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.

What do you do and how does the accumulation of these things add up over time? I’ve always wondered, do the fillers dissolve or just break down and move to leave small (but growing) deposits and where??

I'm annoyed I overplucked my eyebrows in my 20s ffs!

Can't imagine what the regret would be over repeated filler if or when the individuals taste or fashion changes.

I think young (under 25) rich women are looking older yet so airbrushed and perfect like a blow up doll thanks to all the available cosmetic procedures but older or poorer women doing fillers and surgeries are looking like canny valley. Crash and burn.

The lips that look like they’re about to pop are the worst.

Haha me too!!

Have you been stalking me? 😂

But seriously, what makes me sad is how much older the young women look with the fillers. It ages them at least 20 years. I look back on my youth and wish I had appreciated it more and realised how much inherently youthful beauty I had compared to now. I am glad I didn't spend 30 years looking 50 though.

Does the filler break down over time? Is it supposed to? If sp,then where does it go? If not, how would you keep in the right place as you age? By inflecting more filler? But if it’s permanently in there then surely you’d need to think hard before getting it down and not get it down at your local hairdresser? If it breaks down, how does your body secrete it?

The thing that always strikes me is that apart from anything else, these are more risky interventions than what we would have normally associated with beauty trends in recent decades.

Any time you are injecting stuff or breaking the skin there is a greater chance of infection being introduced, even if you are careful and diligent. Plus a lot of these procedures have other serious potential side effects.

The risk/benefit balance is off.

So women offend you? You find them inherently unacceptable? They need fixing? Is this how you feel about the women in your own life or how you were made to feel about yourself?

I'm not having a go. I grew up made to feel like this about myself. Thankfully i never had the money for the 'work' I wanted. Surprised myself by maturing very nicely 😅Be nicer to yourself and you'll judge others less harshly. Some posters have taken the OP as a personal attack, I read it as a plea to be kinder to ourselves; jowls are okay, frumpy coats are okay, a few extra pounds are okay. Ease up on yourselves, you're fine.

What a ridiculous response.
You come on here ranting about the fact that the OP shouldn't judge women who do these procedures to themselves, but you are judging her too, just for having an opinion. If you're not aware, this is a public forum where people discuss all sorts of topics, and it's not down to you to decide what people get to say without nastily jumping on them.
I think the OP is right to talk about her concerns as to what a lot of young people, mostly women, are doing to themselves, especially as she has Daughters, and so is worried for the impact this 'trend' of drastically changing how you look could have on them if they too end up being influenced by the pressures of society to change their appearance to the point where these changes often cannot be undone.

Does it not concern you that so many people (obviously not all) who start with the botox etc often eventually end up making themselves look completely unrecognisable to who they once were?
Do you not see that, for some, once they start inflating their lips and freezing their faces , they become seemingly addicted to continue with altering their faces and also their bodies to such an extent that even their own families would walk by them in the street?
It's fine to be a live and let live kind of person, but you only have to look at examples of some celebrities to see that this need to look younger ends up having the opposite effect.

I'm just disappointed at how bad the work seems to be considering plastic surgery has been around for ages now. A nose job can make the world of difference but anything else is just risking it.

I can't imagine many have that thin lips they really need to distort them in this way. Saying that I've actually considered forehead surgery...so maybe I can't talk because when you've got a flaw it's all you can focus on. At this point though I doubt I'd even get my teeth whitened. I've had minor procedures purely for some scars I have and even one of them caused fat loss (fraxel laser) I didn't know all the risks of that sort of thing back then. Does anyone have an example of someone who got their lips done and it actually looks good?

There was this idea that it just dissolved over time but turns out it just migrates to other areas of your face. I’m not sure if this is all types of filler, but it’s probably why it’s important to choose a reputable place to go get procedures done instead of every other random hole in the wall.

Can’t lie, I’m surprised this thread touched
some nerves. I guess the overdone look really does hold a strong grip in the UK at the moment.

I do wonder what the long term effects will be from using fillers etc.
Thankfully I have never been tempted because I don’t rely on my looks!

Does anyone remember poor Leslie Ash, and how cruel the red tops were about her pout?

I'm always shocked on style and beauty threads asking how much people spend on themselves each month, the amount of responses who spend on botox is unbelievable.

It does seem that rather a lot of young women have unnecessary procedures and it means 23yo’s look about 40. A young friend told me if she has Botox at 27 then it prolongs wrinkles appearing. I do get Botox mind as at almost 40 I look angry if I don’t!

Older women too seem to be forgoing ageing naturally. I watched the Gavin and Stacey Xmas special and I thought the woman who plays Dawn was being played by a different actress. She was unrecognisable but I think it was just too much work done. All of her facial features were completely different

You can usually tell misogyny by the use of the word "hysterical".

Judgey "mares" ditto - that one is also evidence of a lack of self-awareness.

Thought policing and attempts to censor and shame women for our opinions are very much part of women's experience these days. This too is rooted in deep misogyny.

I completely agree with you @Mania89 . The worst thing is, they are actually ruining their looks, not improving them.

Molly Mae is a great example of someone who totally transformed herself. I really like her and admire that she stopped it all, but it doesn’t change the fact that she totally transformed herself with fillers all over at a very young age to bag a man on a tv show and a few media contracts, and it worked. Hers wasn’t the overdone look but she is completely different now and if she didn’t have as much as she does to spend on hair and make up, would also be rather unremarkable.

I live in 'filler county' it's awful but, their choice. However, their 'choice' makes me wonder why choose to do it. I feel at the heart of every lip filler/botox injection is an insecurity within. Where did that come from? That's the only thing I really think about.

I think mostly it's the extremes of cosmetic surgery. Why the extremes?from the beginning of time women have used cosmetics to enhance their looks, but these procedures don't enhance, they completely change your look. Definitely insecurity of some description, and that is really really sad.

The claim is that they gradually dissolved but that means that your face will gradually deflate like a party balloon. So you have to go back for regular top ups.
The target area is the cheek but the tendency is to fill everyone’s cheeks the same way without considering the underlying anatomy. So if you put full cheeks where there have never been full cheeks it’s going to look odd. It’s done to lift the face and remove jowls. But it often closes the eyes up.
Most practitioners are not cosmetic surgeons, anyone can inject filler because they are not a prescription only drug. After a couple of hours training anyone can inject them. The face is a complex area of the body with loads of muscle and fascia plains into which you can inadvertently inject fillers.

So when Clarabelle from Hair4you sells the idea to you, unless Clara is a qualified cosmetic surgeon, preferably head and neck ( defo not boobs) or a dentist who has extensive training in facial aesthetics & anatomy, then you are really taking a big risk.

The filler ends up where you inject, if you place it into or too near a blood vessel the pressure cuts of the blood supply killing the tissue it supplies. The tissue breaks down causing scarring sometimes leaving indents in the skin. Imagine having this done regularly the result, longterm, is like bad acne scarring. When you complain, Clara, who hasn’t a clue why these dents are appearing fills them with more filler causing even more dents
Every time a customer returns it is a bigger and bigger job.

Botox, on the other hand is a prescription only medicine so at least you have to be assessed by a professional who can prescribe the drug. But absolutely anyone can then inject it into you.

I have been approached by a number of beauticians to become a prescriber, I have no intention of becoming an injectorer merely because the whole process scares the living daylights out of me. I have no problem sticking needles into mouths and faces just not keen of the whole paralysis vibe.

But I just can’t see how someone with half a days training can possibly know what they are doing. Maybe it’s the blind ignorance of how badly it could go wrong means they are fearless. I suppose it looks easy on the plastic models they learn on.
Anyway since I would be the prescribing professional, if the shit hits the fan I would be held partly responsible so that’s a big no from me.

Stop judging people by their faces? It can be really tough in such a looks based culture.

They look utterly ridiculous and will cringe when they look back at photos in the future.

@Anotherparkingthread
Umm OP seems more ‘concerned’ for her 2 daughters
You on the other hand seem ‘upset’ judging by the above rant
Mumsnet is called a forum which means it’s for ‘everyone’ to discuss topics
its ok for you and the OP to have differing ‘opinions’ but it seems some (you) more than others (OP) are forcing theirs down others necks