Maybe it’s not the most modest thing to say but I get quite a lot of compliments about my skin.
I do take care of it, partially because I have to. I do think about it a lot for several different reasons.
First of all, my skin hurts and burns almost all the time. It is extremely sensitive to the degree that just living in the world in a relatively normal way causes me pain on a daily basis. It is detergents. People’s perfumes. The sun. Stress. Caffeine.
That’s why when I hear those compliments all I want to say is ‘If you want it, come and take it.’
I got used to it. Sometimes it gets better and sometimes it gets almost unbearable and as I work in healthcare myself, I know it could’ve been much worse.
The second reason is that, as I mentioned, I work in dermatology, so of course, skin is on my mind from a medical point of view. The suffering that skin diseases cause is, in my opinion, still underappreciated. You cannot die because of them but they can lead to disruptive mental distress and ruin people’s lives.
The third reason is beauty, ageing and generally understood skin care. The worship of the youthful-looking face in our society and the efforts that we put into maintaining it for as long as possible.
Is there a day when you wake up and realise that your skin has expired?
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La Piel que Habito
This movie is disturbing even for me and I don’t get disturbed easily.
The science in The skin I live in (La piel que habito), a movie by Pedro Almodóvar, is also ridiculous. What’s more, the doctor, main character played by Antonio Banderas, knows how to do both ultra-sophisticated skin transplants for burn victims and a dope vaginoplasty, but even that is not the main problem.
The main problem with this movie is that it is trying hard to be shocking and have a great plot twist at the end but it all feels quite underwhelming due to the story being a little lackluster, unfortunately. But hear me out, it does try to say something at the end of the day.
The movie’s main character is a plastic surgeon who keeps a young woman named Vera captive in his large house. (SPOILER ALERT) Vera used to be a man named Vicente who (probably? it’s not clear) had raped the surgeon’s daughter while on drugs. The daughter, who had suffered from a mental illness even before that, consequently committed suicide. Vera/Vicente slowly convinces the doctor to give her some freedom and also starts sleeping with him. In the meantime, the doctor changes the quality of her skin to be invulnerable due to the accident that had happened to his wife in the past (she had burned alive).
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When Vera finally manages to make her captor trust her, she kills him and runs away.
Vera, for me, symbolizes the will to survive and resilience beyond what happens to your body. Her spirit is stronger even than her impenetrable skin.
She was changed beyond recognition, her skin moulded and transformed; she stubbornly decided to find the place within herself where it would not affect her.
There is a scene in the movie where she watches a yoga instruction video and listens to a teacher who seems to speak directly to her. She tells her that yoga will help her to find an inner space where no one can harm her. Where she can always stay safe regardless of what is done to her body.
From that moment, Vera obsessively practices yoga and awaits the right moment to set herself free also physically.
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Your skin will betray you
I talked once about my a bit painful approach to beauty in this article. I wish it was less important to me and the world overall. I am ready to let it go more and more with the passing years and one day become invisible. But I want this day not to come too soon.
Your skin will age, no matter what you will do, at least for now. No science can really successfully prevent that.
You might have heard about Bryan Johnson. He is a 45-year-old millionaire who invests everyday insane amounts of time and effort into looking and feeling young. And also, just being young – physiologically. He spends on that millions of dollars a year, has a rigorous diet and training regimen, does routine MRIs and a series of medical procedures as well as takes over 20 different supplements. Some time ago, he injected fat into his face (it – allegedly – worked well for Shakira FYI) and had an allergic reaction to it that gave him a porcelain-looking, swollen face, which could be treated as some kind of warning.
For all these efforts, his personal ‘youth’ doctor claims: “We have not achieved any remarkable results. In Bryan, we have achieved small, reasonable results, and it’s to be expected.”
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When it comes to his looks. Oh well. Of course, it is subjective, but in my opinion (and I think I have a quite trained eye) he looks like a skinny man in his early forties who is obsessed with skincare and fitness. And maybe uses Botox. He doesn’t look like he travelled magically back to his twenties.
What else can you do, if you have too much money to spend on your skin?
There is plastic surgery, which works well for some people. However, it always comes with risk and more and more people speak critically about e.g. long-term effects of derma fillers.
All the things you can do will provide only limited outcomes – your skin will lose its elasticity and glow and change its texture into something that society still considers undesirable.
Here I would like to say that I am not the one who will tell you that you should age gracefully and enjoy your life. You should do whatever the heck you want. If looking as young as possible is that thing then I absolutely understand that.
But that should not define who you are. For me, it does it a little and this is a real problem, so please be better than me.
I do look at my face in the mirror and try to find marks of time. And also, my skin is inflamed every single day. You could say, a bit dramatically, that it gives me both emotional and physical pain, in a way.
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But there is a place within you, that is more than this flesh and what covers it.
The core of your being, that will never be changed by wrinkles, discoloration, lines, inflammation, red patches, bruising and scars.
At the same time, I also wish you that your skin will be a nice place to live within and that it won’t turn against you as it does too often to too many people. Please take care of it as your home, which might not be the most immaculate one but hosts you loyally throughout your life.
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PS. I don’t want to give here unsolicited skincare advice but if you want it, let me know.
PS2. I love my skin despite what it does to me. It is a bit of a toxic relationship but if you read my blog regularly you might have got the hint already that that’s what I’m into, generally (jk jk).
PS3. As a great philosopher said, I don’t say no to aging. I say yes to becoming a milf.
