Hollywood's Pillow Face Epidemic Is Why We Need To Say Goodbye To Fillers

Recently, commentator Rochel Leah made a hit TikTok video on Hollywood's "pillow face" problem. It's certainly a growing issue that's taken over LA. “I've been saying for a really long time that this female obsession with cosmetic procedures shows that we're not in a good place, and finally, people are acknowledging something's wrong because women don't really look like human beings anymore,” Leah said.

Cutis Medical Laser Clinics defines "pillow face" as “an overly stuffed face that some patients experience with too much filler,” resulting in cheeks that look uncomfortably puffy and rounded. This phenomenon has been exemplified recently by Chrissy Teigen, who stirred up "bad filler" rumors after her appearance at the 2023 White House Correspondents' Dinner.

But the issue runs deeper than just a few bad angles. Another popular TikToker named Bekah (@bekahdayyy) says it’s time to confront our culture's normalization of excessive fillers. “Honestly, I feel like it's time for us to have the conversation about how we have so normalized getting tons of filler in our face and altering our faces,” she said. Sure, cosmetic enhancements are a personal choice, but Bekah is right about the negative effects of these procedures and how they can spiral into an addiction.

Freedom is important. But when will we admit that women lose touch with themselves in pursuing perfection and often end up almost unrecognizable?

This year, "eyebrow blindness” became viral on social media, referring to people who overfill or overpluck their brows to an unflattering degree. I'd argue that there is a "filler blindness" that's gone global. Former U.K. Love Island star Molly-Mae Hague learned this the hard way after her “botched” look went viral, leading her to dissolve her fillers and declare, “It was horrendous. It was utterly horrendous.”

It took a while, but more celebrities are now reversing their cosmetic procedures after waking up to the dangers of overdoing it. Kylie Jenner recently shared on The Kardashians that she dissolved half her lip filler after feeling overwhelmed by her look. Kristin Davis and Courteney Cox have also opened up about their regrets, realizing how drastically they had changed after friends spoke up.

Fillers may promise enhancement, but they're a slippery slope to getting more "enhancements." It’s time we recognize the cost of this obsession and push back against the pressures that drive so many to the injector's chair. An injection here and there may seem insignificant, but over time, these small changes can accumulate. Worse, we continue the normalization of allowing the plastic industry to profit off our insecurities and our natural beauty.

Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, said it best: “Cosmetic surgery is not 'cosmetic,' and human flesh is not 'plastic.' Even the names trivialize what it is. It's not like ironing wrinkles in fabric, or tuning up a car, or altering outmoded clothes; the current metaphors fail to capture the reality. Trivialization and infantilization pervade the surgeons' language when they speak to women: 'a nip,' a 'tummy tuck.'...Surgery changes one forever, the mind as well as the body. If we don't start to speak of it as serious, the millennium of the man-made woman will be upon us, and we will have had no choice."

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