This week I was going to write about the car crash that is Deliciously Ella’s new line for kids. I’ll save that for next week though. Because instead I want to talk about something equally egregious, albeit in a different direction.
But there I was, Monday night, casually scrolling through Instagram when this reel from @MyKindaMum (aka Claire Warren) popped up. The reel is an ad, sponsored by a company making collagen powder. In the reel, Claire describes how she took the photo on the left to send to a surgeon as she is considering an eye lift. She compares it to a photo on the right, which was taken 5 years earlier (i.e. before having kids) and uses it as evidence that she looks as though she’s aged 10 years in those 5. But rather than go straight ‘under the knife’, she decided to try something ‘natural’, even though: spoiler, collagen is a UPF but OK. And guess what you guysssss? It worked. Of course it did.
I want to say upfront that this is not intended to shit on Claire; she’s one of the few mumfluencers who has been really vocal about what’s happening in Palestine and Lebanon and I have a lot of respect for her for that. She also just seems funny and cool and like she’d be a lot of fun to hang out with. And ads are inevitable in late stage capitalism.
And for internalising ageist, racist, heteropatriarchial beauty standards? Well, I can’t blame her for that either. How can you be socialised as female and not do everything you can to try and erase any evidence that you have lived past the ripe old age of 35? I mean, how else will you stay relevant to – uhhhh, men? – I guess?
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