Girl, Wash Your Face

Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be (2018), a personal development book by Rachel Hollis, was well received, garnering a nomination for the 2018 Goodreads Choice Awards. Hollis tackles how we can break free from the lies telling us that we don’t deserve the life we want. The CEO of Chic Media, a prominent media company, Hollis is the author of numerous fiction books. She lives in LA.

In Girl, Wash Your Face, Hollis blends her Christian upbringing with her less traditional spiritual values to explain why we deserve to be happy. Moreover, she urges us to understand that we are solely responsible for our own happiness; no one else is to blame if we are dissatisfied with where we are in life. Accepting that we have the power to choose our own life, Hollis explains, is the first step toward self-fulfillment. Only when we feel fulfilled can we find ourselves in the Lord.

Girl, Wash Your Face is divided into twenty chapters, each dedicated to a lie we tell ourselves. These lies make us feel bad and hold us back from loving ourselves. For example, chapter titles include “I’m Not Good Enough,” “I’m Better Than You,” and “I Should Be Further Along by Now.” Hollis breaks down why these thoughts are destructive, and what we should be thinking instead. Biblical quotes are included throughout the narrative.



Hollis attests that we have all thought at least a few of these negative thoughts at some point. If we have not had these thoughts, we have certainly had other, equally negative ones. Girl, Wash Your Face is designed to make us confront and dissect negative self-beliefs. Once we dissect these beliefs, it is easier to understand why they are false, and why we need to expose them as lies. We may then replace these thoughts with positive truths that improve our wellbeing.

Although Girl, Wash Your Face is a self-help book, Hollis uses her own experiences with negative thinking as examples. She talks about the differences between depression and sadness, and how it is impossible if we are suffering from depression to “think” ourselves happy. She understands this because she has suffered from depression herself. Hollis is pro-therapy.

Hollis explains how important it is for us to own our feelings, accepting that we can’t be happy all the time. This is also part of what attending therapy is about. Girl, Wash Your Face aims to be realistic, but comforting. Moreover, Hollis encourages us to practice self-care and to check-in with ourselves every now and then. In a busy world, it is easy to lose track of our own thoughts, losing sight of our goals.



While we must be kinder to ourselves, Hollis notes that we should not judge other people. She urges us to distance ourselves from judgmental people. If we start judging others, then we become what we’re trying to escape. This is a self-defeating, unhealthy cycle.

However, some critics assert that, even if we judge someone a nice and caring person, we are still passing judgment. Making judgments is impossible to avoid. Hollis’s response is that it all depends upon the kind of judgments we are making—praise is good; criticism is bad. She refers to Jesus and how he reassured us that it is possible to judge morally and righteously.

Girl, Wash Your Face covers lies that typically affect women more than men. For example, “I Am Defined by My Weight” covers emotional eating and how we too often associate our self-worth with our dress size. As a teenager, Hollis had a problem with comfort eating. Her parents’ divorce triggered binge eating and negative thoughts. Now, she understands that we are more than the weight on the scales and that we have the power to change that weight if we really want to. There’s no point in blaming someone else for our unhappiness—most of us make too many excuses for why we can’t change our lives.



Hollis understands that most women struggle with the demands of motherhood, relationships, careers, and self-care. It often seems impossible to balance these conflicting demands, and women often feel that they’re not good enough. However, what we should see is that, so long as we are trying to find that balance, we are doing the best that we can do.

Girl, Wash Your Face encourages women to reevaluate their lives, identifying anything we are unhappy with. If we don’t enjoy our career, then it is within our power to find a new job. If we’re not happy in a relationship, we can leave it. Hollis hopes to empower us to take control of our lives from this moment forward.