Complexion News - Turn Up The Volume

A taut, sculpted face used to be the beauty ideal for women of a certain age, but not anymore. Jennifer Goldstein makes a case for (subtle!) plumping

- Jennifer Goldstein

In the lobby of Zurich’s Dolder Grand hotel, a man is slumped on the floor, resting his head on his luggage and looking exhausted, like he just got off a 14-hour flight. But something’s not right. His complexion is pasty and weirdly puffy, so I step a little closer to see if he’s OK. When I’m a few feet away, it dawns on me: He’s not human. I must look totally spooked, because the receptionist rushes over to explain: This is the Traveller, a 1988 Duane Hanson sculpture that’s part of the hotel’s art collection.

I’m here in Switzerland to attend Art Basel and check out a Paul Coudamy sculpture commissioned by Swiss cosmetics company La Prairie in celebration of its caviar-infused antiaging skincare collection’s 30th anniversary. But I didn’t expect that the art appreciation would begin in my hotel lobby—or that it would be so creepy. In aesthetics, the aversion I’m feeling can be explained by the “uncanny valley,” a hypothesis put forth in the 1970s by a Japanese robotics professor who found that most people are revulsed by androids and human replicas that appear almost, but not exactly, like real humans. Since I already have antiaging on my mind, this gets me thinking: Could the uncanny valley in reverse explain why many of us are unsettled by faces with obvious work done?

You know whose faces I’m talking about—the men and women with abnormally smooth, plump complexions devoid of the normal dips and hollows. “Sometimes you’ll see them walking down the street, and subconsciously you note that something’s off,” says Dr. Shereene Idriss, a dermatologist at Union Square Laser Dermatology in New York City. “There’s a difference between a woman who looks good for her age and a woman who looks like she had stuff done.”