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AIBU?

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Original poster

To be fed up with this generation of Botox & fillers?

160 replies

morecheeseplz · 13/09/2021 13:38

I'm mid twenties and I find that my friends are having a ton of work done fillers in there jaw lips. Even wanting to go and have BBL's in turkey now.

I find it exhausting just listening to it and seeing it all the time. Over editing pictures to the point it doesn't even look like them. This sounds really nasty and I don't mean for it to be but my friend is starting to look scary and she is 2 years younger than me.

I keep telling her to stop but she absolutely loves it.

I know it's not just my friends but I find it so exhausting even looking on social media everyone just looks weird to me.

OP posts:
DrSbaitso · 13/09/2021 20:28

@MrsDThomas

Yes. And I would too. Absolutely. She has ruined herself. Her looks caused do many heartache.

But its nothing to do with you. Nor me, so.

By inviting her to be a bridesmaid, the bride could have given the message that she loves and values her no matter what she looks like, or what choices she's made for her own body.

What she's actually done is judged the cousin on her looks, and let her know she isn't acceptable. That her personality isn't enough and if she makes herself look unappealing to the bride, she loses value.

I mean, clearly the bride can choose whoever she wants to be in her bridal party. But if she dismissed the cousin based solely on her appearance and the fact that she chose a look the bride didn't like, well, there are no morality points to be scored here regarding shallowness.

VestaTilley · 13/09/2021 20:39

YANBU; it looks dreadful, and God alone knows what’s in the fillers etc.

I think it’s really sad that our society makes so many women feel they have to do this to themselves. There’s nothing liberating about it.

bluejelly · 13/09/2021 20:44

@malificent7

Capitalism/ the patriarchy dosn't want women to be happy with their looks EVER as the beauty industry majes ££££ and if women didn't think negatively about their looks 24/7 they might actually become empowered.
100% agree
ohfook · 13/09/2021 20:49

It's a lesson we all learn eventually- my razor thin eyebrows remind me every day not to let fashion affect your face!

MrsDThomas · 13/09/2021 20:51

@DrSbaitso oh yawn. 🙄 she looks ridiculous. End of.

Her choice.

nc4565 · 13/09/2021 20:55

Every generation is different.

My generation was fake boobs, thin eyebrows, and belly button and tongue piercings.

The generation before me was all nose jobs (says my mum!)

This generation is smooth foreheads and big lips.

The generation after them will be something else 🤷🏼‍♀️

And I say this as someone who is partial to a bit of Botox!

DrSbaitso · 13/09/2021 20:55

[quote MrsDThomas]@DrSbaitso oh yawn. 🙄 she looks ridiculous. End of.

Her choice.[/quote]
Yes, her choice.

And she's in a family that bewails the "heartache" (do me a lemon!) of her choices in how she wants to look, and denies her family honours over it.

And you probably wonder why she's insecure, and think she's the shallow one.

Guacamole001 · 13/09/2021 20:56

Yes Married at First Sight most women looked so artificial. Definitely an age group thing. I have fillers done but only a little and I am in my fifties. Nothing else. If they just got a bit done it wouldnt look so over the top.

DrSbaitso · 13/09/2021 21:01

@nc4565

Every generation is different.

My generation was fake boobs, thin eyebrows, and belly button and tongue piercings.

The generation before me was all nose jobs (says my mum!)

This generation is smooth foreheads and big lips.

The generation after them will be something else 🤷🏼‍♀️

And I say this as someone who is partial to a bit of Botox!

Yes.

The idea that potentially risky cosmetic procedures are anything new is naive. Silicone breast implants were huge in my day (hur hur) and they were dangerous.

I'm not saying it's always a good idea to do these things to yourself, but I wish people would stop acting as if the concept was invented by people born after 1995. Women used to squeeze into wasp waist corsets and take arsenic to look pale.

Has there ever been a time when people thought the younger generation's fashions and cosmetic procedures looked nice?

Poetrypatty · 13/09/2021 21:05

I do not understand young women doing this but I do understand it can help for deep wrinkles and sagging faces that make you look miserable

To me this sort of attitude perpetuates the problem. People are scared to get old. And why shouldn't people look miserable? I have a sagging face and deep wrinkles, sometimes I look miserable and sometimes I don't, depending on my mood. Meh.

Poetrypatty · 13/09/2021 21:07

Also, there was a tipping point where vanity went from something to be avoided to something to aspire to. When was that? Perhaps when these cosmetic injectables came out and someone stood to make a lot of money.

DrSbaitso · 13/09/2021 21:22

Cosmetic procedures have been making people rich for much longer than Botox or fillers have been around.

Suspicioussam · 13/09/2021 21:25

I don't believe it's just a passing trend at all. When I was 20 (many years ago) hardly anyone had breast implants apart from a few celebrities and even then people used to talk about it like it should be a big secret. It would have been considered slightly shameful or embarrassing to get work done back then. You'd hear about facelifts but only by rich older women, botox was practically unheard of amongst my peers at that age let alone fillers!

Anyway YANBU op! It completely ruins faces but worst of all it perpetuates this idea that faces should be free of lines to be beautiful and that women need to change themselves and aren't good enough as they are past a certain age.

CounsellorTroi · 13/09/2021 21:28

I don't believe it's just a passing trend at all. When I was 20 (many years ago) hardly anyone had breast implants apart from a few celebrities and even then people used to talk about it like it should be a big secret. It would have been considered slightly shameful or embarrassing to get work done back then. You'd hear about facelifts but only by rich older women, botox was practically unheard of amongst my peers at that age let alone fillers!

Yes cosmetic surgery was considered something slightly ridiculous, only something spoilt rich women with more money than sense did. It’s become completely mainstream now.

MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 13/09/2021 21:38

It completely ruins faces but worst of all it perpetuates this idea that faces should be free of lines to be beautiful and that women need to change themselves and aren't good enough as they are past a certain age

Agree. And it doesn't make even make them look younger, just weirder. I accept that there are some women whose work is so good that you can't tell they've had it (e.g. Helen Mirren - I think she must have had work done, but it's great). However, with most celebs, even though they are loaded and can afford the best surgeons, it's so obvious. The chipmunk cheeks and puffy lips remind me of those pavement artist caricatures you get in tourist cities. The effect isn't youthful at all.

Virginia Wade at the US Open looked so normal and lovely, compared to almost every other woman over 40 there.

OverByYer · 13/09/2021 21:52

@CounsellorTroi

I was a teen in the 70s and 20 something in the 80s and honestly we were a lot less high maintenance than the current generation and more individual too.
Agree. I think that the majority of women in there 20s all look so similar. Same heavy make up with lashes and nails. I find it quite sad.
Gardengoose · 13/09/2021 22:05

I always worried about my weight and looks when I was younger, I'd constantly compare myself to my friends or any woman really. I never had botox, no one I knew did.

I put on weight when I was pregnant as I stopped cycling everywhere and it really got me down. Then I heard Hollie Mcnish's poem "wow" and something just clicked.

I no longer judge myself based on my looks, I couldn't give a toss to be honest.

It's so hard for women, we are pressured to look a certain way but I think it's more important to be happy and healthy.

KeyboardWorriers · 13/09/2021 22:13

I find it so sad.
Even people who think their work is subtle actually lose a bit of something. Even those slight tweaks in their face are obvious. People might not comment but it doesn't mean they haven't noticed.

WTF0ver · 13/09/2021 22:14

Yeah it looks awful. I'm very low maintenance and don't usually wear makeup, dress casually etc so I couldn't imagine using fillers etc. I've seen a few women with the filled lips and every time I just think that looks so fake and unattractive. I don't watch much TV so on the odd time DH has been channel hoping I find it quite jarring the obviously botoxed and trout pouted women on certain shows. They all look the bloody same too.

cookiesandtea · 13/09/2021 22:18

It's the lips that do it for me.

It just looks awful, I don't know how people think they look good with their lips plumped up - if your not naturally born with bigger lips it will look odd, also it's SO obvious when you've had it done as you loose the middle bit!

faelavie · 13/09/2021 22:19

The heavily fillered and botoxed look is not really my aesthetic, but I feel uncomfortable criticising women for doing it..... I myself am tattooed and pierced and I dislike being told that I've "ruined" myself so, I try not to say that about others, even if I personally dislike the look.

hufffflufff · 13/09/2021 22:29

@faelavie I know what you mean but also feel having debates like this is important because in a way it challenges and lays open this damaging behaviour that young women feel compelled to do to themselves. If no-one discusses how will things change?

Siameasy · 13/09/2021 22:33

I don’t like the look, they actually look quite aggressive I think because it all looks really artificial, robotic.

I’m 45 and have no urge to have anything done. I’m average looking so I have nothing to lose by aging. Looks aren’t that important really. When did we stop realising it’s personality that counts?!

Rawmum30 · 13/09/2021 22:35

Hmmm, tough one… you wouldn’t like to be judged for not doing it= ie “ok op doesn’t make an effort on her appearance”, so maybe they would feel upset that you are making sort of the opposite judgment.
Even tho you probably have your friends best interests at heart, she may not see it that way.
If you’re a good friend, just be there for her when/if it all goes a bit wrong, and she has regrets.
I hope she’s doing it coz she actually wants to, and not coz of friends/social media/magazine pressure.
It’s amazing really, coz if women were universally told they all HAD to look identical, there would be an uproar. Yet some girls/ladies seem to be volunteering.
Try to chill, and be glad you’ve stayed independent and kept your own identity.
PS no judgement at all to those who make changes to their looks coz of birth defects or accidents, and/or suffering from low self esteem coz of it….
You sound a. nice friend to care so much.

Cameleongirl · 13/09/2021 22:37

@DrSbaitso. I was thinking about the dangerous 1980’s breast implants too. You’re absolutely right that women have used dangerous beauty products and procedures for centuries- didn’t the Elizabethans use lead in their face powder?

I’d prefer to have plastic surgery than a filler/implant/injection, tbh. Once it’s healed, that’s it (assuming it goes well, of course). You’re not putting a substance inside you that may prove to be toxic.