Leticia Sala writes about “fear of aging” and Botox: “Aesthetic pressure will always be stronger than oneself”

The Catalan writer Leticia Sala publishes this Wednesday, May 13, the essay ‘Give me poison, I want to live. Skincare, Botox, fear of aging and female lineage’ (Anagrama), in which she reflects on how “aesthetic pressure” and the cosmetics industry especially affects women.

“One is under the umbrella of aesthetic pressure and the cosmetic industry and that will always be stronger than oneself. But I see myself with a little more clear head (after having researched the subject)”, explained the author in an interview with Europa Press.

In this regard, he believes that people continue to buy the “lies” of the aesthetic industry because it plays with “magical thinking”: it introduces the fear of aging and sells solutions for what is “feared.”

“They play very well with magical thinking. Our psyche needs to cling to acts in the same way we cling to an object when a friend or partner goes away to live abroad for a year. And the industry has captured this very well. So it’s ‘we’re going to tell you what you fear and this way you’re going to buy the product.’ “It’s a kind of misdirected magical thinking.”he explained.

Furthermore, he explains that this industry is based on two “monsters” that he believes are ageism and machismo. “They go hand in hand, they are two giants that are there. It is impossible to talk about one without talking about the other, you know, they need each other and provide feedback to each other. And we women are here doing what we can, simply not dying (…). We are getting older and suddenly we find ourselves with those two monsters making something very difficult that is absolutely natural and that we have not even decided,” she added.

To address this essay, Sala has interviewed various women – some still children, trans women, and women who have undergone cosmetic touch-ups – to create “a flow of consciousness” with “objective support.”

“It was very interesting to put yourself in the shoes, and never better said, of the other. It’s always easier to get super categorical, like ‘Botox is bad, you shouldn’t get Botox or touch-ups in general.’ But really this would only encourage more separation between women, which is something I mention in the book. For me it is super important that this does not separate us, whether we make one decision or another.“, he assured.

When asked if ‘skincare’ and aesthetic touch-ups are a way of relegating women and depriving them of certain achievements, Sala affirms that it does not seem like a “coincidence” that the “obsession” with the face has arrived a few years after the so-called ‘body positive’, a movement that promotes the acceptance of all bodies.

“It doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me. Around 2010 there was the ‘body positive’ movement, the resurgence that came in with greater force during a few very few, but promising years.. For women, the more mundane and larger conversations were changing towards a greater acceptance of a more complex woman, with different shapes, with different jobs, who were maternal, who were not maternal. Now all the achievements must be called into question,” he added.

Thus, Sala explains that the face, which until a few years ago had been a “relatively free territory” – “there was no obsession like there is now” – has ceased to be so and has become “another place on the body on which we must pay attention.”

However, its intention is not to generate “guilt” among women, whether for being users of said aesthetic touch-ups or not. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a 65-year-old woman, retired, who has that feeling that she has no place in the world.”. What I would like to change is that getting touch-ups when you thought you weren’t going to do them wouldn’t make you directly feel guilty,” he explained.

“IT SHOULD NOT BE NORMALIZED FOR A 3-YEAR-OLD GIRL TO TAKE CARE OF HER SKIN”

Another of the topics that Sala addresses in the essay is the arrival of that aesthetic pressure on minors. In fact, research the “Sephora kids” trend, tweens and teens using skin care products marketed by beauty retailers.

“It shouldn’t be normalized for a three-year-old girl to be taking care of her skin. It’s where she puts her hands: she doesn’t have to put them on her face like we do morning and night. You have to put them in the mud or on toys. This seems indisputable to me.“he specified.

To avoid this, Sala asks for control of social networks and for there to be a “super alert” in the world of advertising so that words like “anti-aging” or for children to be part of these campaigns are not tolerated. “Those who govern us have to impose themselves and in that sense be very strict,” he said.

The Catalan author addresses in ‘Give me poison I want to live’ how aesthetic touch-ups can be a political statement, explaining another phenomenon, the ‘Mar-a-Lago Face’ aesthetic trend, which is carried out among people who are part of the inner circle of the president of the United States, Donald Trump. Sala explains that patients of this wave “want the intervention to be noticed” and are characterized by “maximalist” fillers.

In this regard, the author raises the question of whether “the wrinkle will be left-wing or right-wing.” “The face is the first thing we see in someone. To know someone’s political thoughts I need to talk to that person, for the topic of abortion to suddenly appear and for them to give their opinion. There I will know if he is against or for. But with aesthetic treatments on the face, it is something very ‘unavoidable’, he has settled.