Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launches campaign against bad grooming: 'War on wrinkles'

WASHINGTON, DC: President Trump's Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth isn’t just commanding the Pentagon these days—he’s also apparently leading the charge against rogue grooming.

According to a new report, Hegseth has unleashed a full-blown makeover campaign across the US military, launching what one journalist is cheekily calling a “war on wrinkles.”

Under the new grooming directive, soldiers can now get laser hair removal. But this overhaul seems to come with a strict no-fun clause. Eyelash extensions are banned. Only the most neutral nail polishes are allowed—clear, French, or American manicure. There are fresh rules for how to wear sleeves and boots, down to the exact angle your arm should be bent. All of this, Hegseth insists, is happening “in support of Army readiness.”

Ken Klippenstein's critique of Pete Hegseth

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein unleashed in a recent Substack article, dubbing Pete Hegseth the “self-appointed commanding general of the war on wrinkles.”

According to Klippenstein, the Defense Secretary is less focused on battlefield strategy and more on photo ops that show him “doing jumping jacks, jogging with the troops, and hanging with buff special ops commandos.”

“In fact, the Secretary of Defense is all about appearances, making a constant show of being more virile than anyone who’s ever preceded him,” Klippenstein wrote.

The grooming action, he said, is Hegseth’s way of making a point. “With an emphasis on rules that most impact women and minorities, Hegseth wants to establish his own wokeness, a campaign that stresses looks over actual excellence," Klippenstein fumed.

The journalist further alleged, “Hegseth seems to be taking a page out of the Russian military playbook, which, upon suffering over one million casualties in Ukraine, is also trying to stress appearances over serious failures of policy and humaneness.”

Riddled with scandal

While Pete Hegseth appears to be policing manicures, the Department of Defense is still navigating serious storms. For starters, there’s the unresolved Signalgate mess when Hegseth and a few other Trump cabinet officials reportedly discussed war plans in a Signal group chat.

The unauthorized pause Hegseth placed on a weapons shipment to Ukraine also did not help the cause. The delay sparked a lot of questions, such as who is calling the shots in the Trump administration.

Hegseth told Congress just last month, “We’re looking at overall fitness standards, overall grooming standards, overall basic standards across our formations that we believe have slipped certainly under the previous administration, but over decades.”

At a February town hall, he compared his efforts to the broken windows theory in policing. “When you ignore the small stuff from criminals … it creates a culture where big stuff you’re not held accountable for,” he said.

Controversial policies for the troops

First, the shaving policy. The new directive reportedly includes multiple phases of treatment for “pseudofolliculitis barbae” or razor bumps, which disproportionately affects Black and brown service members. The guideline provides for mild to severe care plans, with the last resort being laser hair removal, all on the government’s dime.

Second, the ban on eyelash extensions. There’s no detailed explanation, but Klippenstein says it’s a restriction that also disproportionately impacts Black and brown troops. The same goes for the nail polish policy—only “clear or French, or American Manicure” is allowed now.

Thirdly, the uniform tweaks. New policy reportedly dictates that “the cuffs will remain visible, and the sleeve will rest at, or within 1-inch of, the forearm when the arm is bent at a 90-degree angle”—as well as new boot height rules and even a ban on those handy duty identifier patches. Commanders can also stop soldiers from rolling their sleeves entirely.

Klippenstein summed it up by saying, “It is a hodgepodge of ‘new’ directives that are mostly costly annoyances but overall leave enlisted soldiers I’ve talked to feeling like the Pentagon and ‘leadership’ are just playing a sadistic game of Simon Says.”