Cosmetic dermatologist Shereene Idriss argues that women face an impossible choice: disclose a procedure and get called vain, or stay quiet and get called a liar. She says transparency gets weaponized, and that skincare and procedures do different things and shouldn't be pitted against each other.
Chapters
Someone help clarify this for me, because we say that we want women to be honest and transparent in beauty and honest about the cosmetic procedures that they get, but I don't actually think that's what we really want. Because the second you tell somebody what you've done, you're automatically labeled as being vain, doing too much, or even worse, giving other people insecurities. And if you say nothing, you're hiding something and you're a fraud, you're a liar. So which one is it? Because I think we have created a very weird standard for women where we are now expected to disclose everything we've ever done to our faces and our bodies, but we're also expected to be judged openly for doing any of it. And I sit at a very interesting little intersection because I am not only a cosmetic dermatologist who does these procedures, I educate on skincare and I own a skincare brand. So I completely get it when people want that transparency from someone like me. And I think they should want that transparency from someone like me. But there's another flip side to that transparency that hardly ever gets spoken about nearly enough. What is that? Just because somebody tells you what they've done does not mean that explains everything that you see. Just because somebody tells you they got Botox is not the reason why they have good skin. And just because somebody tells you what they do doesn't give you carte blanche, free will to fill in the blanks about things they never said they ever did. Different things do different things and different things do different jobs. And skincare can really do a lot of that heavy lifting when it comes to pigmentation, fine lines, texture, hydration, skin quality. Right. And procedures does things. things that skincare wishes it could do. It blocks muscle movement, it restores volume, it can tighten your skin, it can get rid of that excess skin and reposition your tissue altogether if you get surgery, right? And both of these things can work beautifully together, but doing one versus the other shouldn't automatically get credit for the work of the other. And the person being honest about it shouldn't be reprimanded for being honest about it, because the second you disclose a procedure That disclosure can be used to dismiss everything else you ever said or accuse you of nonsense. So what incentive are we creating for people like me who actually want to be honest? Because disclosure should not become ammunition, and transparency honestly shouldn't be applauded only when we approve of what's being disclosed. But maybe the question isn't if we expect transparency from women, but whether or not we actually know what to do with that transparency once Somebody gives it to you. And I'm curious what you think the expectation on women should be, if any. Let me know.
