When Lindsay Lohan appeared in public last month with what seemed to be a wholly latest face, her explanation was easy: skincare. Talking to Allure magazine, the actress credited her transformation to “a morning cold face towel, Avene redness solution, together with their recovery creme”. Later within the piece, almost as an afterthought, she mentioned trying treatments like Morpheus, IPL and lasers – though she was quick so as to add that she doesn’t do them “an excessive amount of”.
Many beauty experts, including the people behind accounts like @IGfamousbyDana have speculated that visible scarring and drastic changes to Lohan’s appearance indicate she has, in reality, undergone multiple facial surgeries lately. Every part from blepharoplasty, buccal fat reduction and repositioning, a face and neck lift, endoscopic brow lift, nose job, chin augmentation, Botox and dermal filler have been suggested as procedures that is perhaps chargeable for the brand new look. But even when Lohan hasn’t had any surgeries or injectibles, the outcomes of procedures like Morpheus 8 can’t be replicated by topical skincare and are fairly invasive, involving microneedling to depth of as much as 8mm into the skin.
This linguistic sleight of hand – where significant cosmetic procedures are downplayed or rebranded as easy skincare – represents a growing trend in how we speak about beauty work. The language around cosmetic procedures has undergone a subtle but significant shift, with terms like “enhancements” and “balancing” replacing more direct language about surgical interventions. More notably, increasingly invasive procedures are being lumped under the innocuous umbrella of “skincare”.
“There was a noticeable shift within the language used around beauty treatments and cosmetic procedures,” says consultant dermatologist Dr Anjali Mahto. “Words like ‘enhancements’ or ‘tweakments’ have replaced harsher terms like ‘corrections’ or ‘fixing flaws.’ I believe this reflects a broader societal move, with cosmetic treatments now often framed as a part of a broader regime reasonably than as drastic measures to change appearance.”
This semantic evolution isn’t accidental. When treatments requiring numbing cream and 24 needles stamped into the skin are marketed as “non-invasive”, we’re witnessing a deliberate obfuscation of reality. The sweetness industry has mastered the art of creating dramatic interventions sound as gentle, and accessible, as applying moisturiser.
On social media, this phenomenon plays out each day. A viral tweet about “facial balancing” that requires “no cosmetic surgery!!” is revealed to be achieved through extensive filler injections. The before-and-after photos are striking, but the method – the pain, the recovery, the associated fee – stays fastidiously hidden from view. The transformation appears effortless, as if by magic, feeding into what has grow to be a dangerous mythology of quick and straightforward fixes.
The fluidity of terminology has made it increasingly difficult to ascertain clear boundaries between various kinds of beauty work. As I used to be researching for my book Pixel Flesh, I discovered it difficult to pin down the definitions. In South Korea, double eyelid surgery is so commonplace that it’s not considered cosmetic surgery, despite requiring anaesthesia, a surgeon and a scalpel. Kim Kardashian went to great lengths, including getting an X-ray, to prove she didn’t have butt implants, despite the widespread rumour that she’d actually had fat transferred to her bum (which wouldn’t show up on a scan). Similarly, procedures like injectables, lasers and fat freezing are labelled “non-surgical” and “non-invasive”, allowing those that undergo them to assert they haven’t had any cosmetic surgery in any respect.
This careful curation of language serves a selected purpose: maintaining the illusion of effortless, natural beauty while hiding the labour, cost and potential risks involved. It perpetuates the paradoxical expectation that girls needs to be beautiful without appearing to try too hard – what scholars have long identified because the contradiction between beauty as a virtue and sweetness work as a type of deception. “What’s most beautiful is just not what’s most natural but what has been reworked by the imagination, made visible through effort, and yet appears effortless,” Susan Sontag wrote, while Kathleen LeBesco summed it up simply as, “The work of beauty is to hide its work.”
The motivation behind this linguistic gymnastics is deeply rooted in societal pressures. “Many individuals need to enjoy the advantages of those treatments without facing judgement or being perceived as ‘artificial,’” Dr Mahto explains. “There’s also an association between having ‘work done’ and vanity, which might make individuals uncomfortable admitting to more extensive procedures.”
But it surely’s not only misleading, it could actually be incredibly harmful. When celebrities like Lohan credit dramatic transformations to easy skincare routines, it leaves regular consumers feeling defective when their drug store products fail to deliver similar results. Young girls are left confused when the promise of perfect womanhood doesn’t materialise naturally, ageing becomes a terrifying curse, and latest moms feel increasingly vulnerable of their changing bodies.
This reluctance to acknowledge beauty work creates a very insidious cycle when combined with celebrity endorsements and industrial partnerships. When an expensive moisturiser is promoted by someone who has secretly had a facelift, or when an influencer credits her plump lips to a latest lipkit while concealing her filler treatments, it sets inconceivable standards for consumers.
The implications of this deceptive language extend far beyond mere semantics. It creates what Dr Mahto describes as “a dual standard in the sweetness world – enhancements are acceptable so long as they continue to be invisible or understated.” This perpetuates unrealistic beauty standards while concurrently denying the very means by which they’re achieved. The Undetectable Era of cosmetic intervention goes hand-in-hand with this language shift, making it even easier for the rich to disclaim, minimise and justify their beauty work.
This deliberate blurring of lines between skincare and more invasive procedures shows no signs of slowing down. Now, it might appear, every little thing – from a facelift to lasers and injectables – is skincare. The final result is a system that ultimately suggests that being a human woman simply isn’t enough. Whilst we get caught up in semantics as a way of evading admission of the extent of our beauty work, the industry continues to grow.
