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At 10:00 a.m. in a Kensington café, the chatter is less about the flat whites and more about fasting windows. One woman compares her glucose monitor readings; another swears by weekly ice baths. A third scrolls through her phone to show the group her new IV drip therapy.
This is not small talk — this is competition. Once, self-care meant a long bath or a stolen hour with a book. Today, it means biohacking, cryotherapy, peptide stacks, and an Instagram story to prove it.
Wellness has always had a price tag. From Gwyneth’s jade eggs to moon dust smoothies, indulgence disguised itself as health. But now, the arms race has escalated. Women who once compared handbags now compare supplement stacks. A cryotherapy booth has replaced the spa; an infrared sauna is the new Chanel.
Patients bring this culture into my clinic. “Should I be on NAD drips?” one asked. Another wanted my opinion on ozone therapy. A third arrived with a spreadsheet of daily supplements, all in the name of longevity. They tell me it’s about health, but the sparkle in their eyes says otherwise. It is not about wellness. It is about status.
On Harley Street, I admire the discipline. But I also remind patients of a simple truth: wellness is not armour against anatomy. You can drink green juices until you glow neon, but collagen fibres will still slacken. You can sleep under a red-light panel, but muscles will still thin with time.
One patient, worn out by her routine of fasting, Pilates, and peptide injections, sighed: “I’m doing everything right, but I still see jowls in the mirror.”
This is where I gently intervene.
A facelift can. Surgery does not negate wellness; it complements it by addressing the things kale smoothies never will.
What fascinates me most is how wellness disguises vanity. Patients rarely admit, “I want to look younger.” Instead, they frame it as health. “I just want to look less tired,” they say, or “I want my skin to look more resilient.”
But behind the language of wellness lies the same desire that has always driven beauty: to be seen, admired, and perhaps envied. The IV drip is the new blow-dry; the supplement regimen is the new manicure. And like Botox at the school gates, its success is measured not in disclosure, but in whispers.
Wellness should be gentle. It should restore. But somewhere along the way, it became a competition — not about health, but about signalling who is most disciplined, most optimised, most in control.
Choosing rituals that genuinely replenish rather than exhaust. Accepting that collagen will age, muscles will shift, skin will change — and that no adaptogen will stop it.
True self-care is not about proving resilience to others. It is about aligning how you feel with how you appear, in ways that are meaningful to you. For some, that may be yoga or supplements. For others, it may be finally lifting the jawline that sags no matter how many hours they sleep.
Because in the end, wellness is not a war to be won. It is a truce with yourself.
© 2025 · Beauty and the City by Dr. Dirk J. Kremer
Published: January 2026 · Harley Street, London
All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish this article without permission.
