A video of Christina Aguilera has come up on my TikTok feed multiple times over the past few weeks. Going to the comments, it’s abundantly clear what has granted caused this clip to go viral. Wearing an anime-cosplay monochrome search for a performance in Osaka, together with her hair pinned high and flawlessly blended diamanté-encrusted make-up, it’s not only that Aguilera looks “good” for her age (which is 43), she looks 20 years younger. As one commenter puts it, “wait what am I back in 2002.” 

“The Undetectable Era” is is what the first video on the subject labels it as. “What individuals are doing to their face in the following yr goes to blow you away,” plastic surgeon Dr Prem Tripathi proclaims, referencing the video of Xtina. “The time in aesthetics that we’ve all hoped for and waited for where the procedures that folks are having done to their face will not be detectable.” Speculation within the comments make the entire thing seem much more just like the plot of a sci-fi film. Exosomes, Sculptra, upper blepharoplasty, Profhilo… One comment asks “what about salmon DNA?”, to which Dr Tripathi replies “Big immediately!”

It’s tempting to dive into the vortex of unsolicited online speculation over what Xtina has done to her face or, as many individuals need to know, who her surgeon is. There’s earnest curiosity about what list of ‘undetectable’ procedures could realistically entail because this latest iteration of physical evolution is something latest. It feels uncanny to see cosmetic work devoid of any of the telltale signs we’ve grow to be so accustomed to. But a bigger query looms: if that is the brand new era of beauty, what does it mean for all of us?

“In cosmetic surgery, undetectable results are what we’ve at all times strived for,” Dr Tripathi tells me over the phone from California. “We attempt for dramatic results – that whenever you take a look at a before and after, they’re clearly dramatic – but undetectable within the sense that if you happen to see any individual you understand walking down the road, you wouldn’t notice anything. I feel the undetectable part is that it’s done so well, so beautifully, that to the natural observer it just looks like a one who’s maintained some youth.”

Liable for this move towards work becoming “undetectable”, Dr Trapathi explains, is a shift of focus towards skincare, with cutting-edge procedures like growth aspects revolutionising the technology. “Growth aspects was once something we’d get from our patient’s blood, but now we’re capable of source them from things like bone marrow, umbilical cords, and are even bioengineering them within the lab. These treatments can dramatically improve the ageing means of the skin. It’s taking the aesthetic skin world to a completely latest level.” Dr Trapathi says that his assumption is that, reasonably than going under the knife, everyone in Hollywood is getting continuous skin treatments. “These skin boosters, skin treatments, growth aspects, all of that stuff, they’re just available at their fingertips with little downtime.”

The pendulum swing from the previously recognisable ‘done’ look to a more subtle ‘facial rejuvenation,’ isn’t nearly technical advancements, nevertheless, but can also be a matter of taste. “In the previous few years, things went overboard,” Dr Prepathi opines. “Straight away, the natural aesthetic is what individuals are moving towards all points of make-up and sweetness. It’s a little bit bit more refined and just less in your face.” So the “Undetectable Era” is a latest coding of cosmetic beauty that is maybe not so latest. In truth, this will likely be the Glossier, girlbossification of optimised facial transformation, and the medical world is finally catching up.

“That is the primary time for me where I’ve seen work done and it’s felt truly dystopian” – Ellen Atlanta

“That is the primary time for me where I’ve seen work done and it’s felt truly dystopian,” Ellen Atlanta says in regards to the viral Xtina TikTok. Because the creator of Pixel Flesh, a book investigating how toxic beauty culture harms women in the web age, Atlanta is somewhat of an authority on the subject. “It really comes right down to class and standing,” Atlanta explains. “Once you consider brands and designer fashion, low culture is often categorised by being more blatant. We see that in beauty culture with more obvious hair extensions or dramatic lip filler or pristine white veneers.”

Beauty has long served the ruling classes, letting the elite control social currency through implementing and sustaining the deemed desirable look. Nonetheless, once a certain trend has trickled right down to grow to be ubiquitous, and not exclusive, it loses its desirability. As cosmetic work has grow to be more accessible, cheaper and more readily-available in the previous few years, it’s not a standing symbol to look as if you happen to’ve had work done. Alongside that, with the widespread economic downturn and a return to fiscal frugality in the previous few years, culture has mirrored accordingly, pivoting swiftly away from displays of ostentatious wealth and yassified, Kardashian-coded Instagram Face to the ‘Clean Girl’ aesthetic, recession-core and stealth wealth.

But, in relation to “undetectable” cosmetic work, what is going to this shift mean from a psychological standpoint? “There may be this compartmentalisation, psychologically. There is unquestionably a cognitive dissonance,” Ailey Jolie, a psychotherapist specialising in embodiment, explains. On top of this, there may be the added complexity of the present state of “selection” feminism, and the best way by which cosmetic work is positioned as an “empowering” and “autonomous” decision unrelated to the undeniable fact that there are very real rewards for adhering to the prescriptive beauty ideals. “A girl’s perceived value online diminishes as she ages,” Atlanta tells me, referencing a report that discovered a 153.6 per cent pay gap between influencers aged 18 to 30 and people aged 30 to 45.

“We keep framing it as, ‘I don’t give a fuck about what people think, I’m going to do that for me.’ I ponder when we are going to seriously start questioning the language of this being ‘empowering’?” says Jolie. “What does it mean to be presenting as a 20 yr old or 25 yr old when your known age is 55 and you have got all that life experience and all that wisdom? What’s going to it’s prefer to have an interpersonal reference to someone once they’re not accurately perceiving you?”

Ultimately, the uncomfortable truth of Xtina’s transformation and the encircling furore is that, despite her a long time of fame, success and indisputable talent, beauty and the looks of youth – whether real or an illusion – really matters greater than anything. The Undetectable Era could herald a time where many older women (in the event that they can afford it) are capable of regain their lost youth and delay their profession, albeit temporarily. It also indicates the ever narrowing gap between our real selves and the way we perform online with the erasure of innate selfhood in pursuit of an ever more evasive idea of perfection. How far are we willing to go to remain young, beautiful and relevant? Will we ever age gracefully again? Did we ever really need to age gracefully in any respect?