Cosmetic surgery DOES affect others

[EmmaDilemma5]

I'm sick of reading people who defend others cosmetic surgery/procedures with;

"it's their body, they can do as they please"

"Each to their own"

"If it makes them feel happier then what's the harm?"

The harm is, that it sets a ridiculous standard that most (usually young women) can't meet naturally and therefore feel pressured to undergo changes to their body to look "good".

It's not a personal decision, because collectively, it's impacting society norms and pressures on people.

I'm not talking about those that truly help people with abnormally different features. I totally get why someone with ears that grow out at 90° may want them pinned back. Or someone with a huge nose may want to reduce it to a more "normal" size. I still hope they'd feel fine in their own skin but get why the majority of people may struggle with largely unusual features.

But I am actually angry sometimes at those that "enhance" normal looks. Lip fillers, tattoo makeup on eyebrows, lips, boob jobs. It seems to me that the majority of women who have these procedures have very normal features before having them and it's just really sad that they feel they need to undergo them to feel ok.

Lip fillers are the worst for me. It's affordable and easy to arrange. I fear my daughter will grow up thinking her lips aren't big enough (if her parents' are anything to go by anyway) because every other person seems to have massive lips and to look beautiful she'll need to pump her face with crap.

When do we say, enough is enough, we don't want the next generation living like this?!

Her practitioner should never have agreed to it
The trouble is, anyone can train in it, and they do. It's a one day course, and it's not a regulated industry.

Sadly, it's seen as a way to make good money, and I wonder how many of the people doing these courses, actually have qualifications in anatomy and physiology, and know what they are doing.

Completely down to the patient to find a reputable practitioner of course.

I do reflect on that actually. However, I'm fairly confident that a bunch of 50+ something women having discrete botox is not the cause of young women's desire to inflate their lips.
Anyone who thinks that young women who go in for more extreme procedures look at middle aged women as role models where their appearance is concerned is deluded. Therefore I see my contribution to that issue as neutral.*

I would say it’s the other way around, some middle aged women see celebs as seemingly not ageing, because of all the procedures they have and feel shit that they are.

I'd certainly be in favour of tighter regulation. I looked around to find a reputable place.

I can only speak for myself, but at 53 I think I've got sufficient maturity and knowledge to understand that there are multiple reasons why older women in the media look youthful. A combination of above average looks to start with, time, wealth, lighting, camera angles.
I doubt there's many of us who've been on the planet half a century who are naive enough to think a few injectables are the elixir of youth. Mostly we just want to look a bit less tired and frowny.

I can also only speak for myself, but I have found it surprisingly shit to age. I have never been beautiful, just pretty, but I find my face at 50 unfamiliar. I have now had some work done and put a lot of effort in in other areas of life to stay fit, healthy and look the best I can. It’s important for my mental health to feel good about how I look. I care about other things too before I am jumped at for being shallow.

Her practitioner is her friend! 🫣

Are you sure? 😏

I don't think she is a good example of well done work tbh, but I agree with you completely that undetectable is very possible.
I have baby botox occasionally and I never love it for the first couple of weeks I can tell for a couple of weeks and I always try to do it three weeks in advance of any good social event so it can settle down. I'm quite critical of it and if it didn't settle down I'd know about it.
I like some lines and movement remaining, but less deep and softened. I frown in my sleep I've had the 11's softened since my late 20's.

They move differently - so only one part of the forehead, so it’s not completely frozen but it is visibly not moving smoothly or naturally and it’s usually in a different place to what you would normally see. Plus there is a ‘Sheen’ and that’s always there.
I can see the most subtle Botox as can most people, as humans you can see something is ‘off’ with the face but may not be able to pinpoint what exactly.

I’ve loved every cosmetic surgery I’ve ever had.

Cosmetic work has been around for 50/60 years now you just see it more as we have access to social media.

To be honest I find the whole subject done to death. Maybe join the Amish and leave the western world.

Botox doesn't give you a "sheen". It doesn't affect the texture/roughness of your skin. It sounds as if you are basing this on photos and videos of famous people with harsh lighting and pure imagination. When the dose is low, you can still move everything, albeit not quite as much for a short while. Then it wears off quickly and you're back to normal movement-wise, but the lines are gone. Plenty of people just get the 11s done and not the forehead, like me.

As before, if it were always so obvious and weird looking no matter what, it wouldn't be so very popular. And you wouldn't need to explain all the little tiny ways you can always tell, because it would be so blimming clear to all.

I truly thought the biggest giveaway of mine was that I had very deep lines between my brows that had suddenly vanished. I'm kind of amazed nobody noticed, although I realise nobody thought about them as much as I did. But they didn't.

Then it wears off quickly and you're back to normal movement-wise, but the lines are gone.

If the lines are gone, then the muscle contractions forming them have been muted. Therefore the forehead etc will not move in the same way as a forehead normally would. It's not hard to grasp. But presumably you don't talk aloud while staring at yourself in the mirror, or you have been accustomed to this look of a partially immobile forehead and normalised it.

Yep. Exactly.

I spend enough time looking at myself talking on zoom and in films made for work to know exactly what I look like when talking and with an animated face. Despite botox, I have a full range of expressions and no sheen. Why do you feel its important to try to convince strangers they look a certain way, despite never having seen their faces?

Why are all of you women with Botox reporting zero affect of it, after a couple of weeks post injection, bothering to pay to have it then?

People aren't reporting zero affect. Some are saying that any initial stiffness and immobility wears off, leaving the longer term desired affect of a full range of movement, but an absence of the deep grooves that result from an over use of the muscles, for example by frowning in sleep or squinting.

the longer term desired affect of a full range of movement

Seriously? If you cannot fully form an expression (albeit one you apparently do not desire) then you do not have a "full range of movement."

Everything, perhaps microscopically, but in a way that the human eye is attuned to - and that research shows affects babies - is altered by the use of Botox. If it gives you the desired effect, good for you. But saying "no-one" can ever tell is, I think, self-delusion.

I agree with you OP

BUT I also agree with the posters who say it’s the same as hair dye, hair removal, make up, skin treatments etc etc etc. All of these also raise the bar, change societal norms and make those who prefer not to do these things feel uncomfortable or less attractive.

Injecting fillers into perfectly normal healthy thin lips is just the new version of removing hair from perfectly normal healthy hairy legs.

I don’t think you can say one is fine and the other is not.

Anti-ageing is big business, what example do you think that sets to young women? Botox, dermal fillers, chemical peels, facelifts etc Sometimes I think older women forget that young women can see very well what they do in striving to remain younger and better looking.Its still messing with your face in an attempt to look different

Please do not assume all older women are the same, that is called ageism. I think some women choose to have procedures, others don’t, irrespective of age.

Yeah no, I am sick of 'omg this can't happen because other people can't actually engage their brains and think for themselves'

I think the looking startled with trout lips look is ridiculous but I can decide that for myself and not do it

If people want to look they have been ironed and stretched, that is 100% on then

No one is being forced to do it

You're being just as judgmental towards women but in a different way.

What are you talking about? We're saying it doesn't freeze us and turn us into Dolmio puppets, not that it doesn't get rid of lines. It gets rid of lines very well.

The muscle contractions are temporarily muted (that's how it works to "heal" the lines), though not completely on minimum dose (I don't know about higher doses). Then full movement returns and so, eventually, do the lines, although not as deep as they were before. Hence, a temporary procedure whose effects outlast any degree of immobility. My practitioner always has me do "frowny face" when I go back to check the strength and movement of the muscles.

It may surprise you to learn that people are usually curious about how they look after Botox during the "immobility" phase and often spend time in front of the mirror trying it out. That's one way we know how we look. The other way is, other people simply don't turn a hair and don't realise (why would they when it's so subtle?).

I am really sorry that Botox doesn't freeze you forever, or even very much at low doses, because it's obvious how many of you really really want it to, but that's just the fact.

Anyone remember The Riddlers?

It's all I can think about when I see filled faces.