Mary Munson\u2019s first non-surgical cosmetic treatment wasn\u2019t the result of a plan, or a concrete decision. She describes it in terms of sating her curiosity. Munson, 41, was visiting a clinic to extend her lashes when a woman working there spoke to her about a procedure that she referred to as \u201cbaby Botox\u201d \u2013 which was, in fact, Botox. Since deciding to try it, she hasn\u2019t looked back.<\/p>\n
The Guardian\u2019s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.\u00a0Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just a starter to see what it was like, and I realised that I enjoyed it. And to be honest I don\u2019t feel like I see a huge change,\u201d says Munson, who was 37 when she started treatments. While she thinks her Filipino and Scottish genes \u201cgive me good skin\u201d, Munson started getting other treatments alongside regular Botox injections, including platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy (sometimes referred to as a vampire facial, in which platelets are drawn from a patient\u2019s own blood), as well as platelet-rich fibrin (PRF), a similar treatment that stimulates collagen.<\/p>\n Munson is a teacher and mother of two. She is bubbly and friendly over the phone and thinks of herself, she says, as \u201cvery generic and run-of-the-mill\u201d. Among her group of 11 friends, all in their early 40s, she says, three regularly use these procedures. She is part of a shift in which non-surgical cosmetic treatments \u2013 or the more muted \u201caesthetic interventions\u201d \u2013 once associated with wealth and celebrity are becoming more commonplace, rewiring perceptions of beauty for ordinary women. Jowls and wrinkles, the everyday markers of ageing, are for a growing number of women becoming optional.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve not tried changing the shape of my face or anything drastic. I would prefer not to be too wrinkly.\u201d Munson laughs. \u201cI\u2019m also getting married next year for the first time so I\u2019m trying to get my skin the best it can be.\u201d<\/p>\n Walking down the shopping strip in my neighbourhood in a once working-class part of Sydney that has become newly aspirational, I notice a dentist that lists cosmetic injectables, in san serif font, alongside wisdom teeth removal, a clinic \u2013 next to a pastry shop \u2013 curtains drawn, advertising the slogan \u201creal change, real confidence\u201d. Versions of this proliferate across shopping malls and high streets across the country. Last year, in the waiting room of an inner-city dermatologist, staffed by receptionists with impeccable eyebrows, I was puzzled, at first, by the presence of words like relax and refresh in a medical context. The neoliberal language of self-care was co-opted to describe non-surgical cosmetic treatments.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it is like having something nice or like going to the gym,\u201d says Bianca Lorena Saldes, 38, who started using injectables when she began working as an aesthetic nurse, and now operates a clinic called BLC Aesthetics, where she first met Munson. She\u2019s wary of the pressures that drive women to such treatments or make them feel they are necessary. \u201cI don\u2019t want to think, I need this to look amazing. It\u2019s just like how we go and get a massage.\u201d<\/p>\n A report by Grand View Research estimates the market for cosmetic injectables in Australia at US$2.7bn, projected to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 19.3% from 2024 to 2030. A survey by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery found that 20.5 million non-surgical cosmetic procedures were conducted in 2024, up 44% from 2020, the year hours of watching ourselves watching others via Zoom fostered an increased self-surveillance of our own appearance. In June last year, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency tightened regulations, but because of the decentralised nature of the industry, conclusive statistics are difficult to find and there are strict rules about how these procedures can be advertised.<\/p>\n double quotation markWomen around me say, \u2018if had to choose between my Botox or buying groceries, I would [cut back] on groceriesTania Zanetich, 45<\/p>\n Women, of course, have always performed beauty work and grappled with the pressure to maintain the illusion of youth in a world in which older female bodies are considered less valuable, and less visible. For every silver-haired influencer, or Pamela Anderson appearing makeup-free<\/a>, there is also a public horror of \u201cnatural ageing\u201d \u2013 as in the pushback received by the actor Rachel Ward, 68, who in January, posted to social media an image of her unaltered face,<\/a> creases reflecting the passage of time.<\/p>\n Dr Renae Fomiatti, a senior research fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University has spent nearly two years studying the uptake of aesthetic interventions. \u201cThey\u2019re easily available and people can go in their lunch break, there\u2019s minimal downtime,\u201d she says. \u201cBut this ignores how invasive the cultural messaging and imperative is around ageing.\u201d<\/p>\n Fomiatti, a feminist scholar, believes that it is important to challenge the binary that there are unnatural and natural ways for women to age. \u201cThe body is social,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s always been aesthetic interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n