Chessie Keebaugh, the 22-year-old daughter of The Real
Housewives of Melbourne's Chyka, has every reason to feel confident about the
way she looks. She has signed with Giant Model Management as a curvy model, and
when she posts Instagram photos of herself, some of her 15,000 followers will
respond with comments like "so beautiful!" and "absolutely
slaying!".
So it took her by surprise when she was getting a
beauty treatment done, and the person doing it suggested that she try some
preventative Botox. That said, when she takes a look at the other girls her age
at clubs on the weekend, the trend is towards "the Kardashian look –
contoured cheeks, big lips, big eyebrows, heavy makeup. More and more of my
friends want to get lip fillers, and stuff like that. When I look at photos
online from clubs like Ms Collins, I can't differentiate who's who, because
they all look the same."
Welcome to beauty, 2016. Thin lips? Injectables can
fix that. Patchy eyebrows? Brow tattoos are an option. Square jaw? Botox. No
cheekbones? Get fillers. Wanna use your #iwokeuplikethis hashtag properly?
Tattooed eyeliner will do the trick. All of these advancements in cosmetic
technology are being pursued by a group who already have time on their side –
they're mostly under 40, with muscle relaxants (Botox is one brand name) being
de rigueur among some of the Melbourne mid-20s set.
Blame Kylie Jenner. Kim Kardashian's little sister
rules social media, putting her pout-worthy lips (which went from thin to
beyond plump before her 17th birthday) at the top of the Must Have list. At
Facelove, a clinic that specialises in aesthetic treatments such as
anti-wrinkle injections and dermal fillers, clinical director Mike Clague says
that "at least once a day, girls are asking me to make their top lip
bigger than their bottom lip." For the record, he won't do it. "The
top lip should never look bigger. You can't say [to a patient], 'yes, I'll do
your top lip,' because realistically, that's doing you harm. I'm leaving you in
a position where people will be laughing at you in a cafe, and I don't want to
feel the sting of that."
Plastic surgeon Graeme Southwick, chairman of
Melbourne Institute of Plastic Surgery, has also noticed an influx of younger
people coming to see him in recent years, and points to social media for a
different reason – "What's changed the whole process of what we're doing
now is selfies. They're slightly distortional and usually taken at a 45-degree
angle. Before selfies, everyone was used to looking into the mirror and seeing
themselves face on. Now, seeing their face at an angle is making them notice
different things – for instance, a different view of their nose or it can
highlight the opposite cheekbone and make it look flat, so that they want a
filler. In the past, they wouldn't come in for that."
Patients are also more informed than ever before.
Facelove's Clague says that some girls will come in "who are really bossy
and have done their research on YouTube, and will fire a series of questions at
me – do you use cannulas or needles? Which direction do you inject from? One
girl brought in a sheet of paper where she'd already marked out which filler
should go in, where it should go, and how many [millilitres] should be used.
Some even try to take selfies of themselves getting procedures done, but I
won't allow photography."
What's really changed the beauty landscape, though, is
how commonplace some of these treatments have become – despite their relatively
hefty pricetag, they're more accessible to the everyday person. Marina Go,
general manager of magazines including Harper's Bazaar, Elle and Cosmopolitan,
says "I hear young women discussing Botox the way that I used to talk
about getting a facial when I was their age". Publicist Nancy McDonald is
just 26, and the odd girl out in her friendship circle, where more girls do
"preventative Botox" than not. She says that "everyone is
striving for that fresh-faced look, and [preventative Botox] has just become
the norm and accepted. I don't think there's a particular desire to look like
Kim Kardashian but a lot of people are having a line here or there taken away in
real life, as opposed to doing FaceTune (an app that allows users to smooth
their wrinkles, whiten teeth and make cosmetic improvements on their images).
Everyone wants to look like the girl next door, and I don't know if the girl
next door doesn't have Botox any more."
But, buyer beware, or at least go slow. Plastic
surgeon Chris Moss, who is also the medical director of Liberty Belle Skin
Centre, says he doesn't believe preventative Botox makes sense if a person
isn't starting to get the lines and wrinkles. "I think that's excessive
and it's not value for money." And two women who will caution against
overuse of such treatments – despite the public perception of them – are Real
Housewives of Melbourne's Gamble Breaux and Janet Roach. Says Breaux, 45,
"I've been getting Botox since I was around 27. But in my 30s, I'd had
quite a lot of Botox and my face was quite pulled and people thought I was
older. Now that I'm on TV, I've had much less, because if I can't move my face,
I'm not going to have a gig. That's why Jackie [Gillies] is amazing on the show,
she still has all her facial expressions."
Roach has had surgery to look younger, but says her
expectations have recently changed about how she should look. "I accept
the fact that I'm 57 and I'm comfortable with the fact that I'm going to have
some lines and I don't have to be perfect all the time. I feel like young women
are very, very pressured. They come up to me and ask about surgery, and I
think, 'Gosh, you're so beautiful, can't you see it?' But they're focusing on
things that are tiny. And, it can be addictive. I work with young women who
will have their lips done a little bit and they want to enhance. [A year
later], they look like a bloody fish. I think they're making themselves look
distorted. I'm finding in my age group, there's a shift – let's exercise, let's
look after our health – and with fillers and [treatments such as] dermabrasion,
there's much less talk about surgery."
Some are talking. Laurina Fleure, 32, and Ebru
Dallikavak, 31, each became well known after stints on reality TV (they were
both contestants on The Bachelor, with Fleure going on to do I'm a Celebrity …
Get Me out of Here!) and have been open about utilising beauty technologies to
achieve their looks. Fleure says "We want the best cars, the best
electronics and the best technology with everything in life – why would beauty
technology be any different? People can decide for themselves if they would
like to take advantage of the options available, and others shouldn't judge
them on their personal preferences or appearances." Dallikavak, who gets
occasional Botox and lip injections, as well as eyebrow tattoos, says,
"I'm quite open about what I do."
Yet many others won't reveal as much – even to their
significant others. Hillel New is a dentist who also administers muscle relaxants
through his business Facelab, and says, "Women come in and say, 'Don't
tell my husband, I'll pay in cash!'" One media executive says she
remembers "a woman coming into my office for a meeting on a Friday
afternoon. The mother of two small children with a busy job, she looked her age
at 38. Then I saw her on Monday morning, glowing – literally. Her face was all
dewy and plump, her frown lines and crow's feet [wrinkles] were gone, and she
looked like she'd been at a health retreat for a month. It was obvious to
everyone there that she had some 'work' done." But of course, no one said
anything.
Mike Clague says the older his client, the less
they're likely to admit these treatments. "From 40 onwards, there's a lot
more secrecy, and from 50 onwards, [they would] absolutely not [tell
anyone]." Men, especially, don't want to admit having procedures – despite
Clague saying that 10 per cent of his clients are male. "One group would
be husbands of the women who come in, and the other is those I call 'bankers' –
they're corporate, straight men in their 40s. 'They say, I'm 40, there are 25
year olds nipping at my heels.' I feel like the motivation for women is
completely internal. For men, it's almost a bit competitive: 'My mates look
like this, I've got younger friends…'"
These days, it's hard to work out what the beauty
ideal even is, when images on social media can be deceptive. Model Sophie Van
Den Akker hasn't had anything done – "I'm all about ageing
gracefully" – but says she feels for the young girls coming into the
industry, seeing Instagram posts with no lines or wrinkles. "What everyone
doesn't realise is that just about all photos are photoshopped. We seem to
portray a very fake illusion about what's 'perfect.'"
But younger people are nevertheless doing more to
obtain perfection, albeit with some less drastic methods, too. Chris Moss says
"we're seeing a lot more people in their 20s and 30s than we were even
give years ago".
"They might come in for Dermasweep facials, for
blackhead extractions, or Clear + Brilliant Laser (the latter has made a fan of
Rebecca Judd), where there's no downtime and it improves the skin tone and
texture."
Plastic surgeon Graeme Southwick says common requests
are for microdermabrasion, light lasering and skin needling, also adding that
"the young want a quick fix. They don't mind if it's not permanent, but
they need it now and want immediate results, no downtime, and they're usually
cost conscious."
What else has become popular? Michelle Barclay,
director of Prolash and Brow FX, has seen business boom of late, with eyebrow,
eyeliner and lip tattooing all becoming increasingly popular. Many of the
younger women – from around 20 – will seek out eyeliner tattoos and eyelash
enhancement "which is a colouring in between the eyelashes, so you look
like you've got a thick line there …
they want to look natural but still look made-up, if you know what I
mean." Men are joining in on this one, too: "Some men will do their
brows, if they've had scars in their eyebrows, which can happen with young men.
And if they're going bald, we can recreate their hairline. If they shave their
heads, we can tattoo hair dots onto their scalps to make them look like they're
not bald."
But if you ask Mecca Brands' head of artistry, Tony
Baumann, people don't realise there's sometimes a much less permanent option
available. "You can pretty much achieve any cosmetic result with
makeup." He, too, has seen the makeup industry change through the advent
of social media. "The whole landscape has changed dramatically even in the
past 18 months – with makeup, it's predominantly through YouTube. The younger
generation now are exposed to products and techniques that you would normally
only get if you were training as a makeup artist... we're in an era at the
moment where cosmetics are really celebrated and young girls are wearing more
makeup. We probably haven't seen this amount of makeup since the '80s."
Real Housewife of Melbourne's Janet Roach, for one,
has seen the changes in beauty ideals first hand. "In the '80s and '90s,
we all wanted large breasts. Now they're matronly, and the flat-chested woman
is more fashionable. In five years' time, thin eyebrows might be in fashion,
and what will [those with brow tattoos, which last up to three years], do then?
Fashions change."
Rachelle Unreich
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