I loved this, Farrah. I stare in the mirror and I wonder what it might look like if things were just 'pulled up' a bit, but the trouble is I KNOW it wouldn't look like it does when you hoik those saggy bits up in the mirror. It would look like these women, who don't look like themselves any more. They don't look younger, they just look like they haven't got wrinkles. It makes me so sad that some of the world's most beautiful women, who really could have been role models for beautiful older women, have had interventions which turn them into someone - something - else. But I do worry that by refusing to go down this route, I'm the one who's going to look odd, like I don't care, unkempt, 'undone'. Will no treatments mean that I'll look like I need a good iron......
I agree. One thing i didn’t say was that the problem with older films (apart from certain, smart directors like Cassavettes) is that a lot of actresses who hit 40 could no longer get work anymore. Thankfully that has now changed, BUT a lot of the older actresses working today are trying to look younger which sort of defeats the purpose!
I reflect on that too, after watching The Substance followed by the latest instalment of Bridget Jones. With some many actresses, models & celebrities now looking ‘younger’ than their daughters from a distance I wonder why they can’t find comfort in ageing & looking like softer versions of their younger self.
I’m 76 now and never had any other treatment than an occasional facial. Honestly it’s better to own your age rather than fret about your looks ( though have to say you look gorgeous Farrah)
You have made my day Farrah. I can now be proud of my non frozen face, the sags, lines - ok ravines, blemishes etc. I have earned them.
If I am honest, I would have had things done to me face but a lot was too late in arriving and face lifts were too expensive. I would occasionally like to look coiffured and perfect when I exit the house, rather than a bag lady. Nonetheless, I am me and it is my rugged face that shocks people on zoom calls 😁
A really interesting, honest, open and informative read. Frozen faces and the idea of not feeling or registering emotions due to them feels so sad to me.
Have you read any of The Review of Beauty by Jessica Defino? Jessica’s writing on the beauty industry, standards and how beauty culture impacts us is something I would highly recommend.
I find it so distracting from a movie if the famous actress featured has plastic face. Right from birth we look to the faces of our mothers and fathers and their facial cues and expressions to help understand our world… when I watch a Nicole movie I’m so busy looking at her weirdly unmoving face to pay attention to what’s going on in the movie, it’s very distracting 😬, so many people on tv are doing this stuff to themselves - I just don’t get it!
This was an excellent distillation of our cultural slide into the uncanny valley. As I read through the first half, I kept yelling (in my head), "but the French!" only to see you land there in the end. Great minds...
The secret to the French is that they don't give a fig about perfection. And this chase for perfection has landed people in a far off island that is also imperfect, as it looks alien to what is natural. It's the same phenomenon with chasing money. When you reach the summit, you just chase more because you realize the achievement didn't bring happiness with it.
It's frightening what's out there, but I must say that working in a job that has me encounter new people all day long, there are far more natural faces out there circulating than the plumped and pulled. It's refreshing. And they are always the most interesting, animated, fun people who come into our shop.
I read this with interest. I too am mid forties and have had the odd bit of Botox and thought I might be ‘getting away’ with the usual age related lines and sags, but just this last 6 months I can see it coming like a train. I don’t want fillers and I don’t want anything surgical. So I am now just sitting with it and trying to do all the usual stuff of thanking my body and face for getting me to this age relatively healthily. I notice those who have had a lot of work and mainly think that they don’t look young, just that they’re ‘done’ and that’s okay, but it’s not a way to turn back the clock. It’s an outward sign of wealth I think. Monetary wealth that is. Anyway, you look great Farrah! And agree on the French approach.
I adore this Farrah. I spotted a Note on here a week or so ago saying ageing should be considered a privilege, with a host of beautiful women all 60/70+ with signs of lives well lived. It was a lovely reminder.
I'm in my mid-20s and have had no work done. I'd not consider it now, but between the ages of 16 and about 22 it was all I wanted to do. So many of my friends have had regular fillers and botox for the best part of seven years now, and I'm so intrigued to learn what that, typically anti-ageing, work will do to young skin and faces in the future. It makes me so sad that their faces hadn't even finished developing before they felt the need to tamper with their appearances.
Your point about the inability to express emotion is extremely interesting too. I didn't know that!
Great read Farrah. I’ve never had any fillers or lifts, but I did have a surgical procedure last year to try and correct some teenage scarring and what I can say is that whatever someone has done might temporarily solve the problem, but it always creates another and that’s where the vicious cycle begins. I won’t be pulled into it.
Sometimes I that these what we’ll call ‘heavily tweaked’ faces care less to look beautiful but more to look expensive. That’s a not a judgement - god knows what I’ll do with my own in the coming years. But I do think in certain cities looking expensive trumps (ha!) beautiful.
Thank you for this! I am 55 and spend all day staring at myself on Zoom. Do I look at the people I am "talking" to? No I do not, I look at myself talking and I think about my chin line. Is it sagging? Could I do something about it? Should I? Couldn't it just be subtle? Maybe I'd feel better? BUT NO bc --I mean, maybe there are women out there who have done something and I cannot tell, and they do not end up looking unbalanced and confusingly frozen and just off but so many people do. And I suspect that it looks fine for a while, a small tweak, and then things age around it at different rates and maybe it's ok and maybe it's not. I couldn't even watch the Gilmore Girls revival because all I could think about was Lauren Graham's face. And I don't want that. But also I don't want to keep staring at my chin... I should turn that part of Zoom off! But I probably won't.
Totally agree, and if the tide is turning against people (women really) feeling that they need to have lots of treatments to stay young, attractive and relevant, then so much the better. The lips are completely confusing to me - so many people go to extremes on this, and as someone with autism I just cannot understand it - to me it doesn't look good on most people and seems completely counterproductive, but hey, it's their face, why should I worry. Having ADHD as well, and therefore feeling emotions EXTREMELY intensely, it's very interesting that freezing muscles could dampen emotions. To be fair I could take a bit of that! But I'll prob just stick to my 11's botox which stops me looking like I want to have a staring deathmatch with anyone who comes up to talk to me - I know when to call it a day ;)
I loved this, Farrah. I stare in the mirror and I wonder what it might look like if things were just 'pulled up' a bit, but the trouble is I KNOW it wouldn't look like it does when you hoik those saggy bits up in the mirror. It would look like these women, who don't look like themselves any more. They don't look younger, they just look like they haven't got wrinkles. It makes me so sad that some of the world's most beautiful women, who really could have been role models for beautiful older women, have had interventions which turn them into someone - something - else. But I do worry that by refusing to go down this route, I'm the one who's going to look odd, like I don't care, unkempt, 'undone'. Will no treatments mean that I'll look like I need a good iron......
I agree. One thing i didn’t say was that the problem with older films (apart from certain, smart directors like Cassavettes) is that a lot of actresses who hit 40 could no longer get work anymore. Thankfully that has now changed, BUT a lot of the older actresses working today are trying to look younger which sort of defeats the purpose!
I reflect on that too, after watching The Substance followed by the latest instalment of Bridget Jones. With some many actresses, models & celebrities now looking ‘younger’ than their daughters from a distance I wonder why they can’t find comfort in ageing & looking like softer versions of their younger self.
I’m 76 now and never had any other treatment than an occasional facial. Honestly it’s better to own your age rather than fret about your looks ( though have to say you look gorgeous Farrah)
You have made my day Farrah. I can now be proud of my non frozen face, the sags, lines - ok ravines, blemishes etc. I have earned them.
If I am honest, I would have had things done to me face but a lot was too late in arriving and face lifts were too expensive. I would occasionally like to look coiffured and perfect when I exit the house, rather than a bag lady. Nonetheless, I am me and it is my rugged face that shocks people on zoom calls 😁
Haha me too!
A really interesting, honest, open and informative read. Frozen faces and the idea of not feeling or registering emotions due to them feels so sad to me.
Have you read any of The Review of Beauty by Jessica Defino? Jessica’s writing on the beauty industry, standards and how beauty culture impacts us is something I would highly recommend.
Love Jessica’s writing!!!
Look at Annette Bening. That is a beautiful face. Untouched, except by life.
I find it so distracting from a movie if the famous actress featured has plastic face. Right from birth we look to the faces of our mothers and fathers and their facial cues and expressions to help understand our world… when I watch a Nicole movie I’m so busy looking at her weirdly unmoving face to pay attention to what’s going on in the movie, it’s very distracting 😬, so many people on tv are doing this stuff to themselves - I just don’t get it!
This was an excellent distillation of our cultural slide into the uncanny valley. As I read through the first half, I kept yelling (in my head), "but the French!" only to see you land there in the end. Great minds...
The secret to the French is that they don't give a fig about perfection. And this chase for perfection has landed people in a far off island that is also imperfect, as it looks alien to what is natural. It's the same phenomenon with chasing money. When you reach the summit, you just chase more because you realize the achievement didn't bring happiness with it.
It's frightening what's out there, but I must say that working in a job that has me encounter new people all day long, there are far more natural faces out there circulating than the plumped and pulled. It's refreshing. And they are always the most interesting, animated, fun people who come into our shop.
I read this with interest. I too am mid forties and have had the odd bit of Botox and thought I might be ‘getting away’ with the usual age related lines and sags, but just this last 6 months I can see it coming like a train. I don’t want fillers and I don’t want anything surgical. So I am now just sitting with it and trying to do all the usual stuff of thanking my body and face for getting me to this age relatively healthily. I notice those who have had a lot of work and mainly think that they don’t look young, just that they’re ‘done’ and that’s okay, but it’s not a way to turn back the clock. It’s an outward sign of wealth I think. Monetary wealth that is. Anyway, you look great Farrah! And agree on the French approach.
You are too kind Holly. x
I adore this Farrah. I spotted a Note on here a week or so ago saying ageing should be considered a privilege, with a host of beautiful women all 60/70+ with signs of lives well lived. It was a lovely reminder.
I'm in my mid-20s and have had no work done. I'd not consider it now, but between the ages of 16 and about 22 it was all I wanted to do. So many of my friends have had regular fillers and botox for the best part of seven years now, and I'm so intrigued to learn what that, typically anti-ageing, work will do to young skin and faces in the future. It makes me so sad that their faces hadn't even finished developing before they felt the need to tamper with their appearances.
Your point about the inability to express emotion is extremely interesting too. I didn't know that!
Great read Farrah. I’ve never had any fillers or lifts, but I did have a surgical procedure last year to try and correct some teenage scarring and what I can say is that whatever someone has done might temporarily solve the problem, but it always creates another and that’s where the vicious cycle begins. I won’t be pulled into it.
Sometimes I that these what we’ll call ‘heavily tweaked’ faces care less to look beautiful but more to look expensive. That’s a not a judgement - god knows what I’ll do with my own in the coming years. But I do think in certain cities looking expensive trumps (ha!) beautiful.
Thank you for this! I am 55 and spend all day staring at myself on Zoom. Do I look at the people I am "talking" to? No I do not, I look at myself talking and I think about my chin line. Is it sagging? Could I do something about it? Should I? Couldn't it just be subtle? Maybe I'd feel better? BUT NO bc --I mean, maybe there are women out there who have done something and I cannot tell, and they do not end up looking unbalanced and confusingly frozen and just off but so many people do. And I suspect that it looks fine for a while, a small tweak, and then things age around it at different rates and maybe it's ok and maybe it's not. I couldn't even watch the Gilmore Girls revival because all I could think about was Lauren Graham's face. And I don't want that. But also I don't want to keep staring at my chin... I should turn that part of Zoom off! But I probably won't.
Totally agree, and if the tide is turning against people (women really) feeling that they need to have lots of treatments to stay young, attractive and relevant, then so much the better. The lips are completely confusing to me - so many people go to extremes on this, and as someone with autism I just cannot understand it - to me it doesn't look good on most people and seems completely counterproductive, but hey, it's their face, why should I worry. Having ADHD as well, and therefore feeling emotions EXTREMELY intensely, it's very interesting that freezing muscles could dampen emotions. To be fair I could take a bit of that! But I'll prob just stick to my 11's botox which stops me looking like I want to have a staring deathmatch with anyone who comes up to talk to me - I know when to call it a day ;)