Pretty much every time I interview an aesthetician for a skincare article, I'm offered Botox. It might not even be related to the feature I'm writing, but without fail, they see it as their mission to inject me. Especially as I have 'virgin' skin that’s never been pierced by a filler or Botox needle before.
I get it. I'm 49 next month. Why wouldn't I? And to be honest, after I let them dissect every tiny minutiae of my face, I'm more often than not, sadly staring back at my reflection, very tempted to just do it.
So when I read Jamie Lee Curtis' story last week - about a cinematographer telling her, at 25, to get plastic surgery for her 'puffy eyes' I totally got how she must have felt. Even Jamie Lee Curtis - fierce, funny, iconic - wasn't immune to the kind of beauty criticism most of us absorb daily, albeit in subtler ways.
And she listened, had the surgery, and instantly regretted it.
© Getty Images"I regretted it immediately and have kind of sort of regretted it since," the Golden Globe Award-winning actress told 60 Minutes. "I've become a really public advocate to say to women, 'You're gorgeous, and you're perfect the way you are. So, yeah, it was not a good thing for me to do."
I'm almost 49, post-menopausal and despite nearly three decades working in beauty, I've not succumbed to the pressure to fix my age. Even under those unforgiving lights at an aesthetician's office, where I guarantee that every time, I spot another wrinkle, sag or crease that I've never noticed before, I haven't gone through with it.
"I'm afraid of chasing an 'old' version of myself that is always going to be just out of reach."
Not because I'm afraid of needles. Or because I think cosmetic tweaks are wrong - because they're not, it's about choice. But personally, I'm just afraid of chasing an 'old' version of myself that is always going to be just out of reach. I want to know how it feels to age on my own terms, with my face as it is, not as it used to be.
I review the most luxurious creams and interview the best dermatologists, but I know that there is only so much that you can do to turn back your beauty clock. And I admit, having Botox and filler will get you close to achieving it.
But is chasing the previous version of yourself going to do your self-esteem any good in the long run? Look, I know more than anyone that having good hair and great skin can do wonders for your confidence. After all, promoting the products that achieve these things is partly how I earn my living. But I've been around enough models to know that looking 'perfect' isn't a fast track to feeling it.
© trenton butlerChanging the way we talk to ourselves, and about others, is the key to finding true confidence I think. Yes, unfortunately, we still live in a world that celebrates 50-year-olds that don't look it, and let's be honest - that's the reason why so many women feel under enormous pressure to look younger, especially in industries such as mine and Jamie's, where youth is the currency.
But I think if we start showing women that there is a beautiful freedom to not feel under pressure to freeze time or correct their eyebags like Jamie did, there will be more role models who are not afraid to show up in HD with eye bags, laugh lines and sagging jowls.
Instead of being told what we need to do to our face to freeze time, we need to be given the freedom to age - and the courage to be seen doing it.
