Smile lines
A conversation about Botox, Instagram reels and unexpected 5K PBs.
The other day, I was getting ready for a run when my attention was caught by a strange line just above my left eyebrow. A strand of hair, surely, nothing more. I brushed my fingers against my skin, pushing the miscreant hair off my forehead – and yet, the belligerent line just stayed there.
I rubbed my skin a few times, raised my eyebrows then relaxed my face and realised: that line is permanent.
Perhaps that was my first sign of aging at the ripe old age of 26. Ancient of days, as one of my housemates likes to describe herself (reader, she’s 30).
Cue the panic! The stress! The abject misery of… what, exactly? No longer having perfectly youthful skin? Of having a singular marker of time appear on my face? A face that will go on to reflect a life being lived, with all its surprise and joy and laughter and tears?
You see, it sounds ridiculous when I put it like that. It’s just a line, after all. But nevertheless, I did spend ten minutes pinching at it and reapplying my SPF moisturiser as if that would suddenly ‘fix’ it (and as if it was something that needed to be fixed).
I like to think I am someone who is not overly concerned with looks. Sure, I care about how I show up in the world. I like to dress up nicely on occasion, and I have a wardrobe that generally matches the woman I’d like people to meet. When it comes to my face, though, I feel pleasantly neutral-to-positive about it most of the time. I try hard not to be hooked into the world of beauty and Botox and fillers and everything else I don’t know the terms for.
As it is, I feel too young to talk about Botox. Right now, I strongly believe I’ll never get it – and I hope I hold onto that belief as I grow older. Writing this post reminded me of a conversation I had with my best friend a few years ago though. She’d been considering Botox for her under eyes, and knew some people at work who’d started getting what they called preventative ‘baby Botox’ treatments. What put her off, if I recall correctly, was the upkeep. Once you start, you’ve got to keep going. The way it was framed, it didn’t seem like a question of if she’d start doing it, but when. That was – and still is, to be honest – completely bonkers to me.
Now, I am all for bodily autonomy. It’s your body, your choice in every scenario. What I don’t like is when that choice feels automatic, when it seems like your hand has been forced by our societal beauty norms. If the only reason you’re getting Botox or any other sort of invasive beauty treatment is because it feels like everyone else is, or because it feels like you need to, it’s the wrong time to consider it. Let’s not forget that we were having this conversation in our early twenties – a frankly ridiculous time to be considering any modifications other than a bad haircut, a questionable tattoo or a fun ear piercing, in my opinion.
(For what it’s worth, I’m not saying that it’s wrong to participate in that world, per se. But you’ve got to try to come at it on your own terms. My own vehement rejection of it stems from the idea that most of the beauty industry comes from a desire to a) make money and b) fit the male gaze and/or beauty standards. My friend did end up getting under eye filler once and was thoroughly disappointed by both the outcome and the insistent upselling throughout her appointment. Maybe not the way I would have wanted her to be put off, but a win is a win. Alexa, play as good a reason by Paris Paloma.)
But the truth is, of course I care what I look like. We all do. And confronting my face changing like that did evoke an involuntary pang of sadness.
When I Googled ‘smile lines’ to see if I was even talking about the right part of my face (turns out I’m not – mine are called glabellar lines, apparently, but I like the title of this piece so I’m going to keep it), the first results that come up all talk about causes and treatment. You’ve been diagnosed with being old – now here’s how to fix it.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d be convinced that Meta was somehow tracking my thoughts after this. The next time I opened Instagram – having not even searched anything after my stint looking in the mirror, opting for going on the run instead – the first video I stumbled upon was from a 28-year-old content creator captioned: ‘I can see your smile lines and you’re only 28… thanks I worked really hard for them :)’’. The video is full of smiles from her travels, nights out with friends… It’s pure joy, and it’s lovely to watch.
This is the kind of content everyone needs to see more of. Not video after video of ways you can change and contort your face to fit a slim but ever-changing set of ideals, but people embracing their natural faces and life’s little joys. And quite frankly, it’s exhausting to keep worrying about how you look when you could channel all that energy into something far more fun.
In my case, I pushed myself to go out instead of standing inches away from the mirror fretting about my supposed aging. There are far more pressing things in life than a little line on my face, after all.
I wanted to focus on what my body can do rather than how it looks. I went out for the run I’d been intending to go on all day and had a gorgeous time. The weather was good – not too cold, shorts-appropriate with a little bit of sunshine – and I even saw a rainbow.
Maybe it was the renewed urge I had to prove how my body could do things, maybe I was just having a really great running day (or maybe I actually fuelled myself beforehand, rather than just running on a banana and a dream…). Whatever it was, it worked. I ran my fastest ever 5K time, shaving a minute and a half off my previous time – I think my exact words when I checked my watch were ‘fuck me!’.
What a surprise, and what better way to prove to myself how much my body was capable of – and just on a random Saturday afternoon, at that.
Our bodies are vessels that let us experience life in all its weird and wonderful forms. Thanks to mine, I can chat and laugh and cry, I can sing and dance and run, I can show people when I’m happy or sad or surprised. My face is much more than its smile lines, it’s a gallery of the life I have lived, the life I am living, and the life I will continue to live.
Surprise is probably one of the causes of those lines on my face – I certainly raised an eyebrow at that 5K time – and yes, those will only deepen with time. But isn’t that so worth it?
“Thanks I worked really hard for them!” !!! What a beautiful way to greet our smile lines, wrinkles, all of it!
I loved this! I relate to so much of what you’ve said. I recently wrote about Botox too as I feel like it keeps being pushed on me as someone nearly 30. I’m incredibly pro choice, but I hate how it’s pushed as the norm, rather than embracing aging.