Drinking, or Rather, Cleansing from the

Drinking, or Rather, Cleansing from the Fountain of Youth

By Zoe Mitchell

Self-care. That hyphenated word which carries with it both an ethereal desirability, and involuntary eye roll. Or maybe that’s just me. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s to wash our hands. Yet perhaps the health professionals aren’t the only ones telling us to clean up our act. If you follow any influencer, news outlet or friend who participates in a pyramid scheme, you’ll find nearly everyone’s been subliminally marketing for us to wash our face.

Being a fiend for the fashion industry, my social media has been inundated with information such as ‘take time out’, ‘don’t beat yourself up for feeling burnt out’ and ‘now is a time to reset’. And what do all these articles suggest as a cure-all for my pandemic blues? My career crisis? My creativity rut? A facemask, of course. In times of global crisis, people search for what brings us together and seek to identify which industries sink or swim. And in 2020, the traumatic spread of COVID-19 has given a 10-point booster to the already accelerated rise of glycolic acid, cleansers, toners, Dr. Barbara Sturm, and The Ordinary. If you can’t find the link between any of those terms, first of all, lucky you. Secondly, I’m talking about skincare.

Skincare is the dark horse of the beauty industry. However, it hasn’t arisen out of nowhere. I myself am not a skincare fanatic, to which my friends and family probably say thank God. I do not need another expensive hobby.

Admittedly, I have been to Mecca and asked one of the makeup artists to tell me about the philosophy behind Drunk Elephant. To be honest, if she hadn’t sounded so hesitant to answer my request, I probably would have caved and bought something.

Watching the skincare trend grow and flourish with everyone stuck at home has been interesting. It seems like a natural addition to complement our evolving expectations of beauty. The selling point of skincare as a preventative measure correlates with the increasing notoriety of cosmetic surgery and Facetune, inspired by the Instagram age. Skincare’s drive for plump skin and a radiant glow is not new. It has always been used as a tool to seemingly reverse ageing with mystical combinations of chemicals to make you look 10 years younger. It’s more that, in 2020, it has a new customer.

Skincare has evolved from a product used in a last-ditch effort to attempt to slow the onset of wrinkled skin and sun damage into a holy grail for beauty gurus in their twenties seeking to erase the idea of ageing altogether from consideration. In the Instagram age, youth is the selling point, with filters intended to give us skin as smooth and soft as a baby, doe-eyed features or a sun-kissed glow. By contrast, ageing filters are a comedic standpoint designed to share with followers and send on to friends, because how outrageous that our skin appears wrinkled?! Imagine looking like that?

Contemporary popular culture encourages our predispositions towards youth valorisation. Countless clickbait Facebook posts praise celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez for her antiageing formula which makes her look younger at 50 than she did at 40. On social media, the old-guard of fashion influencers are drawing suspicion for their strategic shifts from selling clothing to becoming ‘family influencers’ as they reach the ominous 30.

Additionally, one cannot write an article about skincare and anti-ageing without mentioning the Kardashian-Jenner effect. The rise of famous plastic surgeons such as Dr Simon Ourian, who the Kardashian clan have openly praised as responsible for their fillers and injections, has normalised the attainability of idealised supermodel perfection with the right equipment and bank balance. There is a whole subset of Instagram where women flaunt their Bratz Doll-esque beauty, with perfect skin, plump lips and larger-than-life eyes. Lil Miquela, a CGI Instagram influencer, has 2.4 million followers, representing the transition of beauty engineered by a computer for mass consumption and comparison. For months, many debated whether Lil Miquela was real or a robot, and if that isn’t ironic, I don’t know what is.

I’m not trying to discount skincare rituals or the self-care phenomenon by any means. There is definitely something to be said for taking time out, and slowing down. But what I personally, and the rest of the world it seems, is increasingly realising, is that health is wealth. Emily Oberg of Sporty and Rich, despite her other controversies, was clearly onto something when she delivered that marketing punch. I don’t think anyone is denying that a 45-minute skincare routine is a luxury. However, tying it with concepts of self-care as a marketing strategy becomes increasingly hedonistic, as well as damaging, veering closer and closer to that cyborg beauty standard we increasingly crave.

Next time I’m in need of some self-care, maybe I’ll revisit Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. Something tells me it might resonate differently now.

The “It Girl”: A Personal Revolution

By Victoria Nguyen

It feels overused, the constant expression that “this is a crazy time”. Due to the escalation of COVID-19 cases in Australia, we saw the closure of the ANU Campus, the transition to online learning and the ban on all nonessential travel. This pandemic has affected every single one of us and the long-term ramifications of this epidemic are yet to present themselves fully.

On a personal note, the recession, lockdown isolation and uncertainty surrounding this semester has been extremely hard hitting. Before a new year begins, I always spend time trying to visualise the year ahead. My imagined version of 2020 and the unfortunate reality stark contrasts of one another. A week before leaving, my exchange program was cancelled and the numerous housing applications, scholarship grants and course approvals I had gathered meticulously for the past year became instantly redundant. Exchange was to be an experience that would challenge my identity and push me far outside my realm of familiarity. Though I did not go on exchange, this semester has been truly formative in a way that I did not anticipate. Without the constant barrage of social events, I was forced to spend more time alone, reflecting on my thoughts.

I believe there is the blurring of lines between who you truly are as a person, who your friends know you to be and how you want to present yourself and move through this world. I’ve always thought of this in terms of a Venn diagram, where some elements overlap while others stand independent.

When I think about how I wanted to be perceived by others I picture that girl. You know the one. She is smart, talented and independent. She balances work, gets straight HD’s, gyms 4 times a week and is at every party. Not just that though. She moves through this world gracefully and with ease.

It’s a strange exercise to map out the type of person you strive to be. Many elements of my “ideal” are simply residuals of where I place value and the characteristics of people close to me that I hold in high esteem. While I do not believe there is any fault with presenting oneself in this manner or wanting to, I do believe it can incur a missed opportunity. I do not want to be a part of a culture in which women are expected to dilute our successes and perpetuate the idea that our achievements are easy. Our achievements reflect our time and hard work. Freely expressing the energy poured into our projects allows others to appreciate the result, and recognising the difficulties we faced along the way in no way diminishes the achievement. In fact, I would argue that the opposite is true. My favourite autobiographies are those in which a person can rise above circumstance and personal difficulties. The most insightful interviews I have seen are those in which a person has achieved something unique, has been challenged or funnelled their energy fervently and deeply into an area they are passionate about.

I found this semester exceedingly difficult. It was challenging and isolating. For the first time, I felt as though I lacked motivation and purpose. What helped me was seeing the many open and honest discussions about mental health during the pandemic. Within my personal friendship groups, I gained comfort through commonality and the vulnerability of my friends; not the constant highlight reels on social media or the purposeful omission of their struggles.

Growing up in the digital age, social media is so heavily integrated within our lives, it feels inescapable. It is our voice; it allows us to interact and share our lives with others, revisit old memories and stay informed with current events. While social media is a useful and familiar extension of our daily lives, the idealised and carefully curated posts which saturate our news feeds are not an accurate depiction of reality and can distort our image of normalcy. Moving forward, I challenge myself to be just as willing to share my difficulties as I am my successes and to be more intentional of how I do or do not choose to use my social media platforms. I recognise the power of my voice and my actions and the effect they can have on others. While I don’t owe the world this, I am so thankful for the strong women in my life who have revolutionised my definition of an “It Girl”. I want to take every opportunity to portray the best, honest and cohesive version of myself to others, as they have done for me.