Came here to say the same thing. Life is too short to obsess about shit that just does not matter.
What are you reading? What are you accomplishing? How are your relationships with others? What are you doing for your community? What art are you creating?
Those are the things my people talk about.
There’s nothing wrong with caring for your aesthetics up to a certain point and caring for your health is good.
for the record, my group chats and personal relationships also cover what we're reading, what we're accomplishing, supporting each others endeavors, challenges, and advances in life. conversations about appearance and wellbeing don't preclude rich, deep, and meaningful relationships and never have
sure, but we all have finite time and energy. the beauty industry is a scam, I'd rather keep wearing spf and my favourite moisturizer and continue to focus on my research/love/parenting/friends, etc than try to win a rigged war against my face. Those things are already more time consuming than the time I have available. Catherine Lacey wrote a great piece about it, inspired by yours: https://catherinelacey.substack.com/p/spend-time-spend-money-die-anyway
Right, and you should do exactly what you want to do with the precious time we have on earth. If you read carefully, I'm not recommending anything to anyone.
I did read carefully. Sadly, despite my best efforts to ignore this noise, I don't live in a vacuum, and I'd much rather the patriarchal system that tells women that their value decreases if their faces get wrinklier was a bit quieter. Your post plays into that structure, which I think is why most people were put off by it.
I have had An alternative health practise for about 30 years. Without question, over focusing on health is unhealthy. If you are battling a disease and you need a daily routine, do it. Do it as simply as one can in as short a period of time one can, and DON’T think about it the rest of the day!
I cannot imagine spending so many hours a week doing these things when my country is being run by a real-life dictator. We're all going down but thank god your skin will look great!
I can't imagine the income it takes to do all that. I'm not slagging you; I seriously just can't afford the time or the expense of all that maintenance. Do you ever feel roped to it? Like it's more a "have to" than a "want to"? I mean this sincerely. This is the inflection point for me -- are we nourishing ourselves or chasing something beyond our reach -- agelessness.
the way i see it is: people are spending less on short term or insufficient solutions and instead saving up for bigger, more satisfactory solves (e.g. skipping expensive skincare for a laser, not getting filler and waiting for a facelift instead). the same can be said on the healthcare front. rather than treating conditions when it's too late, putting the money up for preventative treatments and saving themselves those costs down the line.
That’s a fair question! They’re considered preventative in a broader public health sense, similar to how medications for blood pressure or cholesterol are used to reduce future disease rather than only treat acute problems.
Ozempic (semaglutide), which was originally developed for diabetes, has been shown in large clinical trials to lower the risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke in people with obesity and metabolic risk, even in those without diabetes (SELECT trial, PubMed: 37952131). By improving metabolic health and supporting sustained weight loss, it can help prevent progression to serious cardiometabolic conditions.
Botox is also an FDA-approved preventative treatment for chronic migraine. Regular use has been shown to significantly reduce the frequency and severity of migraines over time (PREEMPT trials, PubMed: 20647170). It’s additionally used preventatively for certain muscle and neurological conditions, like cervical dystonia, to reduce long-term strain and damage.
(As a medical librarian, I tend to look at these through the lens of clinical evidence and long-term outcomes.)
I agree that many of these are framed as “elective” due to how our healthcare system is set up, but there’s growing evidence that they play an important role in preventing more serious health issues down the line.
Yeah, I know about Botox and migraines. What percentage of people are taking it for that? Also, how long do you have to be on Ozempic to reap the rewards? And again - only if you can afford it. Health for some, not all.
According to NIH: Specifically, studies show roughly 4.6% of non-surgical patients use it for therapeutic pain management, while millions more use it for conditions like hyperhidrosis and migraines. The percentage for aesthetic is more than 60 percent.
But it’s becoming popular bc celebs take it to get skinny. Once you stop you regain the weight and lose any health benefits. So it’s either always being on ozempic (skinny life in beige and constant diarrhea) or back to reality.
Do you think the widespread use will help get these covered by insurance and better managed by health care providers? Instead of everyone just strip-mall micro dosing and self prescribing?
also just to say, a lot of this stuff has become OOP and framed as elective because of the way our healthcare system is set up, but that doesn't mean it is not fundamental! in a perfect world, preventative health would be treated (and subsidized) as a human right
“Putting up the money” as if that’s an option. Often, because of health care costs and the cost of being a young person raising a family starting lives that exist beyond the mirror and taking care of others , we can’t afford these measures until on Medicare or when we’re retired and have the actual time. But still, do I want to spend my time alone with lasers and people telling me how to fix my face? Def no to the later and the former only if they’re focused on health not LOOKs.
As a survivor of a three-decades eating disorder, I read this with so much sadness. That’s probably why I have commented so much because it struck such a cord. I’m in my 50s now, acutely aware of how much time I lost chasing an unattainable goal. Now, I’m not equating Botox and bulimia, however, they both offer a twisted time travel. Botox erases your face; bulimia attempts to erase your last shame and mistake. Both take you away from the people in your life. Life is so fucking short. In my 30s, I lost my adult best friend and my best friend from high school. last year alone, five family members passed in six months. I have thought about all the meals I didn’t share with them , all the happy hours I skipped to go to the gym or because I didn’t want the calories of a cocktail or because I didn’t wanna sit there face-to-face with people who knew that I hadn’t eaten anything all day except for skittles and Swedish fish. Reading your account of all that you’ve done in January to just maintain was terrifying to me because it sounded like what I would have I have written if I enumerated all the hours I spent in the gym, all the meals, all the bathrooms, all the miles and calories counted, all the 711 trips to get some caffeine and candy to keep me going. All the massages, PT, chiro and dentist appts. My god, the money I’ve spent on my teeth. Again, I know that on the face of it, the things that you do are so called healthy pursuits, but that pursuit is one that takes you away from the living of life. I am so incredibly sad to see another generation of women fall for this if you’re up to it, perhaps we could do a Substack live because you clearly struck a cord here, and I would like to be as transparent about my biases when it comes to this, but I really think that should be a part of the conversation, the time lost, and you argue that this will extend your longevity, but I’m not about to be the beta test of whether endless Botox keeps me on the planet for a couple more years. I’ve been on this chase for so long. I’m just finally letting go of some false comforts.
i think its about being as able and satisfied in your body while you're in it, not chasing incremental days on earth. longevity also means feeling like yourself for the maximum time possible
"Feeling like yourself" by paralyzing your face muscles to avoid the natural aging process
Just stop it. What you are doing to young women and girls in unconscionable. If you want to waste your money behaving like a fool, fine, but stop glorifying this anti-human, misogynistic madness.
That makes sense, and, were I to write down all I do/spend money on it might seem like more than I assumed I do from the outset, but my interests and options skew more sports and karaoke.
I think my kneejerk reaction comes from two places -
1. Agency - when true agency in society is taken away, we aim to control whatever we can (why wouldn't we). You can't give or get an abortion but you CAN get a cosmetic laser treatment.
2. Pleasure - feeling good in your body is absolutely pleasurable, but it's hard for me to see that argument that organizing hella pills and sitting through painful appointments and recovery time results in more possible pleasure. But, I don't do it so I don't know what the hell I'm talking about with that one.
I do definitely appreciate the niche you're mining, and, as a Magasin reader I know this newsletter will be very well-curated with beauty top-of-mind!
Thanks for taking the time to chat with an internet stranger!
I think if you tie your identity to the way you look, you're setting yourself for an unnecessary challenge. Biologically, living creatures from plants to protozoa are evolved to change in response to their circumstances, including but not limited to aging. Homeostasis is hard enough without expecting phenotypic stasis. It just isn't necessary.
"yucking [someone's] yum" is a thought-stopping cliche designed to shut down your critical faculties. You are not only free to criticize this lunacy, you have a moral duty to do so if you think it's wrong.
This is not innocuous stuff. This is mental disorder packaged as a lifestyle to women.
My comment was definitely me feeling ridiculous flaming an internet stranger and not wanting to waste (more) time. But, culture is produced on the internet, this is where praxis must happen.
It's all just really sad. Watching literal children feel so uncomfortable in their bodies they inject unregulated peptides into themselves.
A facelift doesn't make you look like you, it makes you look like you had a facelift.
High touch is really about preying on weakness and extracting money from it. The bubble will burst and there will be injuries along the way.
This is not a normal amount of time or money to spend on your appearance. The reality is every second you spend on cosmetic procedures you are not reading, cooking, spending time with family, doing anything to actually live your life… imagine how much time this author has lost. The inability to reflect on women’s insecurity and the way corporations profit off of it, especially after mentioning this will be a $130B industry demonstrates a shocking lack of critical thinking
No phil, this psychopath is making money off of selling body image disorders and overconsumption, and it's disgusting. And you're disgusting for defending it.
None of this has anything to do with science or longevity, phil. You can stop making stuff up.
It does not 'trigger' me - it angers me because I know what a deleterious effect it has on people's mental health and financial well being (which of course is more likely than not to cut years off your life, not the other way around)
There is nothing scientific about one person going out and getting 57 different treatments in a short period of time with no control. It's just personal indulgence and yes, sociopathic.
Phew! I am in recovery from an eating disorder. As a massage therapist, I was immediately intrigued by the idea of high touch — and then instantly repelled by the notion of constant intervention. ❤️🩷
The fact that she liked your comment suggests she has zero ethical conscience about her role propagating this crap amongst young women. Anyway they made this terrible movie already, I think it was called Substance.
But when does it stop? When is the golden age you accept that you’re lucky, that you got to get old? When do you look at your face in the mirror and see the girl is still there, twinkling in the eyes?
I feel like it can’t stop when you want it to because you didn’t want it when it started.
I am interested though in my own journey into aging. I’m 46 but haven’t undergone any pokey things haha. But every single one of my friends have; I have my own hangups looking in the mirror but something tells me that if I start I’ll never find the goal. Or will constantly be chasing it until when??
Look, I like looking after myself too (at the level I can afford) but there’s got to be more to life than this endless pursuit of self optimization and self absorption? I’m seriously depressed reading this.
Why would you assume a newsletter about one topic is claiming to represent all of life? There's a guy who writes about tinned fish, surely you wouldn't think that's all he believes is out there?
Because you described a month of your life literally replete with self-obsessed money pit 'beauty industry' time wasters? The words are at the top of the page if you need to go back and read what you wrote.
Iron deficiency will not be your Trojan horse for normalising unnecessary aesthetic procedures.
You strike me as too intelligent to genuinely believe these things are the same - so I can only conclude that you’re conflating the two as part of some bizarre, conniving attempt to dupe less intelligent women than yourself into thinking Botox and face lifts are somehow healthy. Yes, I saw your comment about Botox helping with migraines, but please be so for real right now. Ferrograd C is not a gateway drug for Ozempic or salmon sperm injections.
Of course deep down they know completely that all this nonsense is stemming from a profound insecurity. But it’s so ingrained and reinforced (by their group chats, the cosmology “experts” that try to sell them more MORE MORE, their algorithms, etc) that they’ve completely brainwashed themselves into thinking this is their choice! This is for preventive health or iron deficiencies or whatever tiny thing the internet has chosen to fixate and exaggerate now! Clearly she’s not stupid, so I really really hope she snaps out of this echo chamber. It’s not her fault, but I think it’s high time we start holding these women who are selling us these inhumane practices accountable for strengthening the patriarchy and oppressing the rest of us. None of this abhorrent shit is on her own autonomy and she better realise that.
Wildly disingenuous? High Touch is and aesthetics and longevity newsletter. Not a poetry blog. That was not my comment about Botox for migranes, I take the stance that Botox is an elective cosmetic option for people who have agency to make their own decisions about how they look.
It’s disingenuous because of the pervasive insistence on conflating health and aesthetics, because god forbid anyone admit they’re just vain.
Everyone’s entitled to their hobbies and their priorities, and if you want to spend your time and money maximising your hotness that’s your prerogative. God knows I also want to be hot.
It’s when elective procedures are positioned as a “wellness” move and spoken about in the same breath as genuine health interventions that you lose me and I again say, be so for real right now. Just once I’d like to see someone admit that they just want to be hot, health be damned.
None of this is a coincidence btw. Blurring the lines between health and beauty has got to be one of the top cons of all time.
I didn’t realise the Botox comment wasn’t yours - apologies!
These two worlds have a meeting point and a middle ground, and not by my own invention. I don't have any shame around conversations about appearance, I responded to a commenter suggesting "reading poetry" was a substitute for any one of the things I described. For me, and for those who approach the space without moralistic superiority, it's not. The backlash to my post has centered on Botox, a criticism as old as time! The journey for many to look and feel good, to look and feel like themselves, includes interventions on both sides of this blurry divide.
And we are not getting on a moral high horse just because we question this devotion to aesthetics constant maintenance to the point of a full-time job. I’ve asked reasoned questions and your responses have been loop de loop deflections. I do not think I am better than you. In fact, I think you deserve better than all this. And I hope you’ll take all these comments into consideration every time you “drop a link” to you new fave
I read your list for January and genuiely thought it was satire...but you are serious ?! All of this in January ?! How are you not beyond exhausted? Like the stress of this way of living will shorten your life by much more than any gain you might have from this psycopathic regimen.... I'm so glad I live in the countryside of Europe with women who've never heard about a skincare routine or a macro
We have so many people hungry, homeless, fighting deportation, paying off medical bills, trying to buy groceries, gas or rent, students trying to pay for tuition, parents looking out for their kids, people just trying to survive…
Nobody needs all those things.
In fact, I find it gross, especially against the backdrop of everything that is happening in our world at this current moment in time.
I’m not trying to shame anyone.
But it’s all fleeting.
And in the end, that shit, is worthless.
We all belong to one another & we need to care for one another.
My group chats aren’t talking about this stuff and I’m so glad 🫠
Came here to say the same thing. Life is too short to obsess about shit that just does not matter.
What are you reading? What are you accomplishing? How are your relationships with others? What are you doing for your community? What art are you creating?
Those are the things my people talk about.
There’s nothing wrong with caring for your aesthetics up to a certain point and caring for your health is good.
Taking it to this extreme is alarming.
for the record, my group chats and personal relationships also cover what we're reading, what we're accomplishing, supporting each others endeavors, challenges, and advances in life. conversations about appearance and wellbeing don't preclude rich, deep, and meaningful relationships and never have
sure, but we all have finite time and energy. the beauty industry is a scam, I'd rather keep wearing spf and my favourite moisturizer and continue to focus on my research/love/parenting/friends, etc than try to win a rigged war against my face. Those things are already more time consuming than the time I have available. Catherine Lacey wrote a great piece about it, inspired by yours: https://catherinelacey.substack.com/p/spend-time-spend-money-die-anyway
Right, and you should do exactly what you want to do with the precious time we have on earth. If you read carefully, I'm not recommending anything to anyone.
I did read carefully. Sadly, despite my best efforts to ignore this noise, I don't live in a vacuum, and I'd much rather the patriarchal system that tells women that their value decreases if their faces get wrinklier was a bit quieter. Your post plays into that structure, which I think is why most people were put off by it.
So it's a pro bono newsletter that is completely agnostic about high touch health and wellness? Nothing monetized?
Of course not. It's going to be paywalled as recompensation for my research and time, and people with interest in the topic can pay to read.
Nobody believes you
Can confirm, I'm on the group chat. 😊
Yeah totally
Yeah this is not good or normal. Even for rich people.
I have had An alternative health practise for about 30 years. Without question, over focusing on health is unhealthy. If you are battling a disease and you need a daily routine, do it. Do it as simply as one can in as short a period of time one can, and DON’T think about it the rest of the day!
The unbridled pursuit of beauty is profoundly ugly.
Same. I would absolutely win that bet.
I cannot imagine spending so many hours a week doing these things when my country is being run by a real-life dictator. We're all going down but thank god your skin will look great!
I can't imagine the income it takes to do all that. I'm not slagging you; I seriously just can't afford the time or the expense of all that maintenance. Do you ever feel roped to it? Like it's more a "have to" than a "want to"? I mean this sincerely. This is the inflection point for me -- are we nourishing ourselves or chasing something beyond our reach -- agelessness.
the way i see it is: people are spending less on short term or insufficient solutions and instead saving up for bigger, more satisfactory solves (e.g. skipping expensive skincare for a laser, not getting filler and waiting for a facelift instead). the same can be said on the healthcare front. rather than treating conditions when it's too late, putting the money up for preventative treatments and saving themselves those costs down the line.
How is Ozempic preventative? And Botox?
That’s a fair question! They’re considered preventative in a broader public health sense, similar to how medications for blood pressure or cholesterol are used to reduce future disease rather than only treat acute problems.
Ozempic (semaglutide), which was originally developed for diabetes, has been shown in large clinical trials to lower the risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke in people with obesity and metabolic risk, even in those without diabetes (SELECT trial, PubMed: 37952131). By improving metabolic health and supporting sustained weight loss, it can help prevent progression to serious cardiometabolic conditions.
Botox is also an FDA-approved preventative treatment for chronic migraine. Regular use has been shown to significantly reduce the frequency and severity of migraines over time (PREEMPT trials, PubMed: 20647170). It’s additionally used preventatively for certain muscle and neurological conditions, like cervical dystonia, to reduce long-term strain and damage.
(As a medical librarian, I tend to look at these through the lens of clinical evidence and long-term outcomes.)
I agree that many of these are framed as “elective” due to how our healthcare system is set up, but there’s growing evidence that they play an important role in preventing more serious health issues down the line.
Yeah, I know about Botox and migraines. What percentage of people are taking it for that? Also, how long do you have to be on Ozempic to reap the rewards? And again - only if you can afford it. Health for some, not all.
According to NIH: Specifically, studies show roughly 4.6% of non-surgical patients use it for therapeutic pain management, while millions more use it for conditions like hyperhidrosis and migraines. The percentage for aesthetic is more than 60 percent.
But it’s becoming popular bc celebs take it to get skinny. Once you stop you regain the weight and lose any health benefits. So it’s either always being on ozempic (skinny life in beige and constant diarrhea) or back to reality.
Do you think the widespread use will help get these covered by insurance and better managed by health care providers? Instead of everyone just strip-mall micro dosing and self prescribing?
Maybe if they turn out not to be snake oil
also just to say, a lot of this stuff has become OOP and framed as elective because of the way our healthcare system is set up, but that doesn't mean it is not fundamental! in a perfect world, preventative health would be treated (and subsidized) as a human right
“Putting up the money” as if that’s an option. Often, because of health care costs and the cost of being a young person raising a family starting lives that exist beyond the mirror and taking care of others , we can’t afford these measures until on Medicare or when we’re retired and have the actual time. But still, do I want to spend my time alone with lasers and people telling me how to fix my face? Def no to the later and the former only if they’re focused on health not LOOKs.
As a survivor of a three-decades eating disorder, I read this with so much sadness. That’s probably why I have commented so much because it struck such a cord. I’m in my 50s now, acutely aware of how much time I lost chasing an unattainable goal. Now, I’m not equating Botox and bulimia, however, they both offer a twisted time travel. Botox erases your face; bulimia attempts to erase your last shame and mistake. Both take you away from the people in your life. Life is so fucking short. In my 30s, I lost my adult best friend and my best friend from high school. last year alone, five family members passed in six months. I have thought about all the meals I didn’t share with them , all the happy hours I skipped to go to the gym or because I didn’t want the calories of a cocktail or because I didn’t wanna sit there face-to-face with people who knew that I hadn’t eaten anything all day except for skittles and Swedish fish. Reading your account of all that you’ve done in January to just maintain was terrifying to me because it sounded like what I would have I have written if I enumerated all the hours I spent in the gym, all the meals, all the bathrooms, all the miles and calories counted, all the 711 trips to get some caffeine and candy to keep me going. All the massages, PT, chiro and dentist appts. My god, the money I’ve spent on my teeth. Again, I know that on the face of it, the things that you do are so called healthy pursuits, but that pursuit is one that takes you away from the living of life. I am so incredibly sad to see another generation of women fall for this if you’re up to it, perhaps we could do a Substack live because you clearly struck a cord here, and I would like to be as transparent about my biases when it comes to this, but I really think that should be a part of the conversation, the time lost, and you argue that this will extend your longevity, but I’m not about to be the beta test of whether endless Botox keeps me on the planet for a couple more years. I’ve been on this chase for so long. I’m just finally letting go of some false comforts.
You are right to make this comparison. Both eating disorders and obsessive beauty rituals are sometimes efforts by women to disappear.
Just leaving a comment here to say I was really moved by your reflections and analysis, very poignant
Thank you, Lo
Are men doing all this too? Curious as to that demographic breakdown.
I’ll slag, what a self obsessed piece of shit.
Or am I just jealous that I can’t afford the pursuit, so I question it?!
Wouldn't you rather spend the money on a vacation?!
Absolutely not. A few days of relaxation or long term health benefits? I’ll take the latter.
You don't think relaxation and new experiences have long term health benefits?
But what is the long-term health benefit of Botox?
(sorry all, stopping now)
I genuinely thought was sarcasm at first 🃏
But are you happier? What is the end game here? Living 5 months longer than you would have otherwise? A feeling of being in control? I need a drink.
i think its about being as able and satisfied in your body while you're in it, not chasing incremental days on earth. longevity also means feeling like yourself for the maximum time possible
"Feeling like yourself" by paralyzing your face muscles to avoid the natural aging process
Just stop it. What you are doing to young women and girls in unconscionable. If you want to waste your money behaving like a fool, fine, but stop glorifying this anti-human, misogynistic madness.
seek therapy
That makes sense, and, were I to write down all I do/spend money on it might seem like more than I assumed I do from the outset, but my interests and options skew more sports and karaoke.
I think my kneejerk reaction comes from two places -
1. Agency - when true agency in society is taken away, we aim to control whatever we can (why wouldn't we). You can't give or get an abortion but you CAN get a cosmetic laser treatment.
2. Pleasure - feeling good in your body is absolutely pleasurable, but it's hard for me to see that argument that organizing hella pills and sitting through painful appointments and recovery time results in more possible pleasure. But, I don't do it so I don't know what the hell I'm talking about with that one.
I do definitely appreciate the niche you're mining, and, as a Magasin reader I know this newsletter will be very well-curated with beauty top-of-mind!
Thanks for taking the time to chat with an internet stranger!
I think if you tie your identity to the way you look, you're setting yourself for an unnecessary challenge. Biologically, living creatures from plants to protozoa are evolved to change in response to their circumstances, including but not limited to aging. Homeostasis is hard enough without expecting phenotypic stasis. It just isn't necessary.
(and yes I'm old, ugly, and busy, so, not the target market of this newsletter, realizing I'm yucking a yum here).
"yucking [someone's] yum" is a thought-stopping cliche designed to shut down your critical faculties. You are not only free to criticize this lunacy, you have a moral duty to do so if you think it's wrong.
This is not innocuous stuff. This is mental disorder packaged as a lifestyle to women.
I appreciate this, and thank you.
My comment was definitely me feeling ridiculous flaming an internet stranger and not wanting to waste (more) time. But, culture is produced on the internet, this is where praxis must happen.
It's all just really sad. Watching literal children feel so uncomfortable in their bodies they inject unregulated peptides into themselves.
A facelift doesn't make you look like you, it makes you look like you had a facelift.
High touch is really about preying on weakness and extracting money from it. The bubble will burst and there will be injuries along the way.
We are Father Karine brethren!
(Dare we post The Article here lol)
HEY BROTHER!!!!
This is not a normal amount of time or money to spend on your appearance. The reality is every second you spend on cosmetic procedures you are not reading, cooking, spending time with family, doing anything to actually live your life… imagine how much time this author has lost. The inability to reflect on women’s insecurity and the way corporations profit off of it, especially after mentioning this will be a $130B industry demonstrates a shocking lack of critical thinking
You aren't 'researching.' You are indulging narcissistic and maladaptive behaviors and pretending it's 'wellness'
And yes, the rest of us can judge what's normal. No sane person would read what you just wrote and consider it normal.
No phil, this psychopath is making money off of selling body image disorders and overconsumption, and it's disgusting. And you're disgusting for defending it.
None of this has anything to do with science or longevity, phil. You can stop making stuff up.
It does not 'trigger' me - it angers me because I know what a deleterious effect it has on people's mental health and financial well being (which of course is more likely than not to cut years off your life, not the other way around)
There is nothing scientific about one person going out and getting 57 different treatments in a short period of time with no control. It's just personal indulgence and yes, sociopathic.
as someone with orthorexia I'm so here for this
I just burst out laughing … incredible comment
Wouldn’t this be triggering for Orthorexia?
my comment was lamely tongue in cheek - this absolutely would be and is triggering. This was disturbing to read
Phew! I am in recovery from an eating disorder. As a massage therapist, I was immediately intrigued by the idea of high touch — and then instantly repelled by the notion of constant intervention. ❤️🩷
Finally! The post that proves substack is not just for smart people
So happy and grateful that I somehow escaped this level of propaganda
this reads like either a dystopian body optimization salesletter or the beginning of a horror novel. and i will ABSOLUTELY be reading it
The fact that she liked your comment suggests she has zero ethical conscience about her role propagating this crap amongst young women. Anyway they made this terrible movie already, I think it was called Substance.
But when does it stop? When is the golden age you accept that you’re lucky, that you got to get old? When do you look at your face in the mirror and see the girl is still there, twinkling in the eyes?
it stops whenever you want it to! aesthetics and longevity are not commands, they are personal pursuits and they change for each individual over time
I feel like it can’t stop when you want it to because you didn’t want it when it started.
I am interested though in my own journey into aging. I’m 46 but haven’t undergone any pokey things haha. But every single one of my friends have; I have my own hangups looking in the mirror but something tells me that if I start I’ll never find the goal. Or will constantly be chasing it until when??
Touch grass laura
Not enough time with all the dr appts
Look, I like looking after myself too (at the level I can afford) but there’s got to be more to life than this endless pursuit of self optimization and self absorption? I’m seriously depressed reading this.
Why would you assume a newsletter about one topic is claiming to represent all of life? There's a guy who writes about tinned fish, surely you wouldn't think that's all he believes is out there?
Because you described a month of your life literally replete with self-obsessed money pit 'beauty industry' time wasters? The words are at the top of the page if you need to go back and read what you wrote.
That seems like a massive waste of time energy and resources. Couldn’t you just read some poetry and go for a walk?
because poetry wont correct my low ferritin lol
What a wildly disingenuous take.
Iron deficiency will not be your Trojan horse for normalising unnecessary aesthetic procedures.
You strike me as too intelligent to genuinely believe these things are the same - so I can only conclude that you’re conflating the two as part of some bizarre, conniving attempt to dupe less intelligent women than yourself into thinking Botox and face lifts are somehow healthy. Yes, I saw your comment about Botox helping with migraines, but please be so for real right now. Ferrograd C is not a gateway drug for Ozempic or salmon sperm injections.
Of course deep down they know completely that all this nonsense is stemming from a profound insecurity. But it’s so ingrained and reinforced (by their group chats, the cosmology “experts” that try to sell them more MORE MORE, their algorithms, etc) that they’ve completely brainwashed themselves into thinking this is their choice! This is for preventive health or iron deficiencies or whatever tiny thing the internet has chosen to fixate and exaggerate now! Clearly she’s not stupid, so I really really hope she snaps out of this echo chamber. It’s not her fault, but I think it’s high time we start holding these women who are selling us these inhumane practices accountable for strengthening the patriarchy and oppressing the rest of us. None of this abhorrent shit is on her own autonomy and she better realise that.
What exactly are we preventing? Do tell.
Wildly disingenuous? High Touch is and aesthetics and longevity newsletter. Not a poetry blog. That was not my comment about Botox for migranes, I take the stance that Botox is an elective cosmetic option for people who have agency to make their own decisions about how they look.
It’s disingenuous because of the pervasive insistence on conflating health and aesthetics, because god forbid anyone admit they’re just vain.
Everyone’s entitled to their hobbies and their priorities, and if you want to spend your time and money maximising your hotness that’s your prerogative. God knows I also want to be hot.
It’s when elective procedures are positioned as a “wellness” move and spoken about in the same breath as genuine health interventions that you lose me and I again say, be so for real right now. Just once I’d like to see someone admit that they just want to be hot, health be damned.
None of this is a coincidence btw. Blurring the lines between health and beauty has got to be one of the top cons of all time.
I didn’t realise the Botox comment wasn’t yours - apologies!
These two worlds have a meeting point and a middle ground, and not by my own invention. I don't have any shame around conversations about appearance, I responded to a commenter suggesting "reading poetry" was a substitute for any one of the things I described. For me, and for those who approach the space without moralistic superiority, it's not. The backlash to my post has centered on Botox, a criticism as old as time! The journey for many to look and feel good, to look and feel like themselves, includes interventions on both sides of this blurry divide.
And we are not getting on a moral high horse just because we question this devotion to aesthetics constant maintenance to the point of a full-time job. I’ve asked reasoned questions and your responses have been loop de loop deflections. I do not think I am better than you. In fact, I think you deserve better than all this. And I hope you’ll take all these comments into consideration every time you “drop a link” to you new fave
Magic Eraser.
No. It has not centered on Botox.
Neither will botox
Serious question: how do you even know which item is having a positive impact and what that impact is?
Excellent question.
Wut. This is parody, right?
No she's actually this crazy
I read your list for January and genuiely thought it was satire...but you are serious ?! All of this in January ?! How are you not beyond exhausted? Like the stress of this way of living will shorten your life by much more than any gain you might have from this psycopathic regimen.... I'm so glad I live in the countryside of Europe with women who've never heard about a skincare routine or a macro
Suggestion: simplify your routine, so as to find some time for urgent psychological treatment.
We have so many people hungry, homeless, fighting deportation, paying off medical bills, trying to buy groceries, gas or rent, students trying to pay for tuition, parents looking out for their kids, people just trying to survive…
Nobody needs all those things.
In fact, I find it gross, especially against the backdrop of everything that is happening in our world at this current moment in time.
I’m not trying to shame anyone.
But it’s all fleeting.
And in the end, that shit, is worthless.
We all belong to one another & we need to care for one another.
Love.
Empathy.
Compassion.
Integrity.
Not seek out more facials.
My god.