Injections, laser, cosmetic surgery: beauty has a price and not everyone can afford it.
Beauty and wealth have always gone hand in hand, remember Dazed. The latter provides access well-made clothes that reshape the silhouette, healthy lifestyle and dietmedical care and a lifestyle that preserves the body. In 17th century Paris, it also provided access to painters who were commissioned to round the shoulders and lighten the skin of young girls from good families who married a rich nobleman. (This also involves reducing the volume of the upper lip at this point and moving the capillary implantation back to the subject’s forehead). Unlike ordinary people of that time, we are constantly bombarded, in the form of a selfie and others TikTok posts, retouched images that define beauty standards. By changing (light complexion vs. tanned skin, fleshy limbs vs. lean lines, etc.), these standards are established in the same way as the capital money to be preserved. As a social marker, appearance is imposed as a space of struggle.
Beauty tax : we are a little in ours the age of botoxno?
In addition to rigorous weekly maintenance (nails, hair), it is also necessary to optimize through “minor” adjustments, between injections in the lips or cheekbones, which are done between noon and two, and surgical procedures that trim the nose, make the breasts fuller or remove the fat from the cheeks. According to the Aesthetic Plastic Surgery National Databank, the number of botox procedures performed in America increased by 54% between 2019 and 2020, filler procedures increased by 75%. The UK has the fastest growing facial fillers market in the world, with consultation requests increasing by 70% compared to 2020 according to a report by British Plastic Surgeons. Depending on the area (calves for example or lips), a Botox injection costs between 200 and 600 euros.
Then we talk about a binding person work on beauty which consists of the struggle to maintain your capital of beauty at all costs. Of course, all this has its price ( beauty tax) higher than ever. “Our faces have become our most precious possessions. With social media, selfies and Zoom calls, our appearance is always at the forefront and has become something we ‘need’ to invest in,” he notes. Dazed. For fear of being degraded, the middle class works harder. IN Fear of falling (1989), Barbara Ehrenreich noted that maintaining one’s own status required constant, prohibitively expensive maintenance by the middle class.
The internet goes after memes I’m not ugly, I’m just poor »
Shown as natural and effortless (acquired without the slightest effort), representations of that beauty, impose themselves as references unattainable without the stroke of a scalpel or syringe, available only to those who have a sufficiently significant income. A term he became familiar with in a part of the internet where memes flourish I’m not ugly, I’m just poor (I’m not ugly, I’m just poor), which show before and after from the Kardashian-Jenner family, from the Hadids or Elon Musk. From Reddit to Pinterest, these memes serve to remind us that money trumps genetics when it comes to meeting the standards set by networks and the creative industry. An idea that annoys more and more Internet users experienced in the cosmetics business. On TikTok, #notuglyjustpoor AND #notuglyjustbroke (not ugly, just broken) exceeded 2 million views, which led to numerous criticisms and recognitions. A bit scared, @ashathemuseologist declares: “my braces cost me 10K. Yes…” And he added in the title of his video: “It’s like an attachment for the house. » Confessions that the vast majority of celebrities keep well away from.
“It is crucial that influential people with a large community of followers acknowledge the operation. It affects people too much (…) There is no one to say “don’t compare yourself to that!” I didn’t look like that last summer (…), I look like this because I can afford it! », condemns YouTuber Karolina Żebrowska, an expert in the history of fashion and beauty, in her video A long history of “You’re not ugly, you’re just poor”. Putting his hands into the megaphone, he pretends to shout: “Who are we? Normal people! What do we want? Honestly, transparency would be a good start. And later why not decency and honesty, but good to see. »
The privilege of beauty
According to Business Insider, people who are perceived as attractive have a 20% higher chance of being invited to a job interview. Then we will talk about ” the privileges of beauty “, to indicate the benefits that people whose physiques are considered attractive are likely to benefit from. Citing a Harvard University study, France Inter rating that people who are considered ugly receive on average 20% more prison sentences than others. In addition, women with a “messy” appearance are likely to earn 40% less than others. Therefore, we will mention ” ugly punishment “, when an individual is subjected to a harsher judgment because of his physique. Therefore, people who do not enjoy the economic freedom to move up the beauty hierarchy can be severely punished, financially and socially.
“If you’re white, middle class and have a good job, you don’t need all that much. It is when we are marginalized that this work of beauty becomes even more important,” Ruth Holliday, professor of gender and culture at the University of Leeds, tells the British media. For her, the use of physical changes is “almost considered the equivalent of qualifications. For the middle class, further education is considered necessary for success, but beauty treatments work the same way for those excluded from this culture. It’s about investing in yourself to try and make a living. »
Always, double punishment, especially for women
This phenomenon leads some to put themselves in financial jeopardy. According to Refinery29, women pile up thousands of euros in credit card debt to afford Botox and other fillers, sometimes at the expense of other “essential” products and services. Risks that are not only financial. Those who cannot afford reputable clinics save money by traveling abroad, remind journalists Ariane Riou and Elsa Mari IN Scalpel Generation, Exploring the ravages of cosmetic surgery among young people. Prices are more affordable, but many procedures are performed by unlicensed and untrained doctors, whose services are praised by unscrupulous influential people. In Colombia, for example, 30% of practitioners are said to be unable to practice, which has caused several deaths in recent years, advance NPR. “The free market will compete to cut women’s bodies more cheaply, albeit more carelessly, with simple operations in cheap clinics,” Naomi Wolf predicted as early as 1990 in her essay The myth of beauty about the dictatorship of beauty exercised over women.
White teeth: quiet luxury beauty
In the beauty industry, good taste dictates that a successful operation be invisible. Pouty lips or too high cheekbones are a mistake, a sign of belonging to a lower social class that is considered excessive and unreasonable. In fashion as in beauty, luxury must be discreet. (A classicist consideration that undoubtedly led KK to return to his signature BBL sound, an operation that consists of increasing the volume of the buttocks thanks to lipofilling). Along with work, car, home and leisure, beauty acts as a tool to keep the less privileged at the bottom of the social ladder.
As YouTuber Tiffany Ferguson explains in her video Good teeth are a luxury that only the rich can afford, beautiful teeth are a privilege that only the rich can enjoy, with repeated and expensive care costs. Implicit goal: to stand out from the “careless”, perceived in the collective imagination as neglected, dirty and morally deficient. If beauty is considered imperative, it is because it is connected with morality: you must be beautiful, because you must be good. In the first episode of the podcast Toothless, the political history of smiles, Hélène Goutany returns to the origin of the term, specifically used by La Fontaine in one of his fables, and observes how dental care separates the rich and the poor. She reports that in France only 43% of insured people allow themselves to go to the dentist, compared to some 70% in Germany. On the other side of the Atlantic, “fixing your teeth” is a sign of hard-won social progress. Making a name for herself, rapper Cardi B sings: “ I’ve got a bag and I’m fixing my teeth / I hope you know it’s not cheap » (I grabbed my bag and had my teeth fixed / I hope you know it ain’t cheap.) We know that, yes, but apparently it’s not slowing us down. According to L’Oréal Annual Reportthe global beauty market (skin care, hair care, makeup), valued at $250 billion, will grow by 6% in 2022.