Inflation

I'm not talking about the economy, obviously. I would never. Also, I was meant to post this in June, but I'm a very impatient person. Sorry. Also also, my lips have deflated again now.

Does anybody ever really like their face? It seems inconceivable to me. Not only because it’s surely impossible not to see flaws in anything so familiar to you, but also, because having the same face, year after year, is a bit boring. Isn’t it? It’s not that I have anything particular against my face. Well, that’s not true, actually. I don’t like the way my hairline is higher on one side of my forehead than the other, because I stupidly wore my hair in a ballet dancer’s bun all the way through my teenage years, and gave myself a minor case of traction alopecia. I don’t like the fact that my lower jaw isn’t quite in-line with the upper one, which means that if you look closely at my front teeth, the top and bottom ones don’t precisely line up. But mainly, I’m just a bit tired of it. It’s been basically the same for absolutely ages, and sometimes I think it would be fun to switch it out. I’d like to try on Jennifer Lopez’ face, for example, or my friend Natalie’s. Just for fun, you know. Just to have different raw materials to work with.

I know you can’t just go round stealing other people’s faces. Trust me, I’m honestly never going to try. And I have no current intention of having a face lift, or anything that drastic. It’s not even the cost of the procedure that puts me off — it’s the cost of the downtime. I don’t cope well with not being able to work, and if I stop earning money, I stop feeling like I deserve to spend money. I got a knee injury in 2013, took two months off work, and more or less stopped eating, because I ceased to feel as though I deserved food. Obviously, I’m not totally ok, mentally. But there we are.

Unreliable sanity levels aside, I’ve found an excellent solution to the face problem. I get minor adjustments, on a regular basis, to make things more interesting. I first had Botox when I was thirty seven, I think, and I enjoy it’s cyclical nature. Two days after being injected, part of your face will suddenly freeze, and you’ll find yourself blissfully unable to frown, or squint, or pout your lips (or move whatever part of your face you’ve chosen to have treated). Around six movement-free months will follow, during which time your makeup will stay immaculate during the day because of the heavenly still canvas you’re working on. And then one day, you will look in the mirror and discover movement has returned, so the whole cycle can start again. This time, when my Botox ran out, I left my forehead natural for a few months, just to enjoy the novelty. If permanent Botox became an option, I wouldn’t go for it. It’s the cycle that makes it interesting.

But honestly Botox isn’t my favourite. The effect tends to be rather subtle. Fillers, in comparison, are an awfully big adventure. I had my lips done first, because I’d always found my upper lip a bit underwhelming. There just wasn’t very much of it, which meant it was a very disappointing surface to paint lipstick onto. Once I discovered that lip fillers were a thing, I made haste to have mine inflated. I went for a very small change, to be honest. I’d already been modelling for a decade and didn’t want to look unrecognisable to my existing clients. None of them noticed, but I enjoyed the feeling of having enhanced myself a little. And doing expensive things often feels quite healthy — a bit like blood-letting does, I expect. Money-letting. Supporting local professionals. Trickle-down economics, or something.

So I’ve been having my lips re-filled, roughly once a year, for about the last twelve years. My most recent appointment was on Wednesday, with the lady who’s been doing them ever since Covid started. She loves doing lips. She smeared sticky white cream onto my upper lip and we had a lovely chat about the property market in south Wales while we waited for it to (slightly) anaesthetise me. It doesn’t work very well.

Having my lips injected with filler always feels a bit like she’s sticking the needle into my flesh, and then stirring it violently around as though trying to make an especially difficult soup. By which I mean it’s really unpleasant, and quite painful. If a dentist hurt me this much I think I’d stop the treatment, and find a new dentist. But obviously, beauty is pain, so the more it hurts, the better the result will probably be. “I’m doing it a new way!” announced my practitioner, brightly. She didn’t elaborate, and I wouldn’t dream of asking for details. The surprise is part of the fun.

I drove home, feeling absolutely fine. It didn’t occur to me to look in my rearview mirror at my own reflection until I was almost home, and when I did, I discovered that my lips were enormous, far bigger than on any previous occasion. My practitioner had only used .5ml of filler, so I knew that the swelling had to be mainly bruising. But still, it was excitingly dramatic. I knew Hywel would be thrilled — what could be better than a wife with extra face?

By that evening, my mouth was immensely painful and I couldn’t drink out of a cup without drooling a little because my lips were swollen enough to be inflexible. Just like my knee was when I sprained it, falling off a horse when I was nine. Very exciting. They hurt too much for me to fall asleep until I took Ibuprofen and waited for it to numb me a little. And the next day, I had to go back to work.

I could tell that my mouth didn’t look good. It was hard to see my teeth because my lips had extended so far forward of their normal position. The texture of the skin was tight and shiny and artificial-looking. My profile was unrecognisable. My banking app didn’t recognise my face. And yet…

…Urgh, I loved it. I felt hyper-feminine. I felt glamorous. I looked a great deal less intelligent than normal, at least to myself, because who associates a ridiculous blow-up doll pout with cleverness? No one, that’s who. But I felt like a proper pornstar, and that was wonderful, cos I’m really not very pornstar-looking, generally. I’d only spent £550, but all of that money had been injected directly into my face, so it also felt like a silly, capricious little display of wealth, too. Drama student me could never have conceived of spending over two months’ rent in this frivolous fashion.

I know this startling result will be temporary, and I acknowledge that’s a good thing. I really don’t look good like this. But I feel as though I do. I’m writing this two days after the injections, and my mouth is already beginning to recede. I look a bit smarter again, and a little less glamorous. But I am addicted to the mystery of it all. My practitioner has been telling me about the wonders of jaw filler and I’m almost certain to be unable to resist. Will jaw fillers make me look better? Probably not. But they’ll make me look different, and that’s where the pleasure lies. And they’re reversible, which is almost the best thing at all. You can have the filler dissolved again, you see. Being presented with your original face, like a gift, and temporarily liking it, because it’s become less familiar to you, having been submerged in foreign substances. Briefly, you can see it clearly, as though it belonged to someone else, and you can (sometimes) see its beauty, just for a moment.

Hywel says that last sentence is me, dimly grasping the truth of body dysmorphia. He says there was nothing wrong with my face in the first place. But really, isn’t that exactly what you’d say, if you loved someone?