I've struggled with KP and eczema my whole life. Any time I see an influencer being called 'real' or 'brave' for having a shadow of a pimple I want to gouge my eyes out. I also wish we would stop over medicating. Acne doesn't technically have to be dealt with, we all know it's one of the most aggressively treated skin conditions just because of how it looks as opposed to it being unhealthy. Excellent read as always!
This is a skin observation, but not a facial skin observation... I was walking downtown yesterday and saw a young woman wearing short athletic shorts, so exposing a lot of leg. Good on her, if that makes her happy. But the skin on her legs had been subjected to such complete hair removal and extensive spray tanning that they had no variation of pigmentation at all. It was weirdly creepy (to me). They looked like the legs on a mannequin. I don't think the balancing of one "freedom" against another is limited only to our faces (as you note with the example of the woman railing against cleavage wrinkles). We are allowed to expose more skin than ever, but only if that skin has been controlled so that it doesn't even look like skin anymore. I really appreciate you pointing out the relationship between expansion and contraction of options in order to keep ideals as narrow as possible.
I've struggled with KP and eczema my whole life. Any time I see an influencer being called 'real' or 'brave' for having a shadow of a pimple I want to gouge my eyes out. I also wish we would stop over medicating. Acne doesn't technically have to be dealt with, we all know it's one of the most aggressively treated skin conditions just because of how it looks as opposed to it being unhealthy. Excellent read as always!
This is a skin observation, but not a facial skin observation... I was walking downtown yesterday and saw a young woman wearing short athletic shorts, so exposing a lot of leg. Good on her, if that makes her happy. But the skin on her legs had been subjected to such complete hair removal and extensive spray tanning that they had no variation of pigmentation at all. It was weirdly creepy (to me). They looked like the legs on a mannequin. I don't think the balancing of one "freedom" against another is limited only to our faces (as you note with the example of the woman railing against cleavage wrinkles). We are allowed to expose more skin than ever, but only if that skin has been controlled so that it doesn't even look like skin anymore. I really appreciate you pointing out the relationship between expansion and contraction of options in order to keep ideals as narrow as possible.
I got such a kick out of seeing you pop up in Lauren's story in my local paper, The Age in Melbourne, Australia (a sister publication of the SMH)!