The “clear” aesthetic — matcha, 20-step skincare routines, gua sha, 4:30 a.m. yoga, minimalist make-up and nude-toned shapewear — went viral in 2022. It’s a stark distinction from the pouty lips, daring eyebrows and spray tan aesthetic of the 2010s. Coupled with the rise in social media, the brand new development to be as natural-looking and dewey as potential has elevated criticisms of beauty enhancements. Our favourite celebrities that have been recipients of unnatural plastic procedures, particularly these eager on hiding any of those bodily alterations, are now not slicing it.
However even though post-pandemic plastic surgery demand has skyrocketed, the unfavorable perceptions surrounding beauty enhancement are nonetheless widely held amongst on a regular basis folks. These cognizant of how the sweetness trade earnings off of insecurities usually draw the road at everlasting physique modifications, akin to lip fillers and botox, because the product of poor decision-making by ladies. Sentiments in opposition to these injections — both from their medical irrelevance, seeming superficial motives or well being dangers — revolve across the bigger concept of body neutrality, or honoring one’s physique as it’s with neither constructive nor unfavorable emotions. Nevertheless, at present, it’s subsequent to not possible to abstain from being profited off of and be physique impartial. There exists a spectrum of participation with exploitative medical practices, however a higher understanding of the cosmetic surgery trade’s versatility is important for higher acceptance of beauty physique modification.
For instance, the merchandise made by Juvéderm, one of the crucial well-liked dermal filler manufacturers, are made nearly totally of hyaluronic acid (HA). This acid, often known as hyaluronan, is a linear polysaccharide that’s each abundantly produced within the physique and ubiquitous to key “visible” tissues akin to pores and skin, nerves and epithelium. HA’s magic has to do with its means to bind 1,000 occasions its personal quantity in water — giving it plumping superpowers for getting older, wrinkly, inelastic and dry pores and skin.
HA, along with well-liked hydroxy acids (AHAs, BHAs, glycolic acid, salicylic acid, and so on.), are huge promoting factors in topical skincare merchandise. These acids have deep exfoliating and hydrating properties that work in opposition to frequent dermatological points like pimples and hyperpigmentation, making them very important lively components in cleansers, sunscreen and every thing in between.
Why, then, is it so negatively perceived to have a naturally-occurring compound subcutaneously added to tissue when that very same compound already exists in our our bodies and is inspired to be utilized topically? The reply partially lies inside the anti-cosmetic augmentation crowd. These critics largely view all enhancing procedures as a monolith — a byproduct of the bigger view that any cosmetic-driven effort is an effort in opposition to physique neutrality — when, in follow, no two procedures are the identical. To clump butt implants and lip filler into the identical class, for instance, undermines the intrinsically pure and low-risk concept of HA formulation and inappropriately sexualizes the motivation for all injections.
On one other token, as somebody with lip filler and botox, I’ve been advised that I’ve pursued a scheme to suit extra comfortably inside the patriarchy and oppress different ladies within the course of. It’s ironic contemplating that this criticism got here from white ladies — a demographic that has imposed Eurocentric beauty standards on melanated ladies, specifically Black women, for hundreds of years. Pores and skin bleaching, hair perms, coloured contacts, rhinoplasties and blonde hair dyes are all beauty modifications that proceed to pervade varied countries sufferer to colonization. But, white “feminists” usually concentrate on the methods wherein ladies are subjugated by the male gaze as a result of doing so grossly takes the blame away from themselves for the methods they subjugate ethnic ladies to Eurocentric magnificence requirements — a malignancy that far supersedes that of the patriarchy when not used in conjunction with it.
Moreover, it’s an inherently feminist act for girls to decide on for themselves what they need to occur to their very own our bodies. The crux of criticism towards elective cosmetic surgery or fillers really perpetuates the concept that bodily autonomy ought to solely be a lady’s alternative whether it is for medical necessity (akin to in circumstances relating to abortion). In actuality, private empowerment by elective procedures contributes to broad social progress simply as a lot as rejecting magnificence requirements does. Due to cosmetic surgery, transgender persons are higher in a position to affirm themselves with genital reconstruction or facial feminization surgical procedure, breast most cancers survivors can obtain breast implants and postpartum ladies can bear abdomen liposuction. None of those procedures are wanted to keep up a pulse, however they instill a priceless confidence and a brand new sense of self.
School-aged ladies are in a difficult spot in the case of self-image; we’re toggling between residual teenage pimples scars and budding brow wrinkles alike. Ann Arbor has over 10 cosmetic surgery clinics, and I would be the first to say that this accessibility was a giant purpose a lot of my classmates and I pursued fillers and botox. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons stories that solely two years in the past, roughly 768,000 cosmetic enhancements have been pursued by ladies ages 20 to 29 — a statistic they predict shall be on the rise. Nevertheless, the pursuit of cosmetic surgery doesn’t, in any manner, negate my feminism or integrity in preventing magnificence requirements. As a substitute of specializing in the rise of beauty enhancement in younger age teams, we must be advocating in opposition to the basis of social constructions and energy dynamics that efficiently coax ladies into contemplating inauthentic variations of themselves that they by no means wished for.
Merely put, all through the historical past of time, beauty enhancement has been a straightforward and superficial technique to criticize ladies for distracting, useless and self-sexualizing conduct. With medical developments in cosmetic surgery and dermatology that blossomed into the twenty first century, these deprecating themes proceed to encircle ladies who bodily and mentally profit from going underneath the knife. Correctly advocating in opposition to beauty enhancements requires a deeper, nuanced understanding of every therapy — together with motivations, dangers and penalties. A beauty surgery-free future will solely come to fruition with advocacy in opposition to social constructions, not in opposition to ladies themselves.
It’s merely lazy to model all ladies who pursue elective injections or surgical procedures as brokers of the patriarchy, as a result of it lacks crucial evaluation of particular person motivations and objectives whereas navigating the backdrop of assorted unattainable magnificence requirements.
Namratha Nelapudi is an Opinion Columnist and will be reached at nelapudi@umich.edu.
