or discipline, without addressing the underlying issue: the body does not feel safe.
Hormones cannot regulate in an environment of constant surveillance and pressure. Without nervous system safety, the body remains stuck in survival mode, regardless of how healthy or intentional one’s lifestyle is.
Why This Harms Black Women and White Women
In February, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution contacted me regarding a 2025 Environmental Working Group (EWG) study on toxic chemicals found in personal care products marketed to Black women. This research builds on findings from a 2016 EWG study that documented disproportionate exposure to harmful ingredients in beauty products.
Black women face more severe consequences due to weathering, targeted marketing, higher toxic loads, and greater social punishment for non-compliance with beauty standards. However, white women are not exempt from harm.
Colonized beauty standards normalize chronic stress, chemical exposure, body dissatisfaction, and nervous system dysregulation for all women. The biological cost is the same. Stress does not discriminate. Cortisol does not care about race. Hormonal disruption occurs wherever chronic stress is present.
Healing Starts When the Body Stops Performing
Healing does not begin with fixing the body. It begins when the body is no longer required to perform for safety, acceptance, or worth. It begins when one feels safe enough to embody their natural state and feel good in their body.
When women unlearn beauty performance and reduce self-surveillance, the nervous system can finally downshift. Regulation becomes possible. Hormones have the conditions they need to stabilize. Rest and self-trust can return.
This is not about rejecting beauty. It is about reclaiming agency, safety, and embodied autonomy in a culture that has long demanded the opposite.
A Quiet Invitation
This is the foundation of the work I do with women who are ready to stop performing and start regulating, not by fixing themselves, but by releasing what was never theirs to carry.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do beauty standards affect mental and physical health?
Beauty standards can create chronic stress, body disconnection, and nervous system dysregulation, which affect both mental health and physical processes such as hormonal balance.
Can chronic stress really affect hormones?
Yes. Chronic stress elevates cortisol, which can disrupt energy levels, mood, menstrual cycles, and overall hormonal regulation.
Are colonized beauty standards harmful to everyone?
Yes. While Black women experience disproportionate harm, colonized beauty standards negatively affect all women by promoting constant body surveillance, stress, and disconnection from what I call, feeling good in and connected to your body.