In our recent Class Ceiling series, we unpack how class actually affects young people today – from our jobs, to the best way we’ve got sex, to our general experience of the world.

Beauty and wealth have at all times been bedfellows. Throughout history, the wonder standard of any given period has served the ideological interests of the ruling class. In the course of the Renaissance, plump, pale skin was a prized signifier of high social status, while sun-darkened skin became synonymous with lower classes labouring outside. Today, nonetheless, that very same tanned complexion is desirable, coming, because it has within the west, to point leisure time, holidaying abroad and the posh of disposable income.

While the distribution of ‘natural’ beauty is a democratic genetic process, the wonder standard is sort of the alternative. Appearance has at all times been a vital source of differentiation for those with privilege, who use their wealth to speak their social ‘value’ and set themselves aside from those without. In consequence, beauty reflects a category hierarchy and has long been a site of social struggle. While some people have the economic freedom and sophistication standing to interact in beauty work, others are left with the stigma of ‘ugliness’.

In 2022, beauty standards are making a beauty tax that’s higher than ever. With cosmetic procedures becoming available, there’s now an expectation not only of the same old roster of ‘maintenance’ treatments – hair, nails, eyebrows, lashes, teeth – but of ‘tweakments’ like injectables and surgeries. Based on the Aesthetic Plastic Surgery National Databank, the variety of botox procedures performed in America increased by 54 per cent between 2019 and 2020, and fillers were up by 75 per cent. The UK is the world’s fastest-growing market for facial filler, and British plastic surgeons reported a 70 per cent increase in consultation requests over 2020. 

Often, those that are celebrated for his or her beauty are increasingly individuals who have undergone various surgeries and coverings. The “I’m not ugly, I’m just poor” meme format is a mirrored image of this variation: using ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of high profile celebrities like Bella Hadid, Kylie Jenner and Simi and Haze, it demonstrates how money somewhat than genetics is all that’s crucial to create a face that’s deemed as beautiful.

This is important because now, greater than ever, our faces have turn out to be our most useful commodity. Due to social media, selfies and Zoom calls, our appearance is at all times front and centre and it has turn out to be something we ‘should’ spend money on. Middle and upper-class women have the financial freedom to view an expensive and dangerous surgery as a ‘treat’ to permit them to suit the wonder standard and reap the rewards of adherence. The result’s a benchmark for ‘beauty’ only reserved for those with disposable income, and a recent beauty class system by which there are those that can afford to participate and people who cannot.

Adhering to the wonder standard requires a privilege, but additionally generates privilege, making a vicious cycle by which those without the economic freedom to participate are heavily penalised, financially and socially. ‘Poorly groomed’ women stand to earn 40 per cent lower than their beautified counterparts, while attractive individuals are over 20 per cent more prone to be called back for a job interview, and are perceived to be more socially expert, trustworthy, confident and competent. “In case you’re white, middle class and also you’ve got a very good job, you don’t need this stuff as much,” says Ruth Holliday, professor in Gender and Culture on the University of Leeds. “It’s while you’re marginalised that this beauty work becomes so rather more necessary.”

As the fee of beauty increases – the jump between a manicure and a nose job is important – individuals are being priced out and putting themselves in danger financially as a way to participate. A recent article for Refinery29 detailed how women are racking up hundreds of kilos in bank card debt as a way to get Botox and filler. Based on a recent survey of 900 salons by beauty booking software Pamperbook, women are spending a mean of over £1,000 per 30 days on nails, hair and aesthetic treatments similar to facials and injectables. The pressures levelled against women to retain and maintain the right face, resist the results of ageing, remove their body hair and groom themselves to perfection, mean that beauty treatments are sometimes paid for over other ‘essential’ items.

It’s not only funds that we’re risking to get the right face, but our health as well. Those that can’t afford reputable clinics cut corners by travelling abroad where prices are cheaper. In 2014, an estimated 41,000 medical tourists visited Colombia where breast augmentation plus two days in a hotel could be had for around $4,000. Nevertheless, a lot of these ‘reasonably priced’ procedures are done by unlicensed, untrained doctors – as much as as many as 30 per cent – and in 2016, 30 women died during cosmetic surgeries. As Naomi Wolf prophesied in her 1990 polemic The Beauty Myth: “The free market will compete to chop up women’s bodies more cheaply, if more sloppily, with no-frills surgery in bargain-basement clinics”.

“We present in our research on cosmetic tourism that most people who travelled abroad for surgery weren’t wealthy people, they were doing it since it was cheaper there they usually could get a deal,” says Professor Holliday. “Beauty technology was seen almost as an akin to qualifications. For middle-class people, further education is seen as a necessity for fulfillment, but beauty treatments work in the identical way for individuals who are excluded from that culture. It’s all about investing in yourself to attempt to make a living.” 

While beauty work done well can act as a type of social advancement, when badly done these procedures can have the reverse effect, becoming their very own class signifiers. Whether it’s larger lips, poorly applied filler or too-white veneers, the best way beauty treatments are performed is adding one other layer of social separation. “For middle-class people, seeing any individual who has obviously had work done can evoke a little bit of disgust,” says Professor Holliday.

“Working-class bodies are nearly at all times marked as excessive, as an excessive amount of, and lip filler can be a classic example. Nevertheless, working-class people may not see it in the identical way. Larger is healthier since it’s the obviousness of it that shows you’re a body of value, and that try to be included in society. By working on your personal body, you’re showing your skill, your resources and your labour, which is more valued in working-class culture.”

In our individualistic, capitalist and patriarchal culture, the wonder standard is acting as a tool to maintain those with less privilege at the underside of the social hierarchy. Cosmetic procedures have turn out to be a variety of status symbol for aspirational women, the brand new designer bag. It’s a way for those with the privilege to maintain and increase their advantage, while those that can’t participate are given little alternative but to chop corners as a way to achieve this.

Unless we work to alter things, we’re approaching a future by which our beauty standard evolves to an ever-expensive ideal, further increasing the chance gap between classes. “I’m not ugly, I’m just poor” could be a meme – but the truth behind the satire paints a terrifying vision for the long run.