OBSERVATIONS & OTHER ACCIDENTS

Weekends offer time to observe, to notice the world pretending not to notice itself. On social media, “effortless beauty” scrolls by, all smiles and claims of untouched perfection. Of course, every pore is naturally flawless, every contour accidental, every highlight divine. I have no quarrel with the tools of our era — I’ll take a subtle trick or two if it helps me greet the morning with a fresher face. But altering the features that have brought me joy for decades? Absolutely not. The real crime is the pretense, the illusion that convinces everyone else that reality is inadequate.

I’ll start with a question: how do we define beauty today?
Throughout History, beauty has adapted to the fashions and whims of each era — thinner or thicker eyebrows, paler or darker skin, fuller curves or slender silhouettes. Yet despite these shifts, beauty was, at its core, still beauty: that simple act of looking at someone and finding them pleasing to the eye. Seeing something attractive, harmonious.

And it was those people — the ones who caught that gaze — who walked the runways, stood before cameras, or became film stars (always, of course, with a touch of talent and charisma in the mix). Because charisma — that’s the real plus. Beauty alone is just beauty.

What about now? How do we define it? Open social media — or even the glossy pages of a magazine — and a pattern emerges. Faces shaped almost identically, eyes measured to the same proportions, lips filled to the same volume, noses so pointed they could have been drawn with a ruler. There’s little room left for natural beauty. None, for originality.

These days, it seems, only those who choose “to be ugly” (whatever that means) are. Scroll through Instagram and there they are — countless women and girls, all “beautiful”, all “attractive”. All exactly, eerily, the same.

Faces shaped almost identically, eyes measured to the same proportions, lips filled to the same volume, noses so pointed they could have been drawn with a ruler.

There are days when I look in the mirror and see that my face has changed. Not dramatically, but enough to notice what no longer returns: the contour, the density, the lightness. I’m not going to lie — nor pretend to be one of those who claim not to care. I do care. And honestly, I don’t see anything wrong with that.

(These days, everyone seems desperate to be politically and naturally correct about things that really don’t require it. There’s nothing shameful in admitting that one likes to feel beautiful, or even to be thin. In the end, it’s one of the few areas where each of us should be free to decide what we want for ourselves — and no one has the right to interfere. Yet somehow, saying it out loud feels almost indecent).

I’m not going to lie — nor pretend to be one of those who claim not to care. I do care.

But back to the point. The other mirror — the one on social media — where every woman seems to have stopped time. Almost everyone, it seems, has done something — a tweak here, a lift there, even those who swear otherwise. The line between “natural” and “enhanced” has blurred to the point of absurdity.

Add to that the constant flood of images — glossy skin, poreless faces, impossible youth — and it’s not ageing itself that starts to feel like a failure, but the way it’s portrayed. When every wrinkle is erased and every imperfection retouched, the quiet grace of growing older begins to look like negligence. Which is absurd — because the real failure lies not in ageing, but in pretending not to.

Meanwhile, the same magazines that tell us to accept ourselves bombard us with new ways to fix what’s supposedly wrong. Elle UK’s October issue dedicates six full pages to The Tweakment Awards 2025 — lasers, skin-boosters, “needle-free” miracles. On the next spread, an ad for injectables. Self-love on page 34, self-improvement on page 35. Consistency clearly didn’t make the shortlist

The same magazines that tell us to accept ourselves bombard us with new ways to fix what’s supposedly wrong.

Because in those glossy pages, celebrities — shot in soft light and softer focus — prove that the old saying still holds: there are no ugly people, only poor ones.

“Honey. Yes, yes and yes,” replied Donna Karan when asked, in the Earn Your Luck column of The Wall Street Journal Magazine (Europe edition, Fall 2025), “Where are you on plastic surgery and the lips and the Botox and all of that?” Her answer summed up the current mood perfectly — candid, unapologetic, and a little tired of pretending otherwise.

And yet, honesty like that is rare. In Harper’s Bazaar UK (October 2025), Dua Lipa graces a multi-page feature — radiant, sculpted, impeccable. She has always been pretty, but this time, perfection feels almost uncanny. Officially, it’s all down to lighting, makeup, and good genes. Unofficially, well — let’s just say the transformation goes beyond a good highlighter.

But some faces don’t deny the help — they just do it better. Some women, though, seem to age almost poetically, as if time itself had agreed to collaborate. Gisele Bündchen and Isabeli Fontana were already supermodels long before tweakments became mainstream, and now, in their forties, they treat ageing the way they treat yoga — calmly, consistently, with the occasional helping hand. Their approach is gentle: a touch of filler, a whisper of Botox, maybe some ultrasound or collagen stimulation to keep things firm. Nothing radical. Just a quiet pact with time. Their faces remain theirs — softened, but not rewritten.

The younger generation plays by another rulebook entirely. Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber, and the parade doesn’t end there — perfectly sculpted, perfectly luminous, perfectly improbable. They deny, of course. “Makeup.” “Lighting.” “Genetics.” Meanwhile, their before-and-after photos circulate like urban myths. Kendall insists it’s contouring, Bella admits one teenage nose job, Hailey preaches genes and serums, Dua swears it’s just facials and LED therapy. Maybe. Or maybe these are simply the latest faces of beauty’s greatest illusion — the myth of being effortlessly perfect in a world that demands effort at every pore.

Then there are the veterans — the ones who’ve accepted that time isn’t a battle to be won, just softened. Demi Moore, now in her sixties, walks that delicate line between preservation and reinvention. Kris Jenner, ever the matriarch of modern aesthetics, wears her procedures as confidently as her pearls. Both remind us that visibility comes at a price — and that the line between self-care and self-denial is thinner than a surgeon’s stitch.

Or maybe these are simply the latest faces of beauty’s greatest illusion — the myth of being effortlessly perfect in a world that demands effort at every pore.

And then there’s Kate Moss — the eternal enigma, forever wrapped in cigarette smoke and rock ’n’ roll. A beauty study awarded her face a near-perfect 94.14% symmetry score, blessed by the Golden Ratio itself. Impressive for someone who’s lived on parties, late nights and bad decisions. Whether she’s ever “done something” remains anyone’s guess. Maybe she’s just born with it. Or maybe chaos, when worn well, flatters more than a facelift.

At the opposite end stands Cameron Diaz — gloriously unbothered, fresh-faced (when she remembers to wash it) and entirely uninterested in the pursuit of eternal youth. No Botox, no fillers, no drama. She speaks of strength and health and joy — words that, in this industry, sound almost rebellious. Along with Julianne Moore and Kate Winslet, she reminds us that ageing naturally might just be the boldest beauty statement left. Well, we’ll never know for sure.

Let me be clear: I’m not against tweakments. A-T-A-L-L. What anyone does with their face is nobody’s business but their own. What bothers me is the denial — the way some women, with entire dermatology clinics on speed dial, keep insisting it’s just “sleep and water.” That lie, wrapped in a glossy filter, does more damage than any needle. It’s not the filler that bothers me; it’s the fiction.

As for me, I was born under kind lighting. Genetics have been generous, and for most of my life I’ve felt little urge to change what I see in the mirror. But now, in my forties, I find myself siding with the Giseles and Isabelis — women who prefer maintenance to metamorphosis. Within the limits of a budget that barely stretches beyond a good moisturiser (and maybe a prayer), I’ll probably give in to a few gentle tweaks — let’s call them tricks — to wake up looking a little fresher. Not to chase youth, but to meet time halfway — gracefully, honestly, and with a wink.