Girl, Wash Your Face

I read Girl, Wash Your Face with a pencil because it mixes memoir and advice in short chapters. It came out in 2018 from Thomas Nelson, 240 pages in hardcover tied to ISBN 9781400201655. Rachel Hollis was a lifestyle blogger and event organizer who built a business while raising kids. Each chapter names a lie she believed, tells a story, and offers a habit to replace it. I will be loved if I am skinny. I am not good enough. I need a hero.

If you like personal growth with faith and family talk, this fits. If you want research, look elsewhere. Hollis cites experience, not studies. Take what helps. Leave what does not. Know before starting that later reporting criticized her privilege framing. Read with that lens.

Lies and habits

The structure is simple. Twenty lies. Twenty stories. Twenty tools. Lie one is about body image and the scale. Hollis describes dieting since teens, hiding food in drawers, running miles to earn treats, crying in dressing rooms. She tells of a magazine photo shoot where she smiled while starving and faint, with stylists pinning clothes. The habit is to stop weighing daily and start moving for strength. Walk with a friend. Drink water before coffee. Eat protein at breakfast. Lift twice a week. She gives her own morning list. Water, meds, five minute stretch, write three lines. Small, doable, repeated even on travel. She shows a photo of her fridge list, stained and real, to prove systems beat willpower.

Other lies follow. I need to be liked by everyone. She tells of people pleasing at church and work, saying yes to committees, then snapping at her husband. Tool. Say no once a week and sit with discomfort. I am defined by weight or kids or job. She tells of losing herself in motherhood, forgetting friends, then scheduling girl time like meetings. Tool. Put yourself on the calendar.

Faith runs through. Hollis is Christian and quotes Scripture about worth being given, not earned. Prayer mornings before phones. Gratitude lists with three specifics, not just family. Church community that brings meals after births and losses. A friend who texts verses without advice when Hollis spirals. Readers who share faith will feel seen. Others can translate to values talk. Know what matters. Practice daily. Ask for help from people, not just ideas. The tone is sisterly, not pastoral. She swears a little, jokes about Spanx as shapewear armor, admits mess like forgetting a kid pickup and crying in the school line. Perfection is never the ask. Showing up washed and willing is.

Other lies get full chapters worth noting. I will be happy when I lose weight, get the job, buy the house. Hollis tells of hitting each goal and feeling flat after a day of high. New pants fit, then normal returns. Promotion lands, then inbox fills. House keys turn, then pipes leak. The habit is to practice wanting the day you have while working for the next. Write what is good now with specifics. Hot shower. Friend text. Paid bill. Comparison steals joy fastest online. She deleted apps for a month and kept a paper list of good things by the bed, adding one nightly. Mom guilt means I am bad gets a whole hard chapter. She missed a recital for work travel and spiraled on the plane, then asked her son what he remembered months later. He remembered ice cream after with her, not the miss. Repair beats perfection. Apologize, ask what helps, do it. I need a hero to save me closes the arc. She waited for Dave to fix business fear around sponsors, then learned to call herself with shaking hands and a script. Each lie follows the same arc. Story, ache, small tool. Repetition is the method. You learn the rhythm and start applying before finishing the book.

Family stories carry chapters. Her husband Dave appears as partner and foil. He is steady where she spins. He handles budgets with spreadsheets while she dreams in vision boards. They fight about work travel and missed bedtimes, then make up with plans written on a whiteboard. Who does pickup. Who pays sitter. Who gets a morning off. Kids interrupt writing with snacks and questions about Santa logistics. Hollis does not hide chaos. Toys on stairs. Laundry mountains. Cereal for dinner twice in one week. That honesty earned trust with moms who live it. She also describes nursing babies during conference calls on mute, typing with one hand. No glamour filter. Work from home with kids is shown as both gift and grind.

Business stories add edge. She started as a party planner folding napkins in a garage with a baby on her hip, then blogged at night after kids slept with a laptop burning her legs, then hosted Rise conferences for thousands of women who paid to be in rooms with energy. She describes stuffing gift bags at midnight with volunteers who became friends, crying in a venue bathroom when a speaker cancels an hour before doors, then smiling on stage with a mic pack taped to her back and Spanx rolling. She gives tactics that travel beyond events. Build an email list before you need it with a freebie people want. Ask sponsors for specific amounts tied to specific perks like coffee breaks. Show up early to test mics and walk the room. Follow up within two days with photos and numbers. Those pages help entrepreneurs more than affirmations. She shares ticket math in broad strokes, seats plus sponsors minus venue and food, enough to see that events make money on sponsors plus seats, not seats alone.

What worked was pace. Chapters run ten pages with a lie title, a story, and a habit spelled out. You can read one with coffee before kids wake or on a lunch break. Each ends with something to try that day, not someday. Drink a glass of water before soda. Text a friend you envy and compliment her sincerely. Write three gratitudes with why each matters. Move for twenty minutes without tracking steps. Apologize once without excuses. Small wins build momentum, which is the book thesis in action. Wash your face means start where you are with soap and water, not a makeover or a shopping trip. I kept a card of habits tried and dates in my wallet. Water three days. Walk two. Gratitude five. Apology one hard. Seeing marks helped more than feeling inspired for an hour.

What helped and what grated

What helped me was permission to be both ambitious and tired. Hollis says want more and rest without apology. She wakes at five to write before kids, then naps on laundry piles when needed. She admits help plainly. A housekeeper twice a month who folds like magic. Grandparents for weekends with rules about sugar. A sitter for date nights budgeted like bills. That honesty about support matters because too many gurus pretend solo while hiding staff. She names her village on the page, though critics rightly note the village costs money many lack. Take the principle, not the price tag. Ask for any help available. Trade babysitting. Swap meals. Rest in pieces if not hours.

The adoption and foster story moved me most. Hollis describes welcoming a child into their home after long paperwork, home studies with strangers opening closets, waiting through holidays. Joy arrives with hard days. Bedtime routines that take hours. Therapists with playrooms. School meetings where she takes notes and cries after. She writes about loving a child with trauma behaviors without fixing quickly, sitting outside a slammed door, offering food without demands. A caseworker tells her progress looks like trust, not grades. That chapter shows patience better than any lie list. Love as showing up daily with snacks and boundaries. It also shows resources. Therapy costs. Time off costs. Hollis names help received, which matters for readers weighing similar paths with fewer means.

What grated was bootstrap tone in places. Stop making excuses and stop breaking promises to yourself can read as blame if you face chronic illness, poverty, shift work, or unsafe housing. Hollis says choose joy and work hard, which helps when stuck on habits but harms when systems block sleep, pay, or safety. Later controversies about her comments on house cleaners and privilege sharpened this critique for many readers. A cleaner works hard too and may not get to choose joy on low wages. Read the habits as options for resourced days, not moral tests for all days. If a tool does not fit your life, skip without shame and keep the ones that do. That selective use honors both the book effort and your reality.

I also wanted sources for health claims. Claims about water curing fatigue, food fixing mood, and habits rewiring brains lack citations in text. Anecdotes stand as proof with before and after photos. That is fine for memoir momentum, thin for advice that touches bodies. A glass of water helps many mornings. It does not treat depression, thyroid issues, or anemia. Hollis would likely agree in person. On page, the line blurs. Pair with a researched book if you need data on sleep, nutrition, or exercise. Use Hollis for push to start, a clinician or dietitian for plans that fit your labs. Both can sit on one shelf without fighting.

The marriage chapters need context now. Hollis wrote about forever partnership with date nights, counseling tune ups, and shared calendars. She and Dave later divorced, and he died in 2023 after struggles she wrote about with love. Reading love advice after knowing the end feels tender and sad. Their tools about weekly meetings, budgets without blame, and repair after fights still help. Take the communication habits and calendars into your week. Hold predictions about forever lightly. People change in ways books cannot hold. Grief for what was and what might have been sits beside gratitude for honest pages. That complexity does not cancel help. It deepens it into adult use. Keep the morning water. Keep the walk. Keep the list on the fridge where mornings happen.

Still, as a starter for stuck mornings, it works when used selectively. I finished with a cleaner sink, a walked mile around the block, and a written goal taped to the mirror. Small wins count more than perfect weeks. If one chapter helps, keep that tool and ignore the rest. If others annoy with privilege blind spots, close the book without guilt and find teachers who share your constraints. That selective use is also washing your face. Rinse what helps. Leave what stings. Hollis herself says start where you are, which includes putting down books that do not fit the day.

Who it is for

Read this if you like chatty growth books with faith, family, and business mix. It suits moms building side work, bloggers finding voice, and conference goers who want a push to start. Keep a notebook beside it. Write one habit per chapter and a date to try. If you need deep research on habits or systemic analysis of why women are exhausted, pair it with a second book that brings data. This one is personal fuel, not scholarly map. Use it to move on a tired Tuesday, then find teachers for the long road.

It is not for readers who want inclusive feminism without caveats. The book centers a straight Christian white woman experience. Others appear as friends and helpers, not leads. Later criticism about privilege is fair. Sample first if that matters to you, as it should.

Content notes. Diet talk and body image with past disordered eating described. Grief and family stress. Adoption and foster care with trauma behaviors mentioned gently. Business stress and debt mentions. Christian faith content throughout. Mild language. No explicit sex. A kiss and marriage talk. Later real life divorce and death of the author ex are not in the book but shape reading now.