Are Western Beauty Standards Cooked?

In a new column for Highsnobiety, writer Sable Yong explores how the culture of beauty impacts our lives.

A few months ago, I found myself in the hot seat at Bryant Park’s preeminent “K-aesthetics” medical spa, lured by the opportunity to try South Korea’s hottest new neurotoxin. “It’s all I use in my practice now,” Dr. Darby Koh says, loading up my jaw muscles with 40 CCs of Letybo.

As a longtime clencher, I’ve only sought out this kind of silver bullet a handful of times. Along with tension relief, the added purported benefit of masseter muscle Botox (as it’s more commonly known) is visual slimming of the face. I picture an Animorphs-style transformation: a LEGO-headed girlboss shifting back into her natural delicate form.

Non-invasive injectables are fast becoming a maintenance staple, along with biannual dental cleanings and highlight touch-ups. Not too long ago, a frozen face was ridiculed as vanity’s folly. Now, it seems like every third forehead I see belonging to a woman in her early 30s is suspiciously smooth and shiny. That might have something to do with the med spa franchises popping up in every major city. And that might be the result of appearance inflation wrought by our screen-integrated world. If you’ve been on social media in the past year, you’ve likely been scrolling endless chatter about which celebrities look mysteriously refreshed, more youthful, lifted. See: the 70-year-old Kris Jenner looking closer in age to her oldest daughters, or Lindsay Lohan returning to the spotlight looking agelessly taut.

View full-feature @salonwithoutwalls.