I never asked for his opinion on my appearance, but he gave it to me anyway.
It all started with a little bump on the tip of my nose. I was aware of its existence but thought it might go away by itself. It didn’t. It was my sister who suggested I get it checked out just to be on the safe side. I went to my GP, who referred me to a top dermatologist in one of central Auckland’s pricey suburbs.
When the dermatologist walked into the room he squinted, assessing my face, as if I were an apple and he was looking for bruises and blemishes.
“Are you here for Botox?” he asked.
“Er, no,” I replied.
“Treatment for pigmentation?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well what then?”
He hadn’t bothered to look at his notes before our appointment.
I showed him the bump and he examined it, said it didn’t look suspicious but that he could remove it and biopsy it anyway. Which he did.
At our follow-up appointment weeks later (the biopsy was clear) he stared at me some more before mentioning Botox again. He told me that for 46, I didn’t look too bad. And then he asked if I had considered a blepharoplasty. I didn’t know what that was – did it have something to do with my nose? He explained it was a surgical procedure to remove excess skin from my upper eyelids to correct sagging.
Using his finger tips, he hitched up the skin on my forehead and said: “See? It makes you look younger.” He went as far as to suggest that I might be able to get the procedure on ACC because it could be impacting my vision. I can see perfectly fine.
I told him that I was comfortable with the way my eyelids were. I also said that while I felt that I could handle this kind of unsolicited scrutiny, I worried that others might not.
At no point had I ever asked his opinion on what I could do to my face.
I went home and told a friend about it and we both laughed. But over the following few days I began to feel like shit. Like I hadn’t been vigilant about monitoring my aging, I hadn’t tried hard enough, that somehow this was a moral failing on my part. That there was just so much to fix and time was running out.
It’s not like I hadn’t thought about these things before the dermatologist’s suggestions. Show me a woman in her 40s who hasn’t wondered about them. I am in constant conversation with myself about resisting the temptation to interfere with the natural aging process. To accept my face as it is. To embrace aging naturally. To rage against photo filters that iron out every line. To rage against the beauty industry who likes to frame having invasive cosmetic procedures as “self care”.
Jessica DeFino, beauty journalist, critic, Guardian columnist and author of the excellent FLESH WORLD Substack, is my north star when it comes to demystifying the beauty industry. DeFino – who once worked for the Kardashian-Jenners developing their apps and has since been described as “a beauty reporter gone rogue” – has an incredibly incisive and scathing eye when it comes to identifying, articulating and dismantling the latest insane beauty industry trends. Recently, she wrote about people using cadaver fat for injectables and cosmetic procedures. Yes, that’s right, we now harvest dead people’s fat and inject it into ourselves so we might look younger.
DeFino coined the term “the morgue gaze” to describe the macabre beauty trend of “ageless, poreless, lifeless beauty inspiration that keeps consumers coming back for more numb, frozen aesthetics – forever. Humans are hard-wired to unconsciously mirror each others’ microexpressions,” she writes on her Substack. “It just so happens that one of today’s dominant facial expressions is non-expression.” She points to the fact that there are studies looking at neuromodulators, like Botox, and how they can affect the way we connect and communicate with others, including reducing our capacity to feel empathy.
And while having Botox and fillers and facelifts might make the individual feel better about themselves, says DeFino, “they compound the problem for the collective. They keep us all stuck in this awful cycle. If I buy into anti-aging ideology because it makes me feel better about myself, I am, to an extent, influencing my peers to do the same, and ensuring that future generations will have to deal with these bullshit beauty standards, too.”
I will not be returning to the dermatologist – for legitimate skin concerns, or anything else. After telling my GP about my experience, she says she will no longer refer patients to him either. And I will continue to remind myself that I don’t want to play a part in perpetuating an impossible standard of beauty; that of eternal youth. I don’t want my kids growing up in a world where looking your age is considered unnatural.
NZ Dermatological Society responds:
The New Zealand Dermatological Society supports the Medical Council statements on good medical practice and the performing of cosmetic procedures. This includes, in short, that a doctor’s first concern is to take care of their patient, and to do so with respect, honesty and professionalism, and that the doctor must not encourage patients to seek care and treatment where there is no clinical basis for that care.
Conflicts between providers and patients may occur, especially in the area of cosmetic medicine. It is not appropriate for the society to comment on an individual patient’s experience or on the actions of an unnamed practitioner, particularly where only one perspective has been presented. In the first instance patients are encouraged to discuss this directly with the provider. If the issue is unable to be resolved, the New Zealand Health and Disability Service is a robust, independent system that is in place to review concerns about clinical care. This is the appropriate forum to assess unresolved conflict between providers and patients by fully assessing both sides of the story. They also have the ability to determine and enforce any appropriate next steps.
