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When Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS announced its Seamless Sculpt Face Shaper, I didn’t need to scroll the comments to know the vibe. Half the internet was ready to “add to cart.” The other half was side-eyeing in unison. Me? I’m firmly in the absolutely not camp. Because here’s the thing: beauty’s latest obsession isn’t just another viral drop—it’s a bedtime corset for your jawline. And if that doesn’t sound dystopian, I don’t know what does.
Historically, beauty standards have always demanded an unspoken sacrifice from women. Corsets reshaping rib cages, high heels deforming feet, and waist trainers limiting breath. Face shapers are just the modern iteration, masquerading as empowerment while reinforcing the idea that beauty is worth discomfort and even pain.
The SKIMS campaign, featuring perfectly sculpted models sleeping peacefully, presents a false narrative: if you’re uncomfortable, it’s because you’re not trying hard enough to be beautiful.
Shapewear was originally designed for smoothing undergarments and dresses, offering a silhouette many associate with confidence and control. But we're no longer talking about picking an outfit, and we sure don't live within the walls of an 18th-century castle anymore, either. So why is apparatus like the face shaper being pushed to the scores of women already fighting to feel beautiful every day?
Why This Hits Different
Women’s rest has been hijacked by beauty culture. It suggests women should sacrifice comfort—potentially even breathing freely—for the sake of slowing down ageing. Men, by contrast, are rarely told to wear devices on their faces while sleeping to appear younger now, aren't they? The burden of beauty remains painfully gendered.
Marketing products like this perpetuates an impossible ideal. That your face must be sculpted, youthful, and wrinkle-free 24/7, and it got me thinking about the many women in my life who love how they've aged and approach it with open arms- partly because they're old enough to know better, and partly because social media wasn't always a part of their lives, telling them what they need to look like. That was just the job of a handful of their agony aunts. So, why the need to create anxiety around natural ageing now?
The Capitalism of Insecurity
The face shaper speaks to a hyper-consumerist beauty economy that monetises insecurity. Each new “solution” creates a fresh problem: first wrinkles are bad, then sagging is unacceptable, then your face’s natural shape becomes another area for “improvement.” This never-ending cycle ensures we are customers for life, purchasing solutions to issues we didn’t even know we had.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to sell us shapewear for our faces. We're told to slather on a million products, strap collagen masks to our cheeks, and even sleep upright because, apparently, gravity is ageing us too fast. Eight hours of rest now looks like this: socks knotted in our hair, skin shellacked with serums, heads propped at a 30-degree angle, jawlines cinched tight, lips coated with an “intensive overnight mask.” Add expensive silk pillows, eye masks, pyjamas marketed as “investment pieces,” and castor oil packs. It's no wonder we wake up tired.
Are we more exhausted than the men in our lives? Probably. But beauty, we’re told, is supposed to be inconvenient. Pain is packaged as aspiration, an ever-shifting target no one can hit. Another ritual to master, another reason to feel inadequate. Our circadian rhythm is now just another marketplace.
As I write this, I've come to realise that I no longer stand at the fork in the road. I'll survive without a "collagen yarn shaper" strapped onto me. I'll laugh with all my smile lines and crow's feet well into my 70s, and I'll choose a beauty ideal that hasn't been fed into my system, but one that's been passed down to me by the memory of my mother and grandmother's gorgeously wrinkled skin. And I hope you do the same.
Also Read:
In Today, Out Tomorrow: If Beauty Standards Are Always Flipping The Script, Why Do We Chase Them?
