Unsure that self-esteem and the pursuit of an ever-changing beauty ideal can co-exist, I’ve chosen to leave my cheeks as they are, says journalist and editor Moya Lothian-McLean
I think this is why, when push comes to shove – and despite frequent searches for “preventive Botox” or “non-surgical nose contouring” – I have not taken the plunge. I know that my fixation on certain parts of myself, whether my cheeks or cupid’s bow, are trend-led, and will probably change in a few months. And I’m conscious that with treatments so readily available, one moment of dissatisfaction could lead to a decision that would long outlast the feeling of self-loathing.
Love Island contestant, whose rock-hard enhanced pout became a focal point of discussion among viewers, said that her mouth without fillersan “80-year-old man’s ball sack”. Except that pictures she later posted contradicted her statement: without fillers, they were just normal lips.
Deep down, I want to be beautiful according to the current, mainstream understanding of the word. It is rare that a woman like me doesn’t long for this, having stepped into adulthood during an age in which image rules supreme and the definition of “beauty” has tightened like a corset, no matter the empowering messages that lifestyle magazines like to parrot. But I also prize my self-esteem.
To be beautiful in 2023 is an exhausting, sisyphean undertaking of reappraisal and self-critique, and requires a willingness to constantly remake oneself in the mould of the look of the month. It takes so much time, energy, money and discontent. “Why be beautiful when you can be happy?” I think, and smile wide with all the supposedly “excess” fat my cheeks have to offer.
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