July 25, 2023 - 1:00pm
A strange thing has happened since I turned 30 this year: I’m receiving adverts for Botox and fillers. Everywhere. My social media pages are bursting with before-and-after photos of poreless skin, over-plumped lips, chiselled cheekbones, arched eyebrows, buccal fat removal, the same endless cat-eyed, concave-contoured “Instagram Faces“ in which everything goes “up” instead of the natural “down”. I even saw a video on TikTok this week telling me how Botox can be injected into the shoulders to make a person’s frame look smaller in photos, as if women needed something else to worry about.
Despite its ubiquity — an estimated 900,000 Botox injections are carried out in the UK each year — the aesthetic injectables industry is woefully under-regulated. A new study found that more than two-thirds of cosmetic practitioners who administer injections are not qualified medical doctors, but the truth is that just about anyone can inject filler. There are no national minimum standards for practitioner training or regulated qualifications, meaning people can find Botox through hair salons, beauty apps, or Snapchat stories. We have no idea how many people actually have fillers — it’s estimated at around 4.3 million each year — nor do we know their age (although it is now illegal to treat anyone under the age of 18).
There are, of course, risks: pain, headaches, swelling, bruising, infection, partial face paralysis, disfigurement. Yet despite the horror stories of drooping eyelids and half-frozen faces, demand for injectable “tweakments” continues to skyrocket, with more and more people in their twenties opting for “prejuventation” treatments or “Baby Botox“ as a preventative procedure. Twenty years ago, plastic surgery was perceived as a dramatic intervention. It was expensive, permanent and invasive, often involving an uncomfortable recovery period of bloody bandages and black eyes. Now, many young people see fillers as comparable to getting a haircut or manicure, just another example of “self-care”.
This cognitive reframing — that injectables are not about vanity, but some kind of self-vindication — is risible. Young people, made vulnerable by years of experiencing life through an ultra-filtered lens where a click of a button can give you the perfect nose or fox eyes or jawline, are being told to “do what makes them happy” by the very forces that make them profoundly insecure and unhappy in the first place. If people are constantly told that natural is not normal, that silicone is now a status symbol, that for a couple of hundred pounds you can look like Kylie Jenner (the face that launched a thousand lip fillers), then of course they will be tempted by the dopamine rush and the promise of eternal youth.
The problem is, once that journey starts, it’s very difficult to stop. Botox and fillers are cleared from the body within three to six months, and so customers have to keep coming back to maintain their smoothed-over skin and flawless features. It’s the perfect gateway drug. As a teacher, I desperately want to tell my students to avoid this capitalist doom cycle, but when apps like “Princess Plastic Surgery” and “Little Skin Doctor” are marketed to them from primary-school age, they hardly stand a chance. When I was growing up in the Dark Ages of the early 2000s, editing photos involved an expensive Photoshop licence, some training, and hours of amateur airbrushing; nowadays, anyone can transform their appearance in seconds. The pipeline of follow, filter, filler is irresistible.
It’s interesting that as a society we promote cosmetic interventions as aspirational, parading Love Islanders who are unrecognisable from the features with which they are born, while simultaneously decrying gender-affirming surgery as “mutilation”. Of course the latter is a lot more extreme, invasive and lasting, but both are ultimately the result of body image dissatisfaction and dysphoria: the idea that if we change ourselves on the outside, we will feel better about ourselves on the inside. It is a cosmetic solution to a psychological problem. The difference is that gender-affirming care is, rightly, heavily regulated, with strict guidelines and thresholds. The injectables industry, regrettably, is not.
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SubscribeAnother problematic feature of these treatments is that they make people look ugly.
Yes, and in the years to come, they will need more treatment to repair or maintain the damage done to their faces now.
The treatment often causes bruising, if DV survivor is a look. They’re rocking it. Afterwards, the only expression they can emote is usually shock or blank, lol.
Yes, and in the years to come, they will need more treatment to repair or maintain the damage done to their faces now.
The treatment often causes bruising, if DV survivor is a look. They’re rocking it. Afterwards, the only expression they can emote is usually shock or blank, lol.
Another problematic feature of these treatments is that they make people look ugly.
I don’t normally watch reality tv shows but at work I was subjected to “Made in Chelsea”. I was horrified that it appeared, every single person in it had some form of work done to them. To me it was obvious as none of them looked remotely natural. The young people who was watching it (only reason I was being subjected to it) could not see it! They don’t know what normal is, or at least what they deem normal is modified as opposed to natural.
I don’t normally watch reality tv shows but at work I was subjected to “Made in Chelsea”. I was horrified that it appeared, every single person in it had some form of work done to them. To me it was obvious as none of them looked remotely natural. The young people who was watching it (only reason I was being subjected to it) could not see it! They don’t know what normal is, or at least what they deem normal is modified as opposed to natural.
Pumped up lips are a huge turn off. The women doing this must have serious mental problems, or are they just copying some celebrity who looks just as disfigured as they themselves will be? Luckily these vain individuals are in a relative minority otherwise the human race would be in uncontrollable free-fall, which it may nevertheless be. I have to add that I didn’t read the article, the photo was reason enough not to.
Pumped up lips are a huge turn off. The women doing this must have serious mental problems, or are they just copying some celebrity who looks just as disfigured as they themselves will be? Luckily these vain individuals are in a relative minority otherwise the human race would be in uncontrollable free-fall, which it may nevertheless be. I have to add that I didn’t read the article, the photo was reason enough not to.
I’m never quite sure what this means. It’s a bit like “the system” or “the patriarchy”. Who exactly is promoting this? Female influencers? Female celebrities?
And to what extent is this better seen as a part of a toxic female culture centred on vanity, narcissism, status seeking, need for constant validation, vicious competition and desperately pretending to be “living your best life”.
Presumably it doesn’t help that anything women choose to do is now seen as above criticism – as this would be misogynistic. There is no social stigma – indeed it’s seen as “empowering”.
Doesn’t seem to have spread to (straight) men to the same degree. Presumably because toxic masculinity (stoicism and related vices) affords some protection.
I don’t think men are immune. Narcissus was a man after all. Body building culture and the consequent steroid scandal began in male culture. Humans of both s e xes are driven to make themselves desirable to the opposite s e x (or same if that’s how you roll). Finding attraction in depth of personality is probably a harder sell for a TV show, I suspect that’s where much of the cult of shallow, vacuous beautiful (in their view) people is coming from. Love Island anyone?
I don’t think men are immune. Narcissus was a man after all. Body building culture and the consequent steroid scandal began in male culture. Humans of both s e xes are driven to make themselves desirable to the opposite s e x (or same if that’s how you roll). Finding attraction in depth of personality is probably a harder sell for a TV show, I suspect that’s where much of the cult of shallow, vacuous beautiful (in their view) people is coming from. Love Island anyone?
I’m never quite sure what this means. It’s a bit like “the system” or “the patriarchy”. Who exactly is promoting this? Female influencers? Female celebrities?
And to what extent is this better seen as a part of a toxic female culture centred on vanity, narcissism, status seeking, need for constant validation, vicious competition and desperately pretending to be “living your best life”.
Presumably it doesn’t help that anything women choose to do is now seen as above criticism – as this would be misogynistic. There is no social stigma – indeed it’s seen as “empowering”.
Doesn’t seem to have spread to (straight) men to the same degree. Presumably because toxic masculinity (stoicism and related vices) affords some protection.
A strange thing has happened since I turned 30 this year: I’m receiving adverts for Botox and fillers.
Funny–I turned 40 this year and haven’t been receiving any of that. Maybe the Internet knows a lost cause when it sees one; maybe the Internet knows this is as good as I’m going to get.
A strange thing has happened since I turned 30 this year: I’m receiving adverts for Botox and fillers.
Funny–I turned 40 this year and haven’t been receiving any of that. Maybe the Internet knows a lost cause when it sees one; maybe the Internet knows this is as good as I’m going to get.
I remember only several years ago when the pervasiveness of plastic surgery was largely associated with parts of Asia (e.g., South Korea) where it is generally more acceptable to comment on a person’s (usually a woman’s) appearance. Even then, it wasn’t papered over with a self-empowerment glaze: some Asian women view plastic surgery to be a path to professional and social advancement. In that sense, they openly admit that it’s for other people. Either way, it’s unsettling and very sad that young people’s demand for plastic surgery seems to be infecting the entire world now. 🙁
I think the observation ‘that as a society we promote cosmetic interventions as aspirational… while simultaneously decrying gender-affirming surgery as “mutilation”’ is strange but only if we assume it’s the same groups of people doing both. I suspect that the kinds of people who criticise gender-affirming surgery are not promoting cosmetic interventions as some kind of self-empowerment route. Anyway, thanks for the very interesting article. 🙂
I remember only several years ago when the pervasiveness of plastic surgery was largely associated with parts of Asia (e.g., South Korea) where it is generally more acceptable to comment on a person’s (usually a woman’s) appearance. Even then, it wasn’t papered over with a self-empowerment glaze: some Asian women view plastic surgery to be a path to professional and social advancement. In that sense, they openly admit that it’s for other people. Either way, it’s unsettling and very sad that young people’s demand for plastic surgery seems to be infecting the entire world now. 🙁
I think the observation ‘that as a society we promote cosmetic interventions as aspirational… while simultaneously decrying gender-affirming surgery as “mutilation”’ is strange but only if we assume it’s the same groups of people doing both. I suspect that the kinds of people who criticise gender-affirming surgery are not promoting cosmetic interventions as some kind of self-empowerment route. Anyway, thanks for the very interesting article. 🙂
As with gender affirming care, there needs to be regulations restricting access to plastic surgery and fillers for children. Adults can disfigure themselves any way they like. Why someone would let their hair dresser inject them with fillers is incomprehensible to me, but it is what it is.
As with gender affirming care, there needs to be regulations restricting access to plastic surgery and fillers for children. Adults can disfigure themselves any way they like. Why someone would let their hair dresser inject them with fillers is incomprehensible to me, but it is what it is.