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There was a time when fuller lips were extraordinary. They belonged to starlets on magazine covers, women whose faces defined eras: Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Angelina Jolie. Today, fuller lips are no longer extraordinary. They are expected. Ordinary. The baseline against which beauty is measured
Welcome to the era of beauty inflation, where yesterday’s luxury is today’s minimum standard, and where the extraordinary loses value simply because everyone has access to it.
A patient recently confided:
The irony, of course, is that influencers themselves were once the outliers. Their pouty lips, sculpted cheekbones, and contoured jaws set them apart. But as treatments became more common, those same features became the baseline — and anyone without them risks standing out, not for glamour, but for appearing “unfinished.”
This is beauty inflation at work. Just as money loses value when too much is printed, beauty markers lose impact when they become ubiquitous. A lifted brow, once a symbol of refinement, now reads as default. A smooth forehead, once a luxury, is simply “maintenance.”
Pop culture accelerates this inflation. The Kardashians’ shifting faces over the past decade have been studied like stock charts. One year, the look was exaggerated curves and hyper-contouring. The next, it was pared-back “clean girl aesthetic.” Each evolution reset the standard, dragging millions of women along in its wake.
Instagram filters, meanwhile, have pushed the bar even higher. Skin that glows like porcelain, eyes that shimmer, lips that bloom.
As one teenager told The New Yorker, “I want to look like my Snapchat, not my mirror.”
Even Hollywood is complicit. Compare the red carpets of the 1990s — where stars looked glamorous yet recognisably human — with today’s events, where even “natural” looks have been smoothed, tweaked, and perfected into a uniform glow.
treatments before ageing even begins. In my Harley Street practice, I see women in their twenties requesting Botox — not to erase lines, but to prevent them from forming. Skin boosters, microneedling, jawline contouring — all chosen not because they’re needed, but because they’ve become part of the new maintenance routine.
“I don’t want to look older later,” one young woman explained, “so I start now.”
It’s preventative, yes, but it’s also inflationary. If the younger generation begins earlier, the baseline shifts again, and what was once considered youth itself becomes inadequate without intervention.
The danger of beauty inflation is not just financial; it is psychological. Patients often describe a moving target: the lips are adjusted, and suddenly the cheeks feel insufficient. The skin is tightened, and suddenly the jawline seems weak. The goalposts keep shifting, because the cultural baseline keeps moving.
This is not vanity- it’s economics of the aesthetic kind. When everyone around you “levels up,” standing still feels like falling behind. And in a city like London, where competition is fierce not only in business but in presentation, the pressure can be suffocating.
Of course, beauty inflation is not new. In the 18th century, powdered wigs grew taller and taller until they became architectural. In the Victorian era, corsets shrank waists to impossible proportions, only for the “Gibson Girl” silhouette to reset expectations again. The cycle has always existed:
What’s different today is speed. Social media accelerates the cycle, compressing decades into seasons. A TikTok trend can reset global beauty standards in weeks. And unlike wigs or corsets, surgical and non-surgical interventions permanently raise the baseline, making it difficult — if not impossible — to opt out.
In my consultations, I encourage patients to pause and reflect: What do you truly want — and what do you feel pushed to want? There is a difference. Wanting refinement is natural. Wanting to erase every sign of individuality is not.
The most successful results are those that resist inflation. A face that looks harmonious, balanced, true to itself — rather than a copy of an ever-shifting ideal. Because beauty is not an index to be tracked against others. It is a presence, a confidence, a signature.
I often remind patients:
Where does this end? Perhaps in a pendulum swing. Already, there are whispers of rebellion: the rise of “skinimalism,” the appeal of authenticity, the embrace of lines as character rather than flaw. Just as fashion cycles between minimalism and excess, beauty too may one day recalibrate.
But until then, inflation continues. The bar rises. And what was extraordinary yesterday becomes invisible today.
So what does it mean to be beautiful in the age of beauty inflation? Perhaps it means reclaiming the extraordinary — not by chasing the next trend, but by stepping off the escalator altogether.
Because if beauty is constantly redefined by others, it risks losing meaning entirely. But if beauty is defined by how confidently one inhabits their face, their age, their story — then no inflation can diminish it.
In a world where the baseline keeps rising, true elegance lies in choosing your own currency.
© 2025 · Beauty and the City by Dr. Dirk J. Kremer
Published: november 2025 · Harley Street, London
All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish this article without permission.
