please stop touching your face

notes on the beauty industry, patriarchal systems, and ageing

After another crying session, because we don’t apologise for being sensitive around here, I went to wash my face and noticed how puffy my eyes were. And it reminded me of my grandmother. I stared at myself in the mirror for a little longer and cried. Again. I felt so privileged that I was seeing parts of her in me.

We are products of the women who came before us. Why are we told we have to change that? Why are we pushed to pump our mothers and grandmothers’ features full of plastics and silicones?

I think it’s safe to say that at some point, most women have fallen victim to anti-ageing regimes. We buy creams and serums that claim to minimise wrinkles. We engage in preventative measures to slow down our smile lines and crow’s feet. And we undergo all kinds of cosmetic procedures, all in an attempt to maintain a beauty standard. Standards that have consistently told women that we have to be as far from our natural selves as we can. Standards that were built by and under the patriarchy. And we see, time and time again, how youth is one of the biggest standards set for women.

The Substance (2024)

Society favours youth. Social media favours youth. We are living in a youth-obsessed world. Especially one that favours youth in women. And yes, I can acknowledge that there are stigmas around men getting older; however, it quite literally does not compare. I genuinely cannot recall a time when I’ve seen anti-ageing products marketed towards men. The shelves in my local supermarkets all promote their anti-ageing products towards women. Retinols and antioxidants are sold next to shampoos and conditioners. We don’t get a chance to escape it. The idea of eradicating any signs of getting older is constantly pushed down our throats.

These beauty standards are damaging us in ways that we can’t even fully grasp. It is embedded in our minds from such a young age that we have to maintain our youth. We are constantly being fed unsolicited advice on how not to age. And it is so tiring. There is quite literally nothing we can do to slow down the ageing process. It’ll get us all in the end. We’ll all be saggy and wrinkled. And honestly, what a privilege! What a privilege it is to get old and know we’ve lived long lives. To see our smile lines and crow’s feet and know we’ve laughed, to see our wrinkled hands and feet and know they’ve carried us through it all. To know that we’ve experienced so much of life that it’s left a mark on us.

And yet, society, and particularly social media, believes that getting old is horrendous.

Anti-ageing trends do my head in. Twenty-step skincare routines, face tape, ‘anti-ageing straws’ that are actually designed for accessibility. It all drives me crazy. Filters that de-age you, and people leaving nasty comments like “that’s a hard 20!” are just reinforcing these ridiculous beauty standards and further pushing the negativity surrounding growing old.

We see content creators making videos about their anti-ageing routines and other creators posting videos about the ‘hard truths’ of getting old, and they almost always concern beauty. Social media is more focused on the cosmetic facet of ageing. I mean, who cares if your body begins failing as long as your face looks snatched and wrinkle-free, right?

Our insecurities as women are being preyed upon, and we continue to fall victim to it.

We have ten-year-olds with skin care routines and eighteen-year-olds getting Botox. It is wild. These young girls and teens are being pressured to undertake preventive measures surrounding an ‘issue’ that quite literally isn’t relevant yet. I was worried about writing fanfictions when I was fourteen. I wasn’t even aware of anti-ageing culture. And honestly, it feels dystopian to see a preteen talking about retinol. Let teenagers be teenagers. Stop making them worry about getting old. It is so disheartening to see just how damaging beauty expectations can be towards women and how predatory the Botox industry is.

The Botox industry is based on making money off of your insecurities. Insecurities, I might add, that they helped to create. I’ve seen videos of young girls going in to get Botox and getting told about other procedures that they ‘need done.’ How crazy is that? These industries are fuelling the panic among women and sell an unattainable dream of youth. Not to mention that our faces are beginning to look the same. The phenomenon of the Instagram face is amongst us, and no one looks real anymore. We’re losing authenticity.

And whilst I can sit here and type my heart out about how bad anti-ageing culture is, I can also acknowledge how difficult it is to break away from those thought patterns. I also want to acknowledge that women can do whatever they want with themselves and that I’m no better than anyone who does engage in anti-ageing routines. But I just beg of people to dig a little deeper into the reasons as to why they’re doing it.

Be sure you’re doing it for you, and not for society, or partners, or anyone else.

Be sure that you’re not playing into another facet of the patriarchal system.

I want to dive into something deeper now, and I’m going to preface that this next part is going to acknowledge how the beauty industry, particularly in the West, plays into pedophilic ideologies. So if you struggle with mentions of this and want to protect your peace, please scroll past!

By acknowledging the beauty industry, we need to acknowledge the pedophilic beauty standards that have been set.

When we look at female beauty standards, we notice a few patterns: petite, hairless, youthful. We are told to look so far from our natural bodies that our natural selves become unnatural. I mean, the whole resurgence of the bush in 2025 saw how a large portion of people viewed body hair as something unnatural and gross. And from what I saw, the majority of the people saying it was gross were women.

Now, I’m not the pubic police, and I think everyone has the right to do what they want, but pubic and body hair are not unclean. Perhaps if we dug a little deeper, we would find that beauty standards have led us to believe that body hair on women is gross. And thus, the pedophilic beauty standards have done their job.

Alongside this, we see how age in relation to women is used as another way to enforce these beauty standards. Phrases like ‘women expire after 25’ just further push the idea that women have to be young. We have to look young, act young, be young. A patriarchal society favours young women for the wrong reasons. The infantilisation of women is linked to the control of women. Ever noticed how women who don’t fit pedophilic beauty standards are seen as ‘difficult’ or ‘undesirable’?

I want to make it clear, too, that I am in no way accusing people of playing into these standards. I’ve played into them many times. When something is drilled into you from a young age, chances are you’ll internalise it, and it’ll become habitual. There is no shame in that. I just want women to be more aware of just how damaging these things can be.

If you want to be hairless, smooth, and look young, then it is absolutely your choice to do so! But it’s also essential to know where these standards come from, and not fall into patriarchal systems that try to enforce them. That means not being nasty to the women who don’t engage in these practices, and not spreading the message that women have to look a certain way.

To pivot the conversation now, I want to talk about my love for getting older.

I love ageing. I love wrinkles, sunspots, grey hair, I love it all. I think it’s such a beautiful thing to get older. And it’s a privilege. I love that your memories, experiences, loved ones, and your time on this earth all reflect on your body. I love the wisdom that comes with it, and the carefreeness of it all. The ability to see your life reflected on you is just something I find so incredibly amazing.

I love that I get to see my mother and grandmother reflected in my face. I love that the women in my family have had the privilege of growing old. That their wrinkles tell a story of the lives they’ve lived. I just love it all. And I cannot wait to get old. I can’t wait to get smile lines and crow’s feet and know that I’ve laughed a lot. To let my hair go grey and know I’m getting wiser. Just to see myself age and know I’ve had the privilege of even doing so. I will never apologise for getting old, and I hope other people can begin to feel the same.

So, please stop touching your face.

Let yourself grow old.

much love x