To Inject or Not To Inject: Navigating the Changing Face of Beauty
— By Ingrid Kesa
As Instagram might have us erroneously believe, our peers are apparently pore-free, perfectly matte and permanently bathed in elusive golden hour light. Through this augmented impression, we inevitably come to see ourselves differently. The far reaching effects of this filtered view are complex and contradictory, which is explored by Jia Tolentino in her book Trick Mirror. On the one hand, there is something undeniably empowering about the (not-so-humble) selfie. Considering the history of the male gaze and its problematic, patriarchal legacy, capturing one’s essence and broadcasting a tightly curated version of self allows for complete control of the narrative. We get to decide who we are and how the world sees us, which can be affirming, freeing and even a little exhilarating.
Thanks to Apps like FaceTune, with a few pinches, zooms and swipes, we can turn ourselves into a pretty convincing covergirl by blurring, smoothing, tightening and toning – all on the commute home. That mole you always hated on your neck? Forget it ever existed. Didn’t get enough sleep last night? There’s a filter for that. Always dreamed of stiletto-sharp cheekbones? Consider it done. Want to go the full Bella Hadid? Say no more.
Yet there’s a possibility that all this tweaking and touching up could be more insidious than surface level lets on. We might find ourselves beginning to experience a chasm of disconnect when looking in the mirror, no tiny digital paintbrush on hand to enhance our reflection. It might begin to make us think that cosmetic procedures have now become mandatory in order to keep pace. Aside from adding to the myriad pressures that we already experience in our daily lives as women, this shifting perception of self felt by so many of us on an individual, private level has driven a seismic shift in beauty ideals and attitudes on a collective, societal level.
According to the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery and Medicine, Australians spend over $1 billion every year on more than 500,000 cosmetic procedures, making our per capita spend higher than the United States. The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reports that there’s been a significant increase of 57.8% in nonsurgical procedures in the last four years globally, with Botox leading the charge. In 2022, more than 9 million Botox procedures were performed by plastic surgeons worldwide, a 26.1% increase on 2021, and a number that would surely increase if it accounted for Botox performed by non-plastic surgeons.
It’s not uncommon to be offered a syringe of it as an entree to your wax, or to be able to get some a few doors down from the food court. Once shrouded in secrecy and taboo, cosmetic procedures (especially nonsurgical procedures) are accessible, omnipresent and ubiquitous – although no less divisive. It’s rare to find a fence-sitter when it comes to the discussion: people are usually adamantly for them or puritanically against them. I find my own thoughts on the subject to be conflicting.
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Much like how a favourable selfie can make the subject feel good, injectables and the way they can positively impact someone’s self-esteem is not to be discounted. Don’t we all deserve to grab the good when we can? Cosmetic procedures can both equalise beauty and bridge the gap between the individual and one’s inner-self. We now have the ability to adjust our outward reflections to more closely resemble our internal truth or how we wish to project ourselves. It also wields important political power. The crux of feminism is rooted in the notion of supporting a woman’s right to decide her destiny, regardless of one’s own personal biases or beliefs. According to this line of thinking, deciding to be a stay-at-home mother or a CEO are both equally valid and important pursuits. And rightfully so.
Likewise, it is a woman’s prerogative to decide whether she wants to subtly enhance her facial features or even undergo a prime time-worthy transformation. In a world where we have been historically silenced and continue to this day to have decisions about our bodies made by boards of men in ivory towers, the right to choose to have injectables and cosmetic procedures is an illuminating exercise in autonomy. Besides, when done with the right amount of skill and respect for proportions, the results are undeniably impressive.
It was seeing these results firsthand that first attracted Katy, 35, to the idea of injectables around five years ago. “A colleague with great skin revealed she used injectables and I was envious of her results. At the time I was working in a job that required long hours and was quite stressful and I thought Botox would help improve how I looked (which it did), but in hindsight, more sleep and less stress would have also helped, too,” she says.
Since 2017, Katy has had Botox injections every three months and has also experimented with dermal filler. “I have a relatively small amount [of Botox] and it's quite subtle so it makes me more confident about my appearance in that people think I look good for my age while still looking distinctly like myself. Having said that, I was really disappointed with the filler treatment I had. I’m quite insecure about the bags under my eyes and have seen filler improve this [on others], but both times it did little or nothing and cost me $1500 overall,” she explains. “Instead of improving my insecurity it just enhanced it while simultaneously making me poorer.”
As Katy’s experience demonstrates, it’s entirely possible that the proliferation of injectables and cosmetic procedures could be making us feel worse about ourselves.
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I’m 34, although I often don’t feel it. I work in the beauty industry and am obsessed with skincare. From snail mucin serums and slugging to edible collagen and LED, I’ve done it all. Despite my love of everything aesthetic (which is just as much about the ritual as it is the results), I’ve so far drawn the line at injectables for myself. I can’t pinpoint why. I’d happily get a vampire facial, microdermabrasion or IPL laser, yet have a block when it comes to cosmetic procedures and injectables. I’m aware this makes me something of a hypocrite – and also a minority within my age group.
Mostly, though, I just don’t think I ‘need’ them yet. While I’m happy to keep things au naturale for now and genuinely romanticise the notion of ageing naturally, I do wonder how much ‘better’ I could look. While this feeling is infrequent, I’m aware that it’s there, a dull but mounting pressure to be managed.
In the days of yore – when models used to smoke backstage instead of scrolling iPhones – those who graced international runways and magazine covers were upheld as genetically blessed beings. The Kate’s, Claudia’s, Linda’s and Naomi’s of the era possessed a shocking beauty too ephemeral and otherworldly for this visceral plane, which only made us revere them more. It was as if they were natural wonders personified in skyscraper limbs, sublime symmetry and big hair. We accepted that they were them and we were us, for the DNA divide was too great to contemplate crossing.
Flash forward to now and we’re frequently exposed to captivating ‘before and afters’ of celebrities whose masterful surgeons have created plump, filled in faces and the illusion of transcendental bone structure upholding scaffolds of cherubic skin. It’s hard to look away from these perpetual works-in-progress. These women are the new muses, the next generation of rich-girl-influencers-slash-supermodels, living and breathing case studies that anything is possible with adequate resources and determination. Yet much like a Zara emulation of a high-end bag, it begs the question whether such overt manufacturing takes away from some of the lustre that made it so special and covetable in the first place.
The trickle down effect of this is that it has instilled in us, the masses, the idea that our idiosyncrasies are in fact flaws, and that they are something to be fixed or rectified. With just a few tiny pricks of a needle and virtually no downtime, you too could have pillowy lips and a completely different side profile. This off-the-shelf approach brings with it a new beauty standard, one that for the most part abandons individualism in favour of homogeneity.
It’s an aesthetic blueprint laid by Kim Kardashian and repeated by countless others. The Emily Ratajkowski’s, Megan Fox’s, Angelina Jolie’s and Kendall Jenner’s that typify the contemporary archetype begin to look uncannily alike, overlapping, synthesising and merging into one amped-up, pumped-up, hyperbolic Hot Girl amalgam. She could be twenty five or forty-something; her ethnicity is almost indeterminable; and, to make matters even more confusing, she more often than not denies having had any cosmetic intervention at all.
Somewhere along the way in our pursuit for perfection, did we lose sight of how beauty can celebrate difference and diversity?
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This new era of beauty has also drastically altered our perception of ageing. Injectables are becoming so commonplace that we’re slowly erasing the image of the naturally ageing woman from popular consciousness, replacing it with one that is taut, tightly drawn and just a touch superhuman. Nicole Kidman, who is in her mid-50s, comes to mind. Events that would usually leave an imprint on one’s face – the stresses of a life lived in the public eye, a high-profile divorce and raising four children among them – have been ironed out and virtually annulled. As one of the most recognisable actresses in the world, Nicole’s appearance is inextricably linked to her livelihood, so it makes sense that she would make all attempts to maintain such a visage in an industry that has always fetishised youth. What is more concerning is how this impacts the everyday woman, the woman whose job isn’t to be in front of the camera, but who still feels these ripple effects to her core.
“I began having Botox to essentially buy myself a few extra years in the ageing game, but I now realise that if everybody is doing the same thing it becomes a problematic race against time where we all invariably forget what women actually look like at certain ages,” Katy tells Self Practice. “I think a lot of people often mistake the natural ageing process of women for her being 'angry' or 'tired'. In reality, most women in their 30s are both of those things at any given time, but we seem to be losing memory of what a naturally ageing face looks like, which changes the playing field for everybody.”
I’m interested in the ethical and evolutionary implications of this growing trend. The Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery and Medicine says that almost seven million Australians, or 38% of the adult population, are considering undergoing cosmetic surgery in the next 10 years. If things keep continuing at such an upward trajectory, will those who choose not to have work done be left behind? Will we fall short in romance, our careers, our social lives? Cosmetic procedures and injectables are a relatively new phenomenon. We do not have the data yet to predict how their pervasiveness will affect us or successive generations. I’m both curious and concerned to see how this will all pan out.
Along with tweed evening jackets, cobblestone streets and elaborate pastries, embracing je ne sais quoi is something that the French do exceptionally well. Under this philosophy as it applies to beauty, foibles are to be admired rather than amended. Regardless of where our allegiances lie on the spectrum of cosmetic procedures and injectables, perhaps it would serve us well to borrow from this idea and start treating ourselves a little less like opportunities for optimisation and a little more like the peculiar, eccentric and unique human beings we are.