I am revolted by the very idea of using cosmetics or working on my appearance. (I think it's a mix of dislike of deception, laziness, and gender norms.)

It's indeed a problem when you at the same time revolt against the idea of working on your appearance and think it's a high benefit activity.

I think the solution is either to work out that working on your appearance goes against the values of yourself or to revolve the emotional issues and work at your appearance.

If you walk around and it's clear that your appearance isn't optimized because you don't believe in doing so but could if you wanted to that's respectable and can be a high status move. If you appear to be trying hard to work on your appearance and fail in doing anything because you revolt against the idea of working on your appearance that no sign of social status.

For myself the time when I put the most attention on my appearance was being 1 year into dancing Salsa. The activity gave me a new perception of my body and after I perceived I had internal motivation to improve. At the time I was also trying to optimize to effect other people with I'm not really anymore but I'm still not badly dressed. I'm no Zizek ;)