The premiere of the new film Put in my place again Not only has the nostalgia of those who grew up with the original comedy aroused. He has also brought with him a radical change in its protagonist: Lindsay Lohanwhich surprised with a bright, defined and rejuvenated appearance. In parallel, the matriarch of the Kardashian, Kris Jenner, revolutionized social networks By showing a smooth and tuned face that made it look for several decades younger, despite being about to turn 70.
In the case of Jenner, the answer is surgical and has its own name: Steven Levine, one of the most prestigious surgeons in New York, specialized in deep flat lifting. Lohan, on the other hand, attributes his Glow up to a healthy diet, laser treatments and skin care routines. Two different paths to the same promise: eternal youth.
The “Invisible Effect” surgery
What in the eighties meant tense faces and artificial features, today is synonymous with undetectable results. The star technique is deep -plane lifting, which works in the superficial musculosurotic musculosurotic system layer (SMAs) and repositions block muscles and ligaments. Thus, the dreaded “wind tunnel effect” is avoided and a more natural and durable rejuvenation is achieved.
In an extensive report for the Financial Times They have explained That the procedure can last between 10 and 15 years, and is usually combined with blepharoplasties, fat transfers, eyebrow and laser lifting such as fractional CO2 or Morpheus8. The trend is clear: that the scalpel is not noticed. The designer Marc Jacobs Publicly documented his surgery on Instagrambreaking with the secretism of the past. Today, the real luxury is that no one can guess what you have done.
The eternal surgical youth is priced, and is not available to everyone. In Cosmopolitan magazine They have specified That a classic stretch can cost between 4,000 and 10,000 euros in Europe, while a deep lifting in New York starts at $ 45,000. Nevertheless, According to Financial Timesamong the most renowned celebrities, prices exceed six figures.
So more than aesthetics, we are facing a status paradigm. As the psychotherapist Paul Hokemeyer has pointed out in The British environment: “Impeccable surgery is a status symbol that exceeds any birkin bag.” Having access to Levine or other star doctors implies belonging to the elite circle that “knows” and can pay. In fact, Wendy Lewis, consultant to the beauty industry, has warned that many patients assume that the more expensive, the better, although the reality is that it also works as a social brand: paying more means exhibiting it as a gesture of distinction.
In this same line, New York Post has detailed The rise of “quiet luxury” procedures: discreet buttocks (“Midwest Bbl”), natural dental veneers or sinuses. It is the countercara of what the Kardashian did at the time: the aspirational is no longer the exaggerated volume, but the undetectable, which seems “natural” but costs six figures.
Although surgery is not available to everyone, aspiration filters down. The same thing happened with Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs: at first restricted to Hollywood, expensive and difficult to get, turned into a luxury symbol rather than in medical treatment. Over time they popularized, but maintain their aspirational aura: extreme thinness as a class trophy.
Those who cannot afford Liftings then resort to more affordable, although harmful alternatives. In Tiktok, hashtags like #skinnytok They accumulate thousands of videos in which adolescents share extreme diets, excessive exercise routines and phrases of “thinspiration”. As We have detailed in Xatakajust eight minutes of exposure to this type of content are enough to increase anxiety and body dissatisfaction. The supposed “average complexion” – nor fat or skinny – also circulates as a new restrictive ideal, disguised as inclusiveness.
The digital culture acts as well as the mirror of the surgical elite: while some are subjected to liftings of $ 100,000, the rest absorbs impossible standards and searches for drugs or viral challenges the promise of an unattainable luxury. As The Week has summarizedthe postitive body that proclaimed bodily diversity has become a distant memory: red carpets full of ultradelgated actresses, fashion campaigns denounced for showing “dangerously skinny” models, and the resurrection of Y2K aesthetics as the return of Victoria’s Secret parades.
To all this equation could not miss the technology. Digital filters and artificial intelligence not only embellish, they also mold impossible standards. As the aesthetic Jonny Betteridge has pointed out In Financial Timesmany patients reach the operating room with an unusual reference: their own face, but filtered.
The AI multiplies this dynamic: offers oneself versions With perfect skin, defined jaw or sharp cheekbones. And those images circulate as new identity promises. The result is that surgeons face an emerging market: patients who want to translate the digital avatars they see on Instagram or Tiktok into flesh and blood.
The double edge: always under trial
The aesthetic pressure does not admit escape. According to has detailed The journalist Noemí López Trujillo in Newtral, aesthetics such as the “Clean Girl” or the “Make Up-No Make Up” function as impositions of female discretion: they celebrate a deeply artificial naturalness, which demands hours of cosmetic work and invisible surgeries. Thus is punished in double route: both women who “operate too much” and those who decide not to operate anything.
Examples are left over. Pamela Anderson, Remember the sociologist Rhea Ashley Hushin in Newtralwas punished for making visible its implants and refusing to become “invisible” with age, a case of femmephobia. At the opposite end, Sarah Jessica Parker It has been insulted For showing wrinkles, as if “neglecting” it was also a sin. For directors such as Bonnie Hammer, the facial homogeneity of the young women operated and the rigidity of the greatest hinders even the casting of common papers. And Jamie Lee Curtis has denounced the horror of seeing women disfigured by The “cosmecéutic complex”.
But what happens to men? The scrutiny is deeply unequal. In recent years, names such as Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise or Bradley Cooper have starred speculations about liftings and fillings. In an article for Daily Mail They consulted three surgeons on Pitt’s rejuvenated appearance in their new film: they all agreed that there are no signs of a lifting, but of fat transfers or facial fillings that return youth volume. Pitt himself has denied going through the operating room, although according to ft Liftings in men grew by 26 % between 2022 and 2024.
Even so, they rarely face the same public trial as women. As Carrie Fisher said: “Men do not age better, they are simply allowed to age.”
The recipe for eternal youth is not in potions, nor in viral routines at 4 in the morning –like those of the influencers of the looksmaxxing-. It is in elite operating rooms, in scalpels that return cheekbones, tense necks and erase wrinkles in exchange for six figures.
However, this eternal youth has conditions, since it is a luxury reserved for the elite, works as a symbol of status and reproduces a double gender standard, where women are punished both for operating and not doing so, while men enjoy indulgence.
In parallel, the rest of society consumes filters, extreme diets and narratives of “naturalness” that are nothing more than new digital corsets. Eternal youth exists, but it is not for everyone. And more than erasing wrinkles, he reveals class, gender and power in our contemporary culture.
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