Rise of the pout
The Stefanie Preissner column
Is it just me, or is anyone else ever tempted by the notion of plastic surgery? I know people are, because I’ve noticed a remarkable number of women walking around with the same mouth.
Lip fillers arrived to Ireland subtly, and now, just like Botox, you can’t look left or right without seeing pouts all over the place.
I have no problem with lip fillers, or any kind of augmentation or plastic surgery. My problem is that as I see more people I know getting this stuff injected into their faces, I start to consider it as something I might like to try.
Then I remember that there’s one thing about me that’s different from normal people. Once I start something, I can’t stop. I can’t have just one of anything. One is too many, because a thousand is never enough.
I remember being a kid and realising that ‘sharing’ was caring, and noble, and virtuous, but impossible. A multi-pack was a portion, and I was doing a disservice to myself, and the starving children in the world, if I didn’t finish every bite as quickly as possible.
As an adult, I found cigarettes, and developed a habit backed by the slogan ‘Quitters never win’. I don’t drink any more, because I am one sip away from a keg. Moderation escapes me. I’m a Pringles person — once I pop, I just can’t stop.
I’ve just come back from an island off the coast of Florida where everyone walks around looking like they’ve been whittled by the same surgeon. All the women have the same plump, rubbery cheekbones that resemble the structure of the Podge and Rodge puppets. They smile at you as they jog past. Well, I assume it’s a smile, because you get a flash of brilliant white teeth that look like pieces of new chewing gum, but their eyes, their foreheads, the non-existent crow’s feet, mean that calling it a smile seems inaccurate. It’s a non-hostile tooth flash, really.
The women have the same eyelids, breast shape, thigh firmness and jawline. They are as uniform as the lululemon gym gear they exercise in. I ogled them, tracing the soft lines of my jaw, the excesses on my tricep wiggling as my hand moved.
In 2016, I was living with friends in a freezing house in Phibsborough. Everything we owned had been a gift or a regift from one of our parents. One day the toaster broke, and because I was feeling flush with cash or hungry, I went straight out and bought a brand-new one. I put the toaster on the countertop and stood back. The glossy shine of the chrome caught the sunlight, but instead of brightening the place up, the brand-newness of the toaster cast a shadow over the whole kitchen.
Suddenly the €12.99 I had spent was devaluing everything else. The oven looked grubby, the dents in the fridge became more pronounced, the coffee stains in the tile grouting were magnified, and the slick of grime that I usually found on the extractor fan appeared to have covered the kettle, the hob and everything else.
Compared to my new, shiny toaster, nothing in my life was new enough, clean enough, or perfect enough. I was stunned into forgetting about my lunch, instead running out to buy a new kettle, and some unnecessary tea and coffee holders.
This is how I am in all aspects of my life. Something new and great doesn’t bring joy, it just serves as a deadly comparison to everything else that isn’t new.
Imagine if I started getting plastic surgery? I’d be like Ted and Dougal in that episode of Father Ted where they try to even out the dent in the car and end up covering the whole thing in hammer-shaped craters.
Self-improvement is a slippery slope. Once you start down the road, then stopping at any point is a weakness. For someone who struggles to be moderate, even positive life choices — such as healthy eating, gym attendance, or getting a tan on holiday — can be treacherous. I become a slave to my ‘best self ’. I have watched my tan fade beneath the Dublin clouds and toyed with the idea of going on a sunbed. It’s only the fear of being spotted by a friend that stops me.
Watching those same friends with their new lips and their taut foreheads makes me itch with the desire to join in. But I can’t start, because I just know it’ll end up with me with a patchwork face, walking around Harvey Norman looking for kitchen appliances to replace the ones I bought last week.
“They are as uniform as the lululemon gym gear they exercise in”