Hey — I’m Meg Ann Lee, hairstylist and makeup artist in Eau Claire. I write about beauty, lifestyle, and the stuff nobody else is saying out loud every Sunday right here on i94online.com.

If you’ve been on the internet lately, you’ve probably seen “maxxing” everywhere. Looksmaxxing, sleepmaxxing, softlifemaxxing — it’s basically the internet’s way of saying: pick a thing and go all in!  The concept isn’t new. Optimizing for a specific version of yourself has been around forever. What IS new is that people are naming it, owning it, and making it a whole personality. And I’m fully here for it. My current version? Girlhood maxxing. Full send on the feminine, the soft, and the girly.

What Girlhood Maxxing Looks Like For Me

It’s not an aesthetic mood board. It’s a series of small choices that add up to feeling like the most “you” version of yourself. For me right now that looks like: Styling my hair in new ways — like actually using my hair rollers for volume instead of just owning them and leaving them in a drawer. My hair is a blue and green vivid color melt right now and I want to actually DO something with it instead of just letting it air dry and calling it a day.

My color theme right now is blue. Everything is blue. My Stanley is blue. My Free People Emerson bag is blue. My Adidas Samba ballet flats… BLUE. I didn’t plan a blue era. It just happened and I’m enjoying it.

Getting my nails done consistently. Not as a treat, just as a habit. There’s something about having your nails done that makes every single outfit look more intentional and I’m not going back to letting them go.

Decorating and adding “whimsy’ back into my life. Bright purple walls. New plants I’m actually keeping alive. Art I genuinely love hung up instead of letting it sitting on the floor for six months. A funky rug that looked like a beach towel when I first got it but now makes complete sense. Your space should feel like YOU — and mine finally is starting to.

Outfit selfies. Everyday I put a cute outfit on. It’s less about documenting and more about discovering how I like to style the pieces I own.  Getting dressed up with your people and going somewhere. Putting together a festival fit with your friends, getting ready together, being out in the world feeling yourself — that IS girlhood maxxing. It doesn’t have to be a solo habit. Sometimes it’s just showing up somewhere fun and fully committing to it.

Why This Trend Actually Matters

Here’s the thing about “maxxing” that I think gets misunderstood. It’s not about being the most beautiful or the most optimized version of yourself for other people. It’s about deciding what YOU want your life to feel like and then going all in on that. Girlhood maxxing isn’t a trend I’m doing because it’s on TikTok. It’s just the clearest name I’ve found for something I was already doing — making deliberate small choices that make me feel like myself. You don’t have to do girlhood. You can be in your athlete era, your minimalist era, your cottagecore era. The “maxx” part just means you’re actually committing instead of half-doing it while wondering why it doesn’t feel like anything special.  Pick your thing. Go all in.<3