Normalizing normal: why I don't (and probably won't) use Botox

Plus! An upcoming conversation with NYT columnist Jessica Grose, Boursin cheese hacks and a plan for chilling the eff out this holiday season

When my daughter turned nine, I started worrying about her in a way I hadn't worried about my son. I still worry plenty for him, but the feeling is different, more personal. I had a bumpy female adolescence, so watching my daughter enter the same era awakened a desire to help her avoid the pain I encountered there. I often find myself sitting on the edge of her bed, sharing hard-won nuggets of wisdom about school, bodies, and friendships, only to be met with blank stares, squirms, or requests to "please, please can we stop talking about it and can I go to sleep?"

Me at 9 years old

A child can only hear so many words out of her mother's mouth before they turn to white noise in her ears, I suppose. But while she may stop listening, I know she'll never stop watching.

For this reason, I'm glad she isn't around to see me assess the two deep creases between my eyebrows in the bathroom mirror one morning. With two fingers, I pull the grooved skin taut: ta da! It's almost like I have my "real" face back, the one I used to have before I discovered I couldn't wear eyeliner anymore because it bleeds onto my droopy eyelids, printing black arcs against the top of my eye sockets. The face I had before I noticed a soft waddle of skin hung between my neck and my chin, only visible when seen through peripheral vision in my reflection as I turn sharply to the side. The face that didn't need double-duty concealer for purple circles under the eyes and very uncool, very ferocious perimenopausal acne.

As I examine my own face in the mirror, I'm not alone in these thoughts. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, invasive and surgical reconstruction procedures have increased 446% since 1997. The top choices for women include breast augmentation, liposuction, breast reduction, abdominoplasty, and eyelid surgery. Looking from beneath my droopy eyelids to my poochy belly and microscopic boobs, I think, Yup. I get it. Women have been valued for our bodies since time immemorial. Is it any wonder we try to beat the system, stay hot, and turn heads forever? Hell, look at J Lo or Gwyneth or Halle Berry. They’re all 50+ and manage to look great.

Could I "fix" myself with injections, snips, and other interventions? I'm guessing I could for some of it. In the course of casual conversation with friends and acquaintances in recent years, I've discovered it's not uncommon, even among people quite a bit younger than me, as well as people who are otherwise very au naturel. When I stand before the mirror and pull skin across bone, manually reversing gravity and all those hours spent frowning at the laptop, laughing and smiling, I understand the appeal.

But whether she hears me or not, I tell my daughter she is beautiful exactly the way she is. How can I expect her to believe me when I say that about her if I don't believe that about myself? To be clear, I'm not talking about teeth whitening or hair highlighting, both of which I do. I'm talking about something closer to the bone (literally), and something that becomes more common for young women all the time. In 2023, about a quarter of all Botox treatments were performed on people aged 18 to 34.

Let me preempt anyone taking this personally and say that I really don't care what other people do with their bodies. Whatever you want to put in or take out of your body, go for it! For my part, I've gone under the knife for a bladder sling and rectocele repair when I couldn't stop peeing my pants multiple times each day due to the effects of aging (and, specifically, birthing two 9-lb+ babies). Now I run, jump, laugh and sneeze with abandon. My quality of life is so much higher for it.

What I do care about is more cunning and insidious: the denormalization of *not* using cosmetic interventions. Allow me to illustrate.

I recently shared with a group of women that I want to age without Botox. After a slightly uncomfortable silence, one of them said, without a trace of irony, "But what happens if you decide never to get fillers or procedures, and everyone else does? You'll look so old, you'll be left behind."

Honestly, this question was so weird I didn't know how to answer it. Left behind from what, exactly? Will my friends stop calling for long chats because I look naturally old? Will they not want to get drinks with me because I drag down the herd? Will my husband not want to snuggle at night? Will my kids refuse to play Nintendo with me on rainy days? Will I not be able to ride a bike, or sing along with my favorite song, or dance, or bake bread or play piano or wear fun clothes or explore new cities or write essays or taste black licorice—so many of my favorite things—because my face has been "left behind"?

No.

Netherlands, 2022, when Jake and I rode our bikes from Rotterdam to Kinderdijk. One of the best days of my life.

A naturally-aged face isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. Do I honestly believe that? Yes.

Is it hard to accept? Sometimes, yes, very hard. (So hard, in fact, I reserve the right to change my mind about all this.)

Do I want my daughter to believe it? Absolutely.

That’s why I want to amplify the voices of others who believe it, too. One of the most articulate out there is New York Times opinion columnist Jessica Grose. Last Wednesday, she wrote a piece that made me pound my fist against the table and say, “YES!” in solidarity, called, “Teens Are Getting Botox. I’m Going Full Crone in 2025.” A mother herself, she writes about how she tries to encourage honest aging with her two young daughters, if not by lecturing, at least by example:

I can choose to admire the new angularity of my face, rather than long for an artificially smooth and unweathered exterior. I can enjoy dressing in ways that I find chic regardless of whether they are currently in fashion. I can find a way to stop criticizing, if only silently, my eye bags — because I know the only fixes for that particular genetic legacy are plastic surgery or death.

I’m not suggesting that it’s easy. Or that women aren’t punished in many, many ways for refusing to adhere to beauty standards. But I’m tempted to go full crone in 2025, and the idea delights me. At the very least, I hope it prevents my girls from thinking they need Botox before they’re old enough to vote.

Jessica Grose

And guess what? Jessica Grose is joining me for a recorded conversation this week, which I’ll share next Wednesday in a separate post. I know I said I wouldn’t post more than once every two weeks, but this is special. I’m looking forward to normalizing normal with her (and you!) next week.

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Fresh hacks for Boursin

In 1963, a young man in Normandy named François Boursin combined fresh cow’s milk cheese with cream, garlic, herbs, salt and pepper to create the spread we know as Boursin. Today, it can be found all over the world, including in my local Trader Joe’s dairy case. (They even have a vegan version that tastes just as good, in my opinion.)

Over Thanksgiving, my brother-in-law Bryant and I talked about favorite ways to use Boursin, and it got me thinking: for just $3.79 per package, you can give a little boost to so many dishes, just by applying a quick swipe of Normandy’s finest cheese spread. Truthfully, I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t love it.

So here are a few ideas for how to bring ease and flavor to your holiday entertaining this year, one little metal-wrapped blob of herby cheese at a time.

• Blend it into mashed potatoes. Or offer it as a topping with baked potatoes.

• Tuck it into quesadillas. This was Bryant’s suggestion. I spread it on one flour tortilla, sprinkle a combo of cheddar and Monterey Jack over, and top it with another tortilla. Delightful.

• Swirl it into pasta. Cook up a nice penne or fusilli and toss it with a knob of Boursin plus a glug of the pasta water.

• Bake it into stuffed mushrooms. Dip the caps of white mushrooms into melted butter. Remove their stems, chop them up fine and stir into a bowl of Boursin, along with bread crumbs, too, if you like. Then stuff that mixture back into the cavities of the mushrooms and bake at 350 degrees F for 10 to 15 minutes.

• Spread it onto a sandwich. My favorite is a baguette with Boursin, roast beef, and arugula.

• Use it in a lasagna. It works great in lieu of ricotta or a bechamel sauce.

• Crumble it onto a salad. I’m not a big goat cheese person, but I love a hit of Boursin atop my greens.

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How to calm down for the holidays

☝️The confidence of this headline is pure comedy. Seriously? There should be a question mark at the end, because I have no idea.

I’m grateful I can admit my ignorance now. In 2019, apparently I couldn’t. How do I know? Because when Darling Magazine asked me to write a piece about how I nourish myself through the holiday season, I delivered a smug little essay about getting plenty of sleep and setting intentions. I still love parts of the piece, including the line

If I don’t build margins into my life, then my body will build them for me.

…but ultimately, it reads as pretty precious, lo these five years later. I have two very active adolescents under my roof now. Even closer to home, I inhabit a middle-aged body. Trust me when I say that a whole-food meal isn’t even on my list of goals at this point.

What is on my list?

• Watching a few good movies (or even good-bad movies) from Caroline Chambers’ incredible holiday movie matrix.

  

  From the wonderful Substack “What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking” by Caroline Chambers

• Getting dressed up with a couple friends and spending a night on the town in San Luis Obispo.

• Having Champagne with lunch on the kids’ last day of school to celebrate a final moment of quiet before we’re all around each other nonstop for two and a half weeks.

• Knitting the last two stockings for our mantle (after taking all year to knit the first two) while listening to a podcast or audiobook.

Cabling is so tough. I’m amazed it works. This pattern is from Melanie Falick’s book Handknit Holidays.

Will I be serene while I do all this? Unknowable. Will I get to it all? Fat chance! But the list above seems more manageable than trying to satisfy all the unreasonable expectations (clothed as traditions) I’ve placed on myself in the past. So often, it’s like I’m chasing a feeling during Christmas. What if, instead, I let the feeling chase me? What would that even mean?

What does it mean for you? Soliciting your input. We need each other.

Until then, happy everything—and see you next Wednesday with my conversation with Jessica Grose.