Zara Ahmed (she/her)

@zara_a

Beauty & lifestyle writer

Beauty editor turned independent. The skincare industry profits from your insecurity. I'd rather help you build a routine you can stop thinking about.

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Zara Ahmed @zara_a ·

On the Politics of Effortless Style

Every fashion publication in the last decade has run some version of the "effortless style" article. The trick they never quite explain is that effortless is not the absence of effort. It is the result of so much editin…

Zara Ahmed @zara_a ·

The Skincare Routines I Tried so You Do Not Have To

I have tested probably three thousand skincare products over the last decade. Most of them do not matter. A few of them really do. Here is the short list, with no affiliate links, of the products I have personally repur…

Zara Ahmed @zara_a ·

Why I Stopped Buying Fast Fashion

I quit fast fashion at the start of 2025. The decision was partly ethical and partly aesthetic — I was tired of clothes that fell apart in a season and an aesthetic that felt borrowed from a different decade every six w…

Zara Ahmed @zara_a ·

On the Politics of Effortless Style

Every fashion publication in the last decade has run some version of the "effortless style" article. The trick they never quite explain is that effortless is not the absence of effort. It is the result of so much editin…