The Problem With Normalising Facelifts
These days, some of our favourite actors, singers and models – many as young as their early thirties – look curiously different. Brows sit higher, jawlines are sharper, and there’s scarcely a crow’s foot in sight. According to aesthetic experts, this isn’t just the work of injectables – many have likely gone under the knife.
Where the A-list goes, the rest of us tend to follow, and sure enough, general interest in facelifts is on the up. Google searches for “deep plane facelift” and “mini facelift” have risen by over 5,000 per cent in the past month, a tend that’s being attributed in part to Kris Jenner’s openness about her own $100,000 surgery. On TikTok and in beauty Facebook groups, users are sharing their own before and after transformations.
Eyelid surgery, or blepharoplasty, is also booming – it was the second most common cosmetic procedure in 2024, according to ISAPS. Overall aesthetic treatments, both surgical and non-surgical, have risen by 40 per cent since 2020. And this isn’t limited to older demographics: women in their early twenties are opting for facelifts and “preventative” Botox, while others embrace “collagen banking” with prescription retinoids and actives long before wrinkles start to appear. Even children aren’t immune. Tweens as young as ten have adopted multi-step, active-laden skincare routines inspired by TikTok.
All of it points to a world obsessed with stopping the clock before it truly starts ticking – a phenomenon the industry calls “preventative ageing”. But has it gone too far?
Young people and preventative ageing
Preventative ageing is defined as taking a proactive approach to slowing down the visible and biological effects of ageing, rather than waiting for signs to appear and then treating them afterwards. While genetics and lifestyle are still the biggest factors in how we age, most of us begin to notice subtle changes – fine lines, dullness, uneven texture or a loss of firmness – from our mid-twenties onwards.
That biological fact hasn’t changed, but our attitude towards it has. “It’s become less about health and more about the cosmetic,” says Dr Emma Craythorne, dermatologist, founder of Klira and an expert on The Bad Skin Clinic. “And that tends to go hand in hand with social norms, social media, what our friends are doing and so on.”
Consultant dermatologist, Dr Ellie Rashid, notes that she’s seeing a rise in people chasing “flawless, poreless” skin – an ideal she calls “completely unachievable”. The number of under-25s using prescription-strength retinoids like tretinoin without medical need (for conditions like acne) has, she says, skyrocketed.
“Younger patients now come in referencing their parents’ jowls or sagging,” says plastic surgeon, Dr Ash Soni. “They’re hyper-aware of ageing and taking action at increasingly early ages.”
Much of this anxiety stems from social media, where injectables, surgical procedures and filters coexist so seamlessly that it’s difficult to tell what’s real. “The line between aspiration and reality has blurred,” says Andrea Pfeffer, founder of Salon C Stellar. “What we now see as beautiful often doesn’t exist in real life.”