What are people doing to their faces?!

[Mania89]

I am mid 30s. Colour my hair, wear makeup, thread my eyebrows etc so not completely natural but my goodness what are people doing to their faces?! Young women who are beautiful now have so much injected into their faces that they cannot move them at all. I was looking back at photos in my mid 20s and was wondering why on earth did I worry about my looks at all. Hindsight is wonderful! And I am despairing that girls younger than this have already started to inject Botox and fillers. The world is going mad and don’t even get me started on weight loss injections for those who are not clinically obese! I have two daughters and really feel so worried for them up.

Your daughters will most probably be fine if they’ve been raised by someone who doesn’t model this shit.

It’s absolutely awful seeing what women are doing to themselves. A lot look like sex dolls. I especially heavily judge the knuckle-dragging gibbons who parade around with these women and think that makes them better men. Just so incredibly unattractive (the men). Alpha in money (sometimes) but delta in charm, intelligence or ethics.

Frankly, while you're entitled to an opinion, they are also entitled to an opinion. It's their bodies. Their choice. They like it.

The only person who getting upset about it is you, and it isn't your business.

With respect, I don’t think op is upset

she is expressing an opinion

And I totally agree with her - too many 25-35 year old I see in London have the same type of face these days - dark defined brows, fake filled lips,

Don’t say OP is “upset”, @Anotherparkingthread .

that’s a lazy trope people throw at OPs as a way of shaming them for daring to speak about something.

Yeah, it’s not upset: it’s an observation and an opinion and it’s fine to make/ have those.

if people never judged, thought about, or questioned this sort of stuff there would be no feminism, protest movements, whatever. We’d all be paralysed in a “you do you, boo” state.

Wow, we've gone a full ten days since the last one of these threads was posted - that must be a record.

I haven't checked the whole site though, so I could easily have missed one or two

Edit: here it is, so people can save some time having to come up with new and inventive ways to slag off other women whose views and choices differ from their own and just use the copy and paste 👍

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5236985-why-do-people-get-massive-amounts-of-lip-filler?page=1

I was in a shopping centre recently and couldn’t believe the fillers and look that seems to be in. I have no issue at all with it - not my business if that’s what’s in fashion but it looks wierd to me.

It's clearly a trend. I needed to find a therapist and I saw her online photo she'd had so much work done I thought I'd be distracted and didn't choose her

I think the young women these days are going to look back on photos of themselves in years to come and cringe far more than previous generations have done at past photos of themselves.
They are often making permanent changes to their face and are absolutely wasting their youthful looks. A lot of the girls in their 20s look like they are women in their 50s with overdone plastic surgery.

Speak out? Lol. Speak out against people looking how they want to look?

And op is clearly upset. Enough so to make an entire thread. What other words would you prefer? Perturbed? Distressed? Hysterical? Traumatized? All rather hyperbolic in comparison but not necessarily inaccurate either.

What other women look like, wether that be filler, hair dye, peircings, tattoos, fat, thin, boob job, short skirts or other clothing choices, doesn't matter a dot to me. So I'm not starting threads about it, desperately trying to find other judgey mares to snort at other women with. I don't feel the need to have my opinions validated by others. I don't need to put other women down. I don't need to busy body in something which, frankly, is optional. Nobody is expecting you to get filler or Botox if you don't like it. I don't go around saying 'urgh, look at that woman with wissened little prune lips! She desperately needs some filler to look normal!' because it would be a twatty thing to say. The same can't be said for those who are sanctimonious about women doing anything to xosmetically alter their appearance, they can't resist sticking their opinion in when it has no effect on their life and no effect on them. These thoughts about others are often also rooted in deep misogyny, these threads reinforce the notion that women's bodies are open to critique and criticism. Posters will often express disgust and say how terrible it looks but then go on to suggest that it makes them or other women feel inadequate. These two statements are contradictory, which means neither argument against is is a particularly good one. Often these type of argument only masquerade as concern, when in reality they come from a place of hatred for other women for simply existing and making choices that do not have any bearing on your life, but do not affirm or align with your own set of beliefs. This is prejudice.

I do think social media and the need to look 'insta perfect' is part of it.

Thank goodness I grew up before smart phones (and only had a Nokia in my early twenties).

It must be an awful lot of pressure, particularly at such a young age.

The 15th one since last month? 😄 Give over. It's just an excuse to shit on a particular group of women. It always is.

My DD is 19, and looking at her school year I reckon as high as 30% of them have had ‘work’ done. My DD is happiest outdoors in her scruffy gear with barely any makeup on, and I am so bloody grateful ☺️

I’m not sure the women you speak of are more than quite a small minority are they??

They do look mad though, I agree.

Erm, PP if anyone is upset it does appear to be you.

The OP is entitled to express her opinion, as are those with giant lips entitled to fill them. Just let them all get on with it.

I don't have any issues with the weight loss jabs because it doesn't change people into something that's confusing or slightly alien.

I don't know why it's so disconcerting to see people ( men included) look slightly alien and trying to figure out what is going on. I can't say it bothers me but it's a bit uncomfortable, not sure why.

I loved Robbie Williams' new film. Watched a recent interview and found his face difficult to connect with in the same way. I was thinking, is that just ageing, is that weight loss? I think he's been using the Botox etc which is no issue really but I just thought oh come on not you too.

Your daughters will most probably be fine if they’ve been raised by someone who doesn’t model this shit.

See there's nothing I would love better than to agree with this.

But, my mum never shaved her legs or armpits and never wore makeup, or had her ears pierced yet I absolutely did (my mum never had a problem with it, just different choices).

However, I'm in my mid fifties and unlike girls today, I was never influenced by social media and all the 'influencer' bollocks that girls and women follow now.

So I think it's harder when you're brought up with more 'extreme' influences.

No woman who sports this look grew up in a beautiful victorian house in islington or hampstead, had a dad who was a history of art lecturer and a mum who was a psychologist, read politics at oxford etc.

It is a look closely associated with the group of women who have always been sneered at for their vulgar aesthetic preferences, whether that’s overfilled lips, orange tans, revealing clothes or grey crushed velvet sofas.

So on that level I’m a bit wary of the amount of “concern” directed at these women, on here and elsewhere. Some of it comes across as cloaked snobbery (not the OP, to be clear!).

At the same time… I can’t deny I find this trend utterly disheartening from a feminist perspective.

I approached a member of staff in a shop recently to ask for assistance and had to really stop myself from recoiling in horror as she turned round. Her lips were grotesque.

Also a really attractive woman at my work whose lips look awful now.

I actually find it quite distressing that so many feel the need to do this to themselves.

I do believe this shift in beauty culture has been heavily influenced by beauty standards portrayed in the media today which is only further exacerbated by the (mostly) universal reliance on technology and social media that is constantly portraying beauty standards to which that visual representation of beauty is defined as desirable.
It’s a sad time for the world and this issue is like the domino effect to so many more deep-rooted cultural differences. It’s like a mediated battle of the traditional and the contemporary 💐

Media, big tech and brands are making us believe we should inject god knows what to be attractive. It makes us care way too much about our own appearance, is a total and utter waste of time and hard-earned money, and ultimately a lot of people look plain weird IRL.

It’s worse than it ever has been and we have got to stop kidding ourselves that we are “choosing” these things to give us “confidence” and make us “happy”. It’s simply not true. It is societal pressure.

Stop pretending it’s ok. It’s not. Give your heads a wobble!

But its concern for women in general, not bitching necessarily. The craze for frozen faces and blown up lips is taking over and it is going to skew our children's understanding of what a normal woman looks like and that is concerning for everybody. My hairdresser does lip fillers, botox etc. That's how ubiquitous it has become, you can get it done by the same person who cuts your hair. Its madness.

I think also (although it's not a popular opinion on MN) a lot of parents need to look long and hard at themselves.

Most kids by the time they're about 12 or 13, have had their photos posted on social media platforms (from scan pic to present day), by their own parents who bask in the 'likes' and 'love hearts' from others.

The same parents will then try to tell their kids that looks don't matter.

I see this as telling your kids smoking is bad, whilst hanging a fag out of the side of your mouth.

They're getting massively mixed messages.

Good post. I'm inclined to agree.

I'm annoyingly on the fence with certain things but when you look at the wider implications then I think it's good to get off the fence. There are wider implications here and I don't see it as something to be shut down because it primarily involves women. That's probably part of my frustration; it's primarily women letting down women by playing into it and saying it's just about personal choice. That's probably unfair as I believe there's alot of manipulation of the younger generation and this is therefore normalised to many of them.