“I personally think it is important to teach the younger generation that ageing skin is beautiful and that we should embrace it. Sticking to a thorough routine is of course always beneficial to help with all skin types, from dull and tired skin to pigmentation and acne but we shouldn’t be teaching our kids that ageing is something to be scared of. If anything, some products shouldn’t be used on premature skin as this can cause more damage than not using anything at all,” she advises.
Beauty trends are steered towards filtered skin
My own Instagram feed is dominated by these anti-ageing trends – glass skin, glazed donut skin – basically ways to fib people into thinking you are more filtered, more flawless and glowy than you really are. Beauty writer and author Jessica DeFino recently told Mashable. “A lot of beauty trends today are all about getting the skin in real life to look as filtered as possible, which generally means no deviation in tone, or texture, poreless, wrinkle free, no fine lines, just sort of this flat, reflective, shiny glow, which is not what a face looks like, that’s what a phone screen looks like.” She’s not wrong.
While I’m 35, I find myself among one of the few who hasn’t succumbed to the pressure of injectables “You mean you’ve never had anything done?” a top Harley Street doctor recently asked me twice during a consult for dry eyes. I was also reminded that it’s best to start Botox “before the ageing process takes hold” – again, assuming no young woman wants to age gracefully.
In some ways I feel lucky, I actually had a childhood that didn’t involve learning about society’s beauty expectations on women via social media. Yes, we saw airbrushed models and celebrities on magazine covers, but young women today are literally living inside one big filter where you don’t even think about posting a selfie without zooming in and blurring something out. They are hounded by anti-ageing tutorials and product placements at every possible turn – from Love Island to Instagram, content consumption is the first and last thing they do every day. We’re basically telling young women that they aren’t good enough, even as teenagers.
Dana Moinian, Psychotherapist at The Soke tells GLAMOUR: “The beauty industry still pumps us with unrealistic ideals and promises that are hugely exaggerated that continue to come at a cost to women of all ages. True beauty is displayed to us by models who are mostly under the age of 30 and made up cleverly and positioned in the most flattering way and photographed by very talented photographers and the pictures are then touched up to remove any imperfections or flaws. This is hard enough to remotely live up to let alone grasp the concept of getting old.”
Sadly, the beauty industry’s end goal remains the same as it has always done and will always do: profit off of women’s insecurities and the thought of going grey and old is making children as young as 12 feel the need to take action. Frankly, it’s the role of adults to make them see their senses and encourage young women to enjoy their youth without the dread of growing old. After all, there’s enough to worry about.