Love love love this. And I also had trouble finding an under eye concealer that didn't create the same problems mentioned and then said to myself "oh right, I don't actually care about these dark circles." Have to love a completely free solution to a problem that doesn't even matter.
I was doing my nightly Apple News doom scroll and saw a headline about should I get botox, clicked it while thinking “Jessica Defino would have a field day with this, can’t wait to read this shit” and then was DELIGHTED to realize it was you!! Excellent column, I’m glad it’s reaching masses!
Want to add the risk of severe adverse effects resulting from breast implants, one of them being the potential to develop breast implant illness, a little-researched collection of chronic symptoms that can appear after someone gets boob job. Researches now believe it may be caused by a biofilm that can develop on the implants themselves!
regardless of all the risks of the implants, even if everything goes perfectly you have to get them redone every 10 years or so. Going under general anesthesia is a risk in itself! and all the money and trauma to bodily tissue!
Although the asker was using the term "boob job" I interpreted it as she wanted a breast lift as opposed to implants. as someone who has had that particular surgery (as part of a major breast reduction to combat back pain and other mobility issues) that is a BIG procedure and leaves hella scars. Not that there’s anything wrong with scars!!! BUT if she’s upset over the aesthetic of the breasts, she’s likely going to trade one aesthetic woe for another instead of fixing the underlying problem. No judgement, just a warning. That’s just my 2 cents as someone who had it done
Aesthetically there is nothing g wrong with scars! And, we need scar tissue temporarily as part of the healing process.
However, scar tissue can proliferate from central to distal, and cause adhesions in connective tissue throughout the body. Scars can, in fact, cause many, many problems.
I actually study scar tissue remediation (with a focus on pelvic health and scarring from abdominal and pelvic surgeries, birth injuries, and other types of internal scarring). I believe (and hope) that scar tissue will be the next hot topic studies in medicine in the next 25 years.
My doctor didn’t tell me ANY of this before I got the surgery, just to apply certain medications to reduce their appearance! I would have been interested to know this
Reminds me that I had surgery that required my right ear be removed and then reattached. i was bruised on that side of my head from my hairline to my collarbone. The incision was exquisitely painful. I am grateful this happened in my thirties, because it has helped make me impervious to peer pressure regarding wrinkles. I forgot completely about under eye concealer too after all the bruising faded.
And this line: "I can name quite a few wrinkled old men who don’t seem particularly wise". Probably going to be randomly laughing about that one for awhile.
Loved the column Jessica! And i'm sorry to hijack this space but I don't use social media and i need to scream into the empathetic void about a link (https://www.thecut.com/article/makeup-shaming-love-is-blind.html) this + the fawning comments make me want to screech! how is it empowering to put hundreds of dollars of petroleum product all over your face. Obviously the guy is a lech but the reaction to that isn't blindly supporting her, it's actually thinking deeply about the industries we fund and systems of power we engage in. Applying the 'my body my choice' rhetoric to makeup/skincare/'beauty' makes my stomach turn honestly.
YES I have a lot to say about the Love is Blind situation and that article in particular but I don't know if I want to rock that particular boat lol...
I love, love, loved fightingswan's reply in the comments to deedee14 saying "I think people should wear as much or as little makeup as they want, but also be prepared to accept the judgment that comes with it. And warranted or not, there absolutely will be judgment."
"But if we all keep complying with how it is when we know it's not how it should be, how can it change??"
My first thought? She must read The Unpublishable. LOL
Great article in The Guardian. I appreciate the power of your humor along side the pull-no-punches facts and reality you do not shy away from. It makes for a powerful message.
I love everything you write and I love the existential direction it keeps heading. I've gone through a similar issue with my breasts. The way I got out of it was this. I realized my motivation for agonizing over it was the fear of not being loved by a man. Then I realized why TF would I want to be with a man who gave a shit what my boobs looked like. Once I realized that, I knew that I had to love and accept them myself, to ensure no one else could make me feel inferior about how they've changed. Basically it's like putting the teenage boy that lives inside of you to rest. I feel like the dismantling of beauty culture just comes down to America needing to grow up. We need to grow up and realize chasing the "Fountain of Youth" is just an immature pursuit. Idk about you but living forever (as an immature prick) sounds awful af.
This relates to my decision recently about fashion, hair, skin care. Who am I putting this amount of effort, time and money in for......
Could the effort, time and money be better spent elsewhere? Damn right.
Also, and this seems funny but it's true. It's important to me to be able to jump into the lake at the cottage with my kids, without worrying about my hair, make-up, fancy swim suit....etc.
And it's important to me that my face doesn't look frighteningly different in the morning to my family, before I have had time to make it up. I would prefer to just look frightening all the time lol.
Love this Jess! 👏🏻👏🏻 The only other thing I can offer ALL of young women, at 66, is this: we’re much harder on ourselves than others are about our appearance. All my young/prime years I thought of myself as ‘fat’; from 12-60yrs old this constant 6/8P size person was “fat”. In the 70’s that was equivalent to being a freak (at a time when someone who wore glasses was too!); I deprived myself constantly...dieted belittled myself..embarrassed to wear a bathing suit. ALL THOSE YEARS wasted on a dysmorphia that was I think, initially triggered by Twiggy, the supermodel body standard of the day starting around 1965. An impossible standard by any metric, and positively ghastly by today’s. I look at photos of myself at 20, 30, 40’s now and this woman is not fat. Not even close! I inwardly scream every time I realize I saw myself ‘in comparison’ all those years. Not as myself. As “not Twiggy (or Cheryl Tiegs or whoever was hot).
In conclusion I caution you to try to abandon the comparisons. Today’s ‘beauty’ is worse- supercharged by SM, and the pressure to conform is heavier than ever from people who don’t see you, don’t know you and don’t care about your mental or physical health unless it leads you to buy something. It’s all transactional commerce and we are the commodity-for beauty, healthcare, education, politics, almost everything. Try to be conscious of being less of a commodity, because when I think of myself as being so manipulated I get angry, and I buy less of it-literally and metaphorically.
And TIL stretch marks are “warrior marks” or “earned stripes”?! 🙉 Like we’re in some fruitless war against aging so these are our credentials?!? Make it stop!
It's very popular for moms to say this, that they earned their stripes by carrying babies, which is also dismissive to everyone who got stretch marks as a teen, or when they lost/gained weight, from an illness, or any other way not involving carrying babies.
"Anti-ageing is a disappointing pursuit. It has been since Ponce de Léon went searching for the Fountain of Youth and found Florida." LMFAOOOOOOO
lollll thank you for laughing <3
Same! Though I had to stifle as I’m the only one up in my tiny adobe abode.
I laughed out-loud when I read this too!!!
Love love love this. And I also had trouble finding an under eye concealer that didn't create the same problems mentioned and then said to myself "oh right, I don't actually care about these dark circles." Have to love a completely free solution to a problem that doesn't even matter.
yesssss
I was doing my nightly Apple News doom scroll and saw a headline about should I get botox, clicked it while thinking “Jessica Defino would have a field day with this, can’t wait to read this shit” and then was DELIGHTED to realize it was you!! Excellent column, I’m glad it’s reaching masses!
ha! love that :)
Want to add the risk of severe adverse effects resulting from breast implants, one of them being the potential to develop breast implant illness, a little-researched collection of chronic symptoms that can appear after someone gets boob job. Researches now believe it may be caused by a biofilm that can develop on the implants themselves!
regardless of all the risks of the implants, even if everything goes perfectly you have to get them redone every 10 years or so. Going under general anesthesia is a risk in itself! and all the money and trauma to bodily tissue!
all for boob aesthetic :(
sure, 100%!
Although the asker was using the term "boob job" I interpreted it as she wanted a breast lift as opposed to implants. as someone who has had that particular surgery (as part of a major breast reduction to combat back pain and other mobility issues) that is a BIG procedure and leaves hella scars. Not that there’s anything wrong with scars!!! BUT if she’s upset over the aesthetic of the breasts, she’s likely going to trade one aesthetic woe for another instead of fixing the underlying problem. No judgement, just a warning. That’s just my 2 cents as someone who had it done
Aesthetically there is nothing g wrong with scars! And, we need scar tissue temporarily as part of the healing process.
However, scar tissue can proliferate from central to distal, and cause adhesions in connective tissue throughout the body. Scars can, in fact, cause many, many problems.
I actually study scar tissue remediation (with a focus on pelvic health and scarring from abdominal and pelvic surgeries, birth injuries, and other types of internal scarring). I believe (and hope) that scar tissue will be the next hot topic studies in medicine in the next 25 years.
My doctor didn’t tell me ANY of this before I got the surgery, just to apply certain medications to reduce their appearance! I would have been interested to know this
Reminds me that I had surgery that required my right ear be removed and then reattached. i was bruised on that side of my head from my hairline to my collarbone. The incision was exquisitely painful. I am grateful this happened in my thirties, because it has helped make me impervious to peer pressure regarding wrinkles. I forgot completely about under eye concealer too after all the bruising faded.
Well, this is brilliant!! And will hopefully lead to more people finding your Substack and subscribing! Congrats!!
And this line: "I can name quite a few wrinkled old men who don’t seem particularly wise". Probably going to be randomly laughing about that one for awhile.
Loved the column Jessica! And i'm sorry to hijack this space but I don't use social media and i need to scream into the empathetic void about a link (https://www.thecut.com/article/makeup-shaming-love-is-blind.html) this + the fawning comments make me want to screech! how is it empowering to put hundreds of dollars of petroleum product all over your face. Obviously the guy is a lech but the reaction to that isn't blindly supporting her, it's actually thinking deeply about the industries we fund and systems of power we engage in. Applying the 'my body my choice' rhetoric to makeup/skincare/'beauty' makes my stomach turn honestly.
YES I have a lot to say about the Love is Blind situation and that article in particular but I don't know if I want to rock that particular boat lol...
I love, love, loved fightingswan's reply in the comments to deedee14 saying "I think people should wear as much or as little makeup as they want, but also be prepared to accept the judgment that comes with it. And warranted or not, there absolutely will be judgment."
"But if we all keep complying with how it is when we know it's not how it should be, how can it change??"
My first thought? She must read The Unpublishable. LOL
Great article in The Guardian. I appreciate the power of your humor along side the pull-no-punches facts and reality you do not shy away from. It makes for a powerful message.
thank you!
The Ponce de Léon reference is gold! Congrats on your Guardian column!
Thank you!
AMAZING!!!! Thank you thank you so much for all your hard work, I’m so thankful for it and feel so affirmed by it.
aw thank you so much!!
Excited to see this in the wild! The Guardian is lucky to have you.
Thank you!!
"Sentient Snapchat filters" is such a funny, delightful-yet-also-creepy phrase.
lol thank youuu
WOOO! Congrats Jessica❤️❤️
Thanks Lee!!
I love everything you write and I love the existential direction it keeps heading. I've gone through a similar issue with my breasts. The way I got out of it was this. I realized my motivation for agonizing over it was the fear of not being loved by a man. Then I realized why TF would I want to be with a man who gave a shit what my boobs looked like. Once I realized that, I knew that I had to love and accept them myself, to ensure no one else could make me feel inferior about how they've changed. Basically it's like putting the teenage boy that lives inside of you to rest. I feel like the dismantling of beauty culture just comes down to America needing to grow up. We need to grow up and realize chasing the "Fountain of Youth" is just an immature pursuit. Idk about you but living forever (as an immature prick) sounds awful af.
This relates to my decision recently about fashion, hair, skin care. Who am I putting this amount of effort, time and money in for......
Could the effort, time and money be better spent elsewhere? Damn right.
Also, and this seems funny but it's true. It's important to me to be able to jump into the lake at the cottage with my kids, without worrying about my hair, make-up, fancy swim suit....etc.
And it's important to me that my face doesn't look frighteningly different in the morning to my family, before I have had time to make it up. I would prefer to just look frightening all the time lol.
Love this Jess! 👏🏻👏🏻 The only other thing I can offer ALL of young women, at 66, is this: we’re much harder on ourselves than others are about our appearance. All my young/prime years I thought of myself as ‘fat’; from 12-60yrs old this constant 6/8P size person was “fat”. In the 70’s that was equivalent to being a freak (at a time when someone who wore glasses was too!); I deprived myself constantly...dieted belittled myself..embarrassed to wear a bathing suit. ALL THOSE YEARS wasted on a dysmorphia that was I think, initially triggered by Twiggy, the supermodel body standard of the day starting around 1965. An impossible standard by any metric, and positively ghastly by today’s. I look at photos of myself at 20, 30, 40’s now and this woman is not fat. Not even close! I inwardly scream every time I realize I saw myself ‘in comparison’ all those years. Not as myself. As “not Twiggy (or Cheryl Tiegs or whoever was hot).
In conclusion I caution you to try to abandon the comparisons. Today’s ‘beauty’ is worse- supercharged by SM, and the pressure to conform is heavier than ever from people who don’t see you, don’t know you and don’t care about your mental or physical health unless it leads you to buy something. It’s all transactional commerce and we are the commodity-for beauty, healthcare, education, politics, almost everything. Try to be conscious of being less of a commodity, because when I think of myself as being so manipulated I get angry, and I buy less of it-literally and metaphorically.
Congratulations Jessica!!!
And TIL stretch marks are “warrior marks” or “earned stripes”?! 🙉 Like we’re in some fruitless war against aging so these are our credentials?!? Make it stop!
It's very popular for moms to say this, that they earned their stripes by carrying babies, which is also dismissive to everyone who got stretch marks as a teen, or when they lost/gained weight, from an illness, or any other way not involving carrying babies.
Stretch marks are signs of growth, no matter when or how they happened! And growth means living, and that’s all right with me!!!
🙋♀️ to having stretch marks in every other way besides birthing babies
Your article is fantastic! Looking forward to more!!!