A fresh source of insecurity to carry into the new year: buccal fat. The end of 2022, rumours circulated that the actor Lea Michele had undergone a cosmetic procedure designed to chisel the cheeks. That procedure, according to the internet know-it-alls, is buccal fat removal. All the girls are (allegedly) getting it: Bella Hadid, Chrissy Teigen, Zoë Kravitz. It’s the procedure du jour, darling.
The sudden prominence of buccal fat removal in wider cultural parlance was startling to me, not least because it was something I’d already spent late nights Googling during one of those pesky 11pm collapses of self-esteem. As a woman of chubby cheeks experience, who spends too much time on her laptop, I am well acquainted with buccal fat and the heated speculation surrounding which celebrities – mostly female – have supposedly had theirs hacked out.
When I first heard about the procedure, it felt like a neurosis created just for me, with my wide, oval face and broad baby cheeks that confine me to perpetual childhood. The overwhelming facial ideal of the last decade has been one of angular, sharp lines: cheekbones and jawlines that can cut glass, arching brows. A feline look, exemplified by the likes of Hadid and Michaela Coel, paired with plump, pillowy lips and big doe eyes. Dubbed “Instagram face” (although that term feels passé now), the aesthetic borrows from many different sources – writer Joanna Fuertes-Knight observed in 2018 that the elements adding up to the “new beauty” are a mishmash of features drawn from a variety of ethnicities, thus making it even harder to attain naturally. Which is why, with wearying regularity, a new “tweakment” appears, promising to bring you a step closer to that elusive ideal.
That ideal is a product of our visual culture – tailored for image production, created to be captured on camera. It is a beauty made up of incohesive, bitty pieces which, on celluloid, can look incredible. In person, however, the impact is often less than the sum of its parts.
I do not write this to be cruel or judgmental; beauty is subjective and often a sensitive topic, especially for those who have permanently altered their appearance. I am not opposed to cosmetic procedures; the likelihood is I will end up having one at some point, given my age, influences and track record of trailing the herd. I have many close friends who’ve had great work done. But what I’m referring to here is the shock of meeting, in person, those who have crafted the “perfect” face, only to realise that a full bricolage of cosmetic treatments often leaves one looking – and forgive me – a little like a plasticised Cabbage Patch doll.
This is because the camera does lie. Research shows that those basing their ideal on the barrage of photos they see online and what their selfie camera shows can develop a distorted perception of how they look – and of which features require “tweaking”. There is also only so much a face can be treated like Silly Putty (and filled with it) before it takes on an uncanny valley quality.
I think this is why, when push comes to shove – and despite frequent searches for “preventive Botox” or “non-surgical nose contouring” – I have not (yet) taken the plunge. I know that my fixation on certain parts of myself, whether my cheeks or cupid’s bow, are trend-led, and will probably change in a few months. And I’m conscious that with treatments so readily available, one moment of dissatisfaction could lead to a decision that would long outlast the feeling of self-loathing.
Then there’s the upkeep. While procedures like dermal fillers are marketed as easy, low-maintenance ways to achieve The Face, they are, in fact, a lifelong commitment. Fillers “migrate”, and need dissolving and reinjecting; “preventive” Botox, once started, may weaken and prematurely age muscles. Buccal fat that appeared a burden in youth needs surgically replacing as the years pass.
And that’s before you consider the psychological impact such work can have. One former Love Island contestant, whose rock-hard enhanced pout became a focal point of discussion among viewers, said that her mouth without fillers had looked like an “80-year-old man’s ball sack”. Except that pictures she later posted contradicted her statement: without fillers, they were just normal lips. Once this particular critical and exacting lens is turned on, it seems nigh-on impossible to find contentment in how you look; there is always something new to adjust, especially if you are only as “beautiful” as the last least-flattering image snapped of you.
Deep down, I want to be beautiful according to the current, mainstream understanding of the word. It is rare that a woman like me doesn’t long for this, having stepped into adulthood during an age in which image rules supreme and the definition of “beauty” has tightened like a corset, no matter the empowering messages that lifestyle magazines like to parrot. But I also prize my self-esteem. And, contrary to so much of the socialisation that goes into building a girl, I do not think the two easily coexist – or at least not right now.
To be beautiful in 2023 is an exhausting, sisyphean undertaking of reappraisal and self-critique, and requires a willingness to constantly remake oneself in the mould of the look of the month. It takes so much time, energy, money and discontent. “Why be beautiful when you can be happy?” I think, and smile wide with all the supposedly “excess” fat my cheeks have to offer.
Moya Lothian-McLean is a contributing editor at Novara Media