The pressure to change your face
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian.
Today, the increasing pressure to mess with your face.
I've always thought of myself as someone with fairly high self-esteem Someone who's more or less at peace with their face, their body, their imperfections. And yes, there have been times when I've wanted a smaller bum, straighter teeth, longer legs, a less round face. But by and large, I've accepted how I look and how I've changed as time has gone by. Recently, though, I've started to wonder if I shouldn't, I don't know, tighten things up a bit, smooth a few things out.
How did the host first notice pressure to alter her face when podcasts went visual?
And I don't think it's a coincidence that these feelings have started to simmer at the same time as podcasts have gone visual. We filmed today in Focus Now and we put clips on social media. And I must admit, I was really quite appalled when I saw the first clips of me. It was so different from these carefully curated selfies that I post on my private account. It was the way I look when I'm talking or listening, my brows furrowed, my teeth are askew, and I know I'm not alone. It doesn't help when aesthetics clinics or plastic surgeons are sliding into your DMs offering discounts. And when plenty of people I know, as well as an ever-growing list of celebrities, are open about exactly what they've had done.
It's what today's guest calls aesthetic inflation. And I feel conflicted about it. I judge people who succumb, and then I judge myself for being so judgy. But I want to resist the pressure to mess with my face. From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus. The insidious creep of aesthetic inflation.
Jessica DeFino, welcome to Today in Focus. Thank you for having me. I'm really delighted that you're here because you're one of my favourite beauty writers and you're a critic and you are the agony ant of the brilliant Guardian US column, Ask Ugly. And it was actually a letter that you received last year that really crystallised so much of my quite conflicted feelings about everything that we're going to discuss today. I wanted to start by asking you to actually read that letter, if that's okay.
Sure. Okay. Dear Ugly, I'm 36 and I don't need or want a facelift, but lately I feel like I'm being made to want a facelift. Is it weird that facelifts are becoming normalized for women my age or am I being too judgmental? Why do I want this even though I don't want this? Are there any risks or side effects that might sober me up enough to commit to not getting a facelift in the future? I feel like I'm going crazy. And it's signed, maybe I need a lobotomy instead. Okay.
It's such a good letter. And I think it will probably resonate with a lot of listeners as it did with me, this sort of tortured and contradictory set of feelings. And I loved your reply to it. And you said that you see this as a reaction to what you called aesthetic inflation. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Yes. So aesthetic inflation, I see it as the normalization of more and more extreme cosmetic procedures over time that not only affects the people who feel pressured to opt in, but also affects the people who can't opt in or choose not to opt in. It makes it harder to opt out without facing social, financial, political consequences.
Oh God, tell me about it. And that letter was just about facelifts, but I think it could just as easily apply to this whole growing family of treatments and tweakments. Because as technology advances, what they can do to you with quite drastic results without you having to go under the knife is really quite remarkable. Or what they can do with just these discrete little incisions that mean that you don't have to have a general anaesthetic anymore. Like at the moment, my Instagram feed is chock full of women having these blepharoplasty. There you go. Eyelifts, basically. And then you've got Botox fillers. Tell me about how this sort of family of procedures are growing in popularity.
Yeah, I mean, they're all growing in popularity and I definitely see it on a spectrum. So we could call these behaviors broadly anti-aging behaviors and they've increased from the product sector where that's just the proliferation of new types of anti-aging skincare products.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:47
2
How did the host first notice pressure to alter her face when podcasts went visual?
0:47–11:33
3
What letter sparked the conversation about facelifts and aesthetic inflation?
11:33–14:30
4
What is 'aesthetic inflation' and how is it changing cosmetic norms?
14:30–19:34
5
Which non-surgical 'tweakments' and procedure trends are rising fastest?
19:34–29:48