To be Beautiful, Embrace Your Age: The End of Babyface

When I used to want to go to clubs, it was always “ID!” Even when I was of age long ago, even younger colleagues were waved through without comment, just not me. Because I had a baby face. And I hated it. I couldn’t do much about it. It’s different today. Not only because it has now said goodbye, but because nowadays you can basically get rid of your baby face as a baby. Thanks to «Buccal Fat Removal».

For a long time it was about killing every wrinkle, but with the current beauty trend, stars seem to be having the fat sucked out of their chubby cheeks in rows. The result is sunken cheeks and a few more years on the face. Just like Bella Hadid, “Glee” star Lea Michele or actress Zoe Kravitz – at least supposedly. It is quite possible that they also helped with make-up. Or simply vacuum your cheeks while posing to get the so-called “high fashion” look. The only one open to the surgery so far is Chrissy Teigen.

The problem: when you actually get older, the procedure can no longer be undone, and suddenly you no longer look “mature”, but simply old. Even plastic surgeons warn against this.

Nevertheless, not only women are chasing after the «edgy» look. Singer Liam Payne caused quite a stir online when he recently sported literally more rough edges. I can’t judge whether this is also the result of “Buccal Fat Removal” or whether he had his jaw widened. But the result is the same: looking older than you are.

Young people have always wanted to look more mature and therefore “more interesting”, but today it seems more extreme. TikTok is teeming with “tips” on how to look older, teenagers are barely out of diapers learning the latest make-up tricks, and “Stranger Things” star Millie Bobby Brown already has her own skincare brand at 19 . Admittedly, I would have liked to have known about skin care sooner.

But while we’re on the subject of Millie Bobby Brown, the Netflix show girl shot to fame at 12, grew up almost as quickly before our eyes, and is now often criticized for looking 20 years older than she is on the red carpet is. She was already enthusiastic about fashion as a child, but somehow she seems to have skipped the weird and awkward phase of puberty. Just like many other young stars.

Today the goal is apparently no longer “young and beautiful”, but “sexy and beautiful”. It doesn’t matter if you’re already that far or not. And that doesn’t just apply to stars.

Thanks to social media, there is no more time to discover yourself, try things out and make mistakes. Nobody knows anymore that when I was fifteen I had the glorious idea of ​​running around with short, green hair – if I hadn’t just blurted out this embarrassing twist of taste. But there is no evidence to emerge from the depths of the World Wide Web.

And that’s the point: today everything seems forever. And everything always has to be perfect. We too should or want to be timelessly beautiful, whether we are 20, 40 or 60. Anyone who now thinks one should just be oneself was probably never a teenager. Just like those who think one should “age gracefully” and probably never examine themselves too closely in the mirror when they’re over thirty. It’s just not that easy.

I’m not preaching anything here. Everyone can do what he or she wants with themselves and their face. I do too. But you should think it through beforehand. Because we’re getting older anyway, and slowing that down can be damn exhausting. And expensive. Even if you still have more than enough chubby cheek fat.