The Tide Has Turned on Beauty Fillers, But Don't Assume 'Natural' Is Trending | Eva Wiseman
Late last year I read a pitch-black novel that revolved around the idea of a woman grieving for her pre- Instagram and pre-surgical. It's set in the year 2032 and Anna, a former influencer, has to undergo extreme surgery, Aesthetica (also the title of the book, by Allie Rowbottom), which promises to undo all the cosmetic procedures she's had on her face and the body. the last 15 years. "That's the best I can hope for," thinks Anna. "A clean slate before the next storm, the next tragedy, the next decade." As soon as I finished reading the book, I started reading about the book. At the launch of the author's book, Botox was available alongside the drinks, a sly little nod to the slipperiness of the subject and the strange dissonance between who we are and what we look like.
>This reversal surgery seemed both the dark stuff of a body horror movie and also entirely reasonable. When Kylie Jenner appeared to dissolve her famous lip fillers, clinics reported an immediate spike in requests for similar procedures. And other celebrities started doing the same: The Evening Standard reported that Kate Moss' half-sister Lottie paid £450 for lip fillers, then the same price to dissolve them. American model Blac Chyna has posted a video of her facial fillers dissolving. "Back to baseline…" she said. Courteney Cox spoke on a podcast about her biggest beauty regrets: "Fillers," but "I was able to reverse most of that." We are witnessing an evolution of beauty, a living montage of make-unders. Nearly a decade since Jenner first admitted to lip fillers (increasing Google searches by 11,300% in 24 hours), injectables have spread to cities and faces with remarkable speed, " migrating” sometimes from one eye to the other, leaving people vaguely strange, or from famous pop stars to tired mums during a Black Friday offer. But now patients are reporting “filler fatigue” and sharing their own journeys to that mythical “clean slate.”
I was surprised, briefly, at my reaction to this trend. A good thing, right? No, Eva? A good thing, surely, if women feel more comfortable in their skin, less quick to rush at a needle, less dismayed by their aging faces, in a slower quest for perfection? I mean yes. If that was really what we were seeing. The truth, as always, is so much less simple: truths about beauty and body image are always complicated by politics and some type of scar tissue. Of course, there would come a time when fillers would go out of style; this is how modes work. The same has happened with all other cosmetic surgeries, from breast implants to, more recently, buttock implants. Once a trend becomes accessible to everyone, those with more capital will reject it and move on to the next, less accessible thing. That's what wealth brings - the power to change, in a jiffy. And while we continue to uphold the same bitter standards of beauty – based on wealth, youth and whiteness – the most privileged people will continue to buy their way in and maintain that power.
There's an irony, with celebrities' move from injectable fillers to a certain sense of "natural" beauty, in that the former was an achievable face for anyone willing to take risk and pay the money. But the latter, a face with perfect skin, a small nose and high cheekbones, is a much more expensive illusion. Every time the word "natural" appears, it attacks our morality, it alludes to shame, it looks over its shoulder at those left behind, with sneering pity.
Cosmetic procedures are in constant conversation with social media, and the impossible standards of beauty made possible by airbrushing and Instagram filters. Last week, when Martha Stewart became Sports Illustrated's oldest cover model at 81, the reaction was shock and applause. And yes, fabulous, but: what did we applaud? His lack of wrinkles? A body half his age? And if so, then why? A former billionaire's body has very little in common with a normal person's body, beyond his ability to eat, shit and breathe. It occurred to me that only other 81 year olds will have something to compare these photos to; it's unlikely the rest of us have seen many, if any, bodies of the 81-year-old in bathing suits and unaltered. As a portrayal of Martha Stewart, the shoot is fine, but any attempts to expand its meaning beyond that come to a halt pretty quickly. What I mean is that for all the reports of change, for all the loud moves towards diversity and authenticity, I am deeply suspicious of any progress.
Beauty trends turn and turn in ever smaller circles; the fashionable face has been puffed up, so inevitably it now needs to be deflated. Boobs go up, boobs go down, ass comes out, ass goes in, a dar...
Late last year I read a pitch-black novel that revolved around the idea of a woman grieving for her pre- Instagram and pre-surgical. It's set in the year 2032 and Anna, a former influencer, has to undergo extreme surgery, Aesthetica (also the title of the book, by Allie Rowbottom), which promises to undo all the cosmetic procedures she's had on her face and the body. the last 15 years. "That's the best I can hope for," thinks Anna. "A clean slate before the next storm, the next tragedy, the next decade." As soon as I finished reading the book, I started reading about the book. At the launch of the author's book, Botox was available alongside the drinks, a sly little nod to the slipperiness of the subject and the strange dissonance between who we are and what we look like.
>This reversal surgery seemed both the dark stuff of a body horror movie and also entirely reasonable. When Kylie Jenner appeared to dissolve her famous lip fillers, clinics reported an immediate spike in requests for similar procedures. And other celebrities started doing the same: The Evening Standard reported that Kate Moss' half-sister Lottie paid £450 for lip fillers, then the same price to dissolve them. American model Blac Chyna has posted a video of her facial fillers dissolving. "Back to baseline…" she said. Courteney Cox spoke on a podcast about her biggest beauty regrets: "Fillers," but "I was able to reverse most of that." We are witnessing an evolution of beauty, a living montage of make-unders. Nearly a decade since Jenner first admitted to lip fillers (increasing Google searches by 11,300% in 24 hours), injectables have spread to cities and faces with remarkable speed, " migrating” sometimes from one eye to the other, leaving people vaguely strange, or from famous pop stars to tired mums during a Black Friday offer. But now patients are reporting “filler fatigue” and sharing their own journeys to that mythical “clean slate.”
I was surprised, briefly, at my reaction to this trend. A good thing, right? No, Eva? A good thing, surely, if women feel more comfortable in their skin, less quick to rush at a needle, less dismayed by their aging faces, in a slower quest for perfection? I mean yes. If that was really what we were seeing. The truth, as always, is so much less simple: truths about beauty and body image are always complicated by politics and some type of scar tissue. Of course, there would come a time when fillers would go out of style; this is how modes work. The same has happened with all other cosmetic surgeries, from breast implants to, more recently, buttock implants. Once a trend becomes accessible to everyone, those with more capital will reject it and move on to the next, less accessible thing. That's what wealth brings - the power to change, in a jiffy. And while we continue to uphold the same bitter standards of beauty – based on wealth, youth and whiteness – the most privileged people will continue to buy their way in and maintain that power.
There's an irony, with celebrities' move from injectable fillers to a certain sense of "natural" beauty, in that the former was an achievable face for anyone willing to take risk and pay the money. But the latter, a face with perfect skin, a small nose and high cheekbones, is a much more expensive illusion. Every time the word "natural" appears, it attacks our morality, it alludes to shame, it looks over its shoulder at those left behind, with sneering pity.
Cosmetic procedures are in constant conversation with social media, and the impossible standards of beauty made possible by airbrushing and Instagram filters. Last week, when Martha Stewart became Sports Illustrated's oldest cover model at 81, the reaction was shock and applause. And yes, fabulous, but: what did we applaud? His lack of wrinkles? A body half his age? And if so, then why? A former billionaire's body has very little in common with a normal person's body, beyond his ability to eat, shit and breathe. It occurred to me that only other 81 year olds will have something to compare these photos to; it's unlikely the rest of us have seen many, if any, bodies of the 81-year-old in bathing suits and unaltered. As a portrayal of Martha Stewart, the shoot is fine, but any attempts to expand its meaning beyond that come to a halt pretty quickly. What I mean is that for all the reports of change, for all the loud moves towards diversity and authenticity, I am deeply suspicious of any progress.
Beauty trends turn and turn in ever smaller circles; the fashionable face has been puffed up, so inevitably it now needs to be deflated. Boobs go up, boobs go down, ass comes out, ass goes in, a dar...
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