Botox, hair dye, Reformer Pilates: I had no idea that ageing would be this expensive
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When my mother was 36 - the age I am now - she made only two concessions to the signs of ageing. She coloured her hair with an at-home kit to hide her greys and she started using a moisturiser. Both were inexpensive, and she tells me that she never felt any real pressure to do more - or to spend more - in an effort to hold back the years.
How very different is the landscape of my mid-thirties. Every single day, I am bombarded with suggested methods, treatments, gadgets and gizmos to wage war against the passing sands of time and how those passing sands are showing up on my face and body.
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The promise of the appearance, at least, of eternal youth is all around me. It’s there in the suspiciously line-free faces of my friends, in advertisements for aestheticians that flash up between my Instagram stories, and in the smooth facades of celebrities who are approaching 60 but do not look a day over thirty.
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Listen, I’m tempted. I have no moral or ethical issue with Botox and fillers, or red light therapy masks, or Reformer Pilates classes that promise to ward off the dreaded middle age spread, or the tape that TikTok tells me to stick on my face while I slumber to prevent wrinkles, or any of the myriad methods of keeping our faces and bodies looking younger than our years.
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I’m vain. I’ve done dumber things than tape my mouth shut as I sleep to look good. A full face of makeup, a cute outfit, a fresh ‘do - these are some of the pleasures of life. But as I approach my late thirties, I’ve noticed my vanity coming into direct conflict with any sense of financial prudence. Because this anti-ageing malarkey does not come cheap.
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