The Importance of Getting Your Appearance In Order

Putting more thought into your appearance is one of the easiest ways to improve your social prospects and the way people see you. It falls under the broader category of non-verbal communication. Unless you're really likable as a person, a lot of people will have a hard time looking past a sloppy exterior. And why not live up to your appearance's full potential?

Most people are pretty superficial and mentally lazy when they size others up. If you look like you have your act together, they can't help but assume you really do. The opposite is true too, if you don't look all that great, people will attribute all kinds of negative traits to you. But clean up your look, and suddenly you don't seem so bad, and they're more willing to give you a chance, even though you're the same person deep down.

This article is about the kinds of good grooming and dressing that cuts across all social groups and identities. Sometimes certain ways of dressing or styling yourself are central to a group you belong to. I'm not saying everyone has to adopt a standardized 'fashionable' uniform. I'm more talking about just looking the best you can, whatever your scene is, and not selling yourself short.

For some people improving their appearance can have a drastic effect on their social lives. As an example, several times I've heard anecdotes from people regarding the impact of losing a lot of weight. Rightly or wrongly, when they got in better shape everyone started treating them much, much better. They realized:

For years I couldn't seem to get anywhere with people, even though I considered myself someone who made an effort to be personable and friendly and try to get to know everyone. I got pretty depressed and wondered what was wrong with me. Then I lost the weight, and it became clear that my only problem in the past was that I was fat, and people weren't giving me a chance because of it. Now they suddenly think I'm likable and worth knowing, even though I'm the same person.

I won't lie, stories like that can make you lose faith in your fellow man, but it does drive home how much outward appearances play a role in social situations.

The two levels of improving your look

When I talk about looking better, there are two degrees of this. The first is to just get yourself looking half-decent and eliminate any blatant appearance-related mistakes. I'd have a hard time arguing that someone shouldn't at least do this. There aren't any downsides at all to it.

The second level would be to put the effort into becoming more fashionable than average. There are a lot of benefits to doing this, but it takes more work. You have to learn about clothes and style, devote more time to shopping, and possibly spend more money.

A few basic tips for guys on looking better:

Below I'll list some basic tips and things to avoid (geared towards guys, since that's all I know), but really, this almost isn't necessary. Once you start devoting even a little thought to how you look, you'll very quickly notice and correct all these yourself:

Basic grooming

It feels condescending to write these out, but I suppose I should anyways:

Groom your facial hair. Avoid the patchy beard, long black mustache hairs, or chin pube goatee. Pluck your uni-brow.
Brush your teeth.
Wash your hair.
Take care of your skin.
Trim your fingernails and toenails, and clean the dirt out from under them.
Wear deodorant.
Pay attention to little details like keeping your ears clean, or your nose hair trimmed, or not having a mole with a single distracting long hair growing out of it.

Basic dressing

Again, a list of stereotypical mistakes:

Don't wear white socks with dark shoes and vice versa.
Don't wear socks with sandals.
Don't wear T-shirts that are too big and baggy, or too small and tight.
Don't wear the same outfit two days or more in a row.
Don't wear a similar, uninspired outfit every day (i.e., a dull black t-shirt with jeans.)
Don't keep wearing your clothes after they've become ratty or faded.
Don't wear clothes that are overly wrinkled.
Don't keep wearing something if you've dirtied or stained it.

Basic Appearance

Get your hair looking good. Grow it out or cut it in a fashionable style. Good looking hair can be the cornerstone of an attractive appearance.
If you have glasses, consider getting contacts. They're not as expensive or high-maintenance as you may think. At the very least, if you do wear glasses, make sure to get some frames that look good on you. Glasses suit some people, but just as many would be better off without them.
If you don't have great teeth, see what you can do about that. Of course this isn't something anyone can do in five minutes.
Get in shape, but don't think you absolutely have to get huge, shredded muscles. If someone is fit for their natural frame people subconsciously pick up on it and think they look better. Subtle differences in things like the size of your chest muscles, the width of your shoulders, or the V-shape in your torso show through. Don't think your only options are lifting weights or running on a treadmill either. There are tons of activities you can do that will make you fitter. Take up rock climbing, or kick boxing, or dancing, or Ultimate Frisbee. Pick something you enjoy doing and that isn't an unnecessary hassle to take part in. If you truly don't like doing something, or it's just a pain in ass to do it, you'll quit before long.
Tanning is controversial because of that whole increased-risk-of-skin-cancer thing, so it's your call whether you want to do it. I think the idea here is more about not looking so pale that you glow in the dark, rather than trying to turn your skin a deep brown.

Some advice on getting better clothes

Having decent clothes is one of the biggest factors in looking better. It's also a bit more complicated than vowing to take good care of your skin. This site's readers are too diverse for me to try and recommend any specific styles, or stores, or labels. I'm also not enough of a clotheshorse to get away with doing that anyways. Here are some more general pointers:

For many people who are only semi-motivated, the hardest part about getting new clothes is getting themselves out the door and to the store. After they've picked up some nice new outfits they're happy about it, but it seemed like such a hassle beforehand to take a few hours to go shopping.
You may think you don't know much about fashion, but you likely have an idea deep down about what looks good. A rigid self-image can make it hard to admit to yourself that you can wear these attractive clothes yourself.
Go to a store that sells good clothes and start trying stuff on. You can use the staff's knowledge and style to your advantage by asking them to help pick out some good outfits for you (of course, trust your gut and don't let them push or falsely flatter you into buying something you're not keen about).
Don't judge anything until you try it on and see if it looks good on you. Many things look a lot better than you'd think from just seeing them hanging on the rack or sitting folded up on a table.
Your self-image or a sense of discomfort with change may pop up here and make you think things like, "That's not me, I'm not the type of person who wears this stuff" in response to styles that would look good on you. Try to ignore these thoughts and push out of your comfort zone. You may be surprised at how within a few days you're totally comfortable in outfits you initially dismissed as "not me".
You may have some emotional baggage around certain styles, even though you think deep down that they look good. If you don't like the people who wear certain styles (e.g., jocks, preps, hipsters) the idea of dressing like one of 'them' may seem traitorous to you.

There are two broad ways you can go when it comes to getting better clothes. One is to just dress like your peers (the ones who look good that is). This is cheaper and easier. Yeah you're not being a unique trailblazer, but you'll still come out looking a lot better than you did before. The problem is your clothes will go out of style sooner rather than later and you'll have to get new ones.

The second option is to go to some hip, higher-end stores and buy some more unique items. This is more expensive and there's a higher risk that you'll accidentally buy something that isn't a good fit for your personality. On the upside, these clothes tend to just look better and attract more positive attention. They also exist outside of the short-lived trends more mainstream styles are subjected to, so it takes much longer before they're blatantly out of style.

Like anything there's a learning curve involved in picking out your own clothes. You get better at it with practice. As such, I'd recommend not blowing too much money your first few times out.
Some people don't have a problem with paying more for what they feel are good clothes. However, it's totally understandable if that's not your thing. It's totally possible to look good and not kill your bank account. Some well-dressed guys who take pride in the fact that all their shirts cost less than $15.
If in doubt lean, towards (relatively) plainer and conservative clothes over flashier ones. Flashy clothes can backfire and make you look like you're trying too hard if you don't pull them off properly.
Don't forget about accessories like a nice pair of sunglasses, a stylish watch, or a necklace. As a general rule though, you want to lean towards wearing fewer accessories rather than overdoing it.
Get some nice shoes. The standard advice for dressier shoes is to have a good pair of black ones, and a good pair of brown ones.

Your external looks are influenced by your internal states

If you took two outwardly identical guys, but one was insecure and had a lot of other issues, and the other was self-assured, happy and confident, they would actually come across as quite different from each other. They would carry themselves differently and wear different expressions on their faces. One would literally be better looking than the other.