Is It Rude To Gift Wrinkle Cream?

This holiday season, tell your mother her neck sags.

This holiday season, tell your mother her neck sags. She might also like to hear about her under-eye bags and wrinkles. In the spirit of giving, why not point out her age spots and drooping jowls, too? Not openly, of course. Say it with a gift!

OK, yes, the above sentiment could be plucked from The Onion, and no advertiser would dare speak it aloud. Nevertheless, that does seem to be the non-satirical subtext of some of the season’s more suspect gift sets — all very luxurious, to be sure, but also… a little weird to gift your loved ones? Mildly to aggressively offensive? In a word, rude?

Take StriVectin’s Firm & Festive Duo, a kit featuring the brand’s Peptight™ 360˚ Tightening Eye Serum to “target creping skin on eyelids​.” Or Clarisonic’s Dark Spot Diminishing Stocking Stuffer, a generous way to call attention to a friend’s fading but not forgotten acne scars. Or Shiseido’s Ultimate Wrinkle Smoothing Eye Set, which claims to treat six different types of eye wrinkles — crow's feet, corner crinkling, under-eye wrinkles, lid creases, under-puff lines and stress wrinkles. That one is both practical and educational, since the person receiving said set is likely (blissfully) unaware there are six different types of wrinkles, much less on their own face. 

Strivectin

Maybe it’s my snowflakish tendency to take offense to any and everything, but who, I politely ask, is giving these very rude gifts??

“I think companies do these holiday sets as more of a selling tactic for consumers to buy for themselves, not necessarily to gift someone else,” says makeup artist Megan DiGuilio. I hope this is true. Surely the only person for whom it is appropriate to buy saggy neck cream is your own self?

A very unscientific survey on my Instagram Stories revealed that best friends and moms — and only best friends and moms — can get away with such gifts. As my younger sister points out, “Mom got me an entire acne thing for Christmas once and I was hype.” But if any other person on the planet were to present her with, say, the Proactiv Holiday Glow Kit this year? “Eff that person.” 

In the same survey, multiple participants said Proactiv is, in fact, the worst holiday gift they’ve ever unwrapped. “Someone gave my colleague a Tom Ford moisturizer that said ‘anti-aging’ and she was decently offended,” fashion designer Karisa Gagnon tells me. One mother of two says her low moment was unboxing a brightening eye cream: “I know I’m tired. It’s like, what are you trying to tell me?”

Of course, maybe you are trying to tell someone something — something sensitive, that you can’t just come out and, you know, tell them. If that’s the case, I have just the thing.

Instead of, “You’re greasy,” consider the Boscia Limited Edition Holiday Blotting Linens.

Instead of, “You’re smelly,” place the type:A Deodorant MerriMint Deodorant Set under the tree.

Instead of, “You’re old,” grab the It Cosmetics Anti-Aging Skincare Gift Set.

Instead of, “Your body is disintegrating before my eyes,” put a bow on The Strivectin Crepe Control Body System.

Instead of, “Your pores are huge,” dress the Tatcha Pore Perfecting Set with a ribbon. (You can find it in the “Gifts” section of Sephora.com.)

Instead of, “Your lips are thin,” wrap up the Too Faced Lip Injection Maximum Plump Extra Strength Lip Plumper. (Maximum Plump! Extra Strength! On the holiday presents page!)

Instead of, “Your face requires professional intervention,” present them with a gift certificate for Botox, filler, or a surgical procedure. Yes, plastic surgeons actually offer this — Dr. Melissa Doft of Doft Plastic Surgery even sent out a press release about it a couple Christmases ago. “Due to the financial commitment, these sorts of gifts are most commonly seen amongst close friends and family – people who are privy to their loved one's concerns and could lovingly offer such a treatment without it seeming insensitive,” she wrote. “Mother to daughter, daughter to mother, husband to wife, wife to husband.”

I’m sure this is clear by now, but YOU SHOULD NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, GIVE ANYONE THESE GIFTS!! Beauty gifts are almost exclusively bad gifts, and the giftee would almost exclusively be better off without them. Unless, of course, we’re talking about a gift subscription to this very newsletter. This is the only acceptable beauty gift.

If you’d like to gift someone a subscription to The Unpublishable this season, there are two ways to do it: You can gift them one month free ($7) or one full year free ($77). You can even schedule the gift for a later date, so it arrives in their inbox exactly when you want it to — the day of the office holiday party, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, whatever!

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A version of this article appeared on Fashionista.com in December 2019.