The late, great Joan Rivers once declared: ‘I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.’ Our own comedic genius Dawn French has different views on going under the knife. In a recent interview she declared: ‘I’m grateful to be this age. I’ve made decisions about whether or not I’m going to take a machete to my face’ – and reader, she’s not.
French’s sarcastic use of ‘taking a machete’ to her face speaks to a trend which is irritating in the extreme: women who don’t have plastic surgery or ‘tweakments’ looking down on those who do.
And a lot of us do: £3.2billion is being spent on beauty treatments in the UK annually, despite the cost of living crisis. For many, a regular top-up of their Botox or fillers is as routine as a mani pedi. In the eyes of the ‘all-natural’ brigade, these women are sad, tragic creatures. They are hopelessly vain, pointlessly trying to fight Father Time, desperately seeking to recreate themselves circa 2004.
Queen of the all-naturals is actress Kate Winslet, who recently said the popularity of cosmetic treatments is ‘terrifying’: not just fellow celebs but ‘people who save up for Botox or the stuff they put in their lips’. Imagining seeing a female acquaintance who’s had work done, she gasps: ‘I think no, not you! Why?’
You see this rather superior attitude in online comments about celebrities who have had work done: Shania Twain, Demi Moore, Kris Jenner. ‘Have you seen her face? It’s completely frozen! OMG she’s ruined herself. It’s just sad.’
The most galling bit is the faux-pity the all-natural brigade have for these worked-on women.
As Winslet said: ‘It is devastating. If a person’s self-esteem is so bound up in how they look it’s frightening…’ Oh, bog off! I write this as a fully paid-up member of the Botox community. I first got jabbed at 35 and could not believe the difference it made.
Looking in the mirror a few days later it was like someone had smeared Vaseline all over my reflection. For seven or so years I had to resist Botox entirely due to four pregnancies and breastfeeding, leaving me looking like a wizened and weary prune. In my mid-40s, once my youngest was weaned, I bounded back to the clinic’s white leather recliner.
Clare Foges gets Botox twice a year, with each round costing £400, which she says is ‘money well spent’
Joan Rivers once declared: ‘I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware’
Now I go twice a year for a sprinkle of the magic stuff across my visage: frown lines, eye crinkles ‘n’ all. It costs around £400, which I believe is money well spent.
For the all-naturals this confession must mean that I loathe myself or that I’m terrified of ageing. Nope and nope. It’s simple. I just don’t want to have a face that looks like it’s been drawn on a two-week-old birthday balloon – and a rather peeved face at that.
You can hit me with all the Instagram quotes you want about ‘loving yourself’ and every wrinkle being a memory, but who loves looking like a weary grump? Since I was about 42 my resting expression without Botox has been that of someone who has just found a parking ticket on their windscreen.
At my forthcoming appointment the good doctor will help magic that away, leaving me not only looking a little better but feeling better too. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
For the more-natural-than-thou crew, though, having such treatments done is weak and somewhat tragic. Emma Thompson has called plastic surgery a ‘collective psychosis’. Can’t you just learn to love yourself, etc?
What grates is the sheer hypocrisy of the all-natural stance. Those who climb on their high moral horse about Botox and other treatments miss the fact that 90 per cent of women are a little bit vain. We just tend to that vanity in different ways.
You think it’s vain to get injectables? Perhaps it’s also vain to punish yourself in the gym six days a week, or submit to having your eyebrows waxed, or to spend a big chunk of your income on pricey clothes.
Many of the supposed all-naturals aren’t natural at all. They, too, are sticking two fingers up at Mother Nature – just in different ways. Dawn French’s hair has a lovely purple-grey sheen; not, I would imagine, her own colour.
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Winslet has spoken extensively about her skincare regime in the Press, recently talking about how she likes high-end products such as Barbara Sturm Super Anti-Aging Face Cream at £225 a pot. She is a global brand ambassador for L’Oreal and has in the past been one for Lancome – companies which make billions on the promise that using their creams and serums will help women turn back the clock or at least soften away a wrinkle or two.
I don’t believe such creams make a blind bit of difference. It’s £3.50 Nivea Soft for me. Some of those expensive creams may smell delicious but the idea that they can lift a sagging face is like saying you could prop up the leaning tower of Pisa with a few strands of spaghetti. To my mind it’s rather extreme to spend £200-plus on a face cream but, hey, I won’t look down on Winslet for it.
As it happens, I think French, Winslet, Thompson and co look lovely. And if people want to let nature take its course, to each their own. But stop looking down on those like me who get a bit of a boost from Botox.
Most of us aren’t hideously vain creatures who want to look like a 20-something Kardashian. We are just – like women since time immemorial – trying to make the best of ourselves.
I’m proof teen love can last
Noah Price and Venezuela Fury on their wedding day at The Royal Chapel of St John the Baptist, Isle of Man
Congratulations to boxer Tyson Fury’s daughter Venezuela who got married at the weekend in a 50ft wedding dress teamed with Crocs and sunnies. There was widespread muttering at the youth of the bride: only 16.
While this does seem a tad young, as someone who was besotted with my husband at 18 – we met in our first year at university but didn’t get together for 17 years – I know teen feelings can last.
Listen to your own speech, Meghan
The Duchess of Sussex speaks at the Lost Screen Memorial in Geneva, Switzerland. The memorial is for 50 children who lost their lives following harms associated with social media
‘Our children aren’t products,’ declared the Duchess of Sussex in a recent speech on the harms children face online.
So why does she endlessly feature Archie and Lilibet on her Instagram? Never mind that their faces aren’t shown; they’re still being used to show off that rose-gardening, jam- cooking Montecito lifestyle.
Perhaps Meghan should listen to her own words and keep her children off social media.
Day one of the Chelsea Flower Show saw King Charles sniffing Sir David Beckham. Not the footballer, the rose named in his honour.
Sir David Beckham at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. The footballer has had a rose named in his honour
While I like Becks, I can’t help thinking it would have been nice for the flower to be named after a charity worker or other unsung hero – rather than the man garlanded with honours on a weekly basis – even if some of them are justified.
How to put Gen Z off visiting stately homes
The National Trust is to charge influencers £360 for filming content in their properties. Are they mad? This is free advertising to the younger generations. Gen Z won’t set foot in a stately home unless some TikTokker has been there first doing a wacky dance.
