Molly-Mae Hague’s Realisation About Why She Got Cosmetic Procedures Is The Wake Up Call We All Need

I don’t mean to be overdramatic, but when Molly-Mae Hague decided to get her lip filler dissolved, it was actually quite the watershed moment in the lives of teenage girls. Countless young women have wanted to resemble her ever since her doll-like face appeared on our screens in Love Island 2019 – and suddenly, aged 20, she was telling them how much she regretted ever having cosmetic procedures done to her face.

The influencer has since opened up more about her decision to reverse her fillers and have the composite bonding on her teeth removed. In an interview with Cosmopolitan UK, she talked about the moment it dawned on her that she needed to make a change.

‘I was doing a club appearance and took a selfie,’ Molly explains. ‘I remember staring at it and thinking, “I don’t know what I’ve done to my face.” I went from looking like a teenager to someone on [extreme plastic surgery show] Botched. I’ve never thought of myself as insecure, but I must have been to do that.

‘We need to stop normalising filler with things like “Kylie Jenner [surgery] packages”’ the 21-year-old continued. ‘I was 17 when I first got my lips done, and it scares me to think that if I have a daughter in 10 years’ time, what it might be like for her. I sometimes forget how young my followers are, too. I’m often surprised by the fact some of the girls in my DMs even have a phone.’

Caption: Molly-Mae's first post on Instagram when she was just 17-years-old.

It’s an admission so many need to hear, particularly the part about never appreciating how insecure she truly was. Because, as so many of us realise when we grow older, the plastic surgery industry had sold us a lie about women getting cosmetic procedures to feel ‘empowered’ or because they ‘just want it’.

So often, when a teenage girl or young woman decides to get work done, be it full surgeries or small tweakments, she’s forced to defend herself against those who say she’s doing it ‘for men’.

‘No,’ she argues. ‘I’m doing this just for me. It’s something I’ve wanted to change for a while and it will boost my confidence, it’s nothing to do with appealing to men.’

And she might well believe that - so many of us wish it were true - but frankly it’s not.

Let’s get real here, any cosmetic procedure someone gets that helps them conform to Western beauty standards is an effort to benefit from pretty privilege. That’s why it makes you more confident - because you better align with beauty standards that, in turn, mean people treat you better. And those standards - the ones we hope to meet with that nose job or lip filler - were set by men hoping to profit from our insecurities.

It’s not just cosmetic surgery, of course - many of us attempt to appeal to the male gaze in the simplest ways. We draw our eyebrows on, we cover up our pores with layers of foundation, we make our eyelashes as long and fluttery as possible. I like to think of it as a spectrum: some of us make small daily changes to appeal to the male gaze - like wearing mascara - whereas some of us go to extremes - like having your entire body reconstructed to resemble Barbie, Heidi Pratt-style.

And the thing is, it should be okay to admit that.

Caption: Molly-Mae in September 2020, before she made the decision to have her cosmetic procedures reversed.

Admitting we alter our appearance for the male gaze is not shameful, it’s not something we should be judged for, or make us less deserving of respect. Why? Because life is hard enough for women as it is. If having work done is going to make your life easier, I say get the f*cking work done.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolute value in attempting to rewire your brain to combat these beauty standards and thus sit on the part of that spectrum that feels authentic to you. Before spending your hard-earned money, time and energy – and risking your safety, I might add – getting work done, it’s absolutely worth attempting to do the work emotionally and mentally so you can rid yourself of the pressures of Western beauty standards.

I, for example, used to dream of the day I could get a nose job. That was up until I started practising positive affirmations every day, and legitimately brainwashed myself into having my own beauty standards. Now, according to my own brain, I’m a 10/10 regardless of how big my nose is, because it forced me to realise that beauty standards are arbitrary – they change from culture to culture – and I could choose to believe I was the epitome of beauty if I told myself it enough times. (Yes, your brain really is that susceptible to intentional thought.)

But the thing is, not everyone can or wants to do that. Positive affirmations, personal development work, it’s not going to have the same effect on everyone, nor do we all have the time or energy to do that work - so if you can’t, or just don’t want to, there’s no shame in that either, because everyone is battling their own insecurities and traumas.

In my view, we’re all going to choose how comfortable we are conforming to beauty standards based on our own lived experiences. Some of us might make the minor changes because we already largely benefit from pretty privilege, some of us might go to extremes based on personal insecurities, traumas or - for women who don’t experience the same level of privilege – genuine fears of harassment or violence by men.

When someone argues then, that women get plastic surgery to conform to what men want and we simply reply ‘Actually, no we don’t, we do it for us’, that response entirely lacks nuance. It ignores the complexities of what it means to be a woman today, how pervasive the male gaze is and the way in which our insecurities are preyed on. But more than that, it only brings further shame and guilt onto women who know, deep down, they’re doing exactly that.

The sooner we realise this, the better – because it’s a lesson so many young women like Molly could’ve benefited from. As Molly said, she fully believed she was not an insecure person despite making numerous cosmetic alterations to her face. But had she lived in a world where we’re open and honest about the reasons women feel the need to change their appearance, perhaps she – and more teens like her - would understand that feeling insecure is the underlying reason people seek cosmetic surgery.

Then, and only then, can we educate ourselves and others on the countless ways to tackle those insecurities, attack the male gaze and combat the insidious culture that preys on women not meeting its demands. Molly’s realisation might not seem that large, but it speaks to a wake-up call we all need when it comes to why women get cosmetic treatments – so let’s get talking about it.

Read More:

Georgia Harrison: 'I Want Young Girls To Look At Me And Never Risk Putting That Much Filler In'

'I Thought It Was All Above Board And Legit': One Person's Account Of The Loopholes Of Lip Fillers In Lockdown

'Don't Make The Same Mistakes I Did': Molly-Mae Hague On Reversing Her Fillers