یو بینک ہوم لون - گورنمنٹ مارک اپ سبسڈی اسکیم

"You are clearly depressed," my friend said to me as I picked at the rice on my plate. I didn't even look up.

"I've known you for years, and I wouldn't say this lightly, but you just look absolutely exhausted and sad," he continued, totally and completely correct.

In the last six months, I lost my father, broke up with my long-term boyfriend (the two things are not unrelated), had my best friend of 27 years come out, and was promoted. It was a lot. And the shock of the death of my father was giving way to a deep sadness.


"I can't start every conversation with, 'Hey, my dad just died and I've lost all meaning in life!'" I told one of my besties.

"You can start any conversation the way you want," she would try to assure me. She's a good friend, but she's wrong; no one wants to hang out with the perpetually sad girl.

I needed to do something, feel good about something. So, I took a page from Kylie Jenner.

I am 31, almost 32. I've drank hard and smoked a lot, but for the most part, people generally think I'm 26 or 27. I get carded all the time. So my decision to get Juvederm in my lips, or my "lips done," if you will, didn't have a lot to do with feeling old. It had to do with wanting something different. Just a little something, a tiny secret of Jenner-like proportions.

"I NEEDED TO DO SOMETHING, FEEL GOOD ABOUT SOMETHING. SO, I TOOK A PAGE FROM KYLIE JENNER."

I'd never really liked my lips before, and make up artists will tell you: they don't hold lipstick and have a slight downturned look to them that kind of gave me a perpetual frown. But I never really considered doing anything about it until Kylie Jenner, who has now built an entire empire around her pout. Her lips are fake, she has admitted, but I will also admit: they are beautiful.

And here is the type of feminist that I am: I own my body. It is mine, for better or worse. I have stuck needles filled with ink all over it to redefine my own concept of beauty on my skin. I have chopped and dyed my hair into shapes and colors that don't often look right on a person whose title includes, "Vice President." I have dressed in ripped and torn garments to challenge the belief that "femininity" is a defining part of womanhood. I have never apologized for using my body precisely as I want it to be used.

It's not as though I'm unaware of the argument that plastic surgery is a mode of capitulation to the male gaze. At the very moment I was sitting in the office of Dr. Elizabeth Hale on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I received the always poignant Lenny Letter, the newsletter run by Lena Dunham, which included an essay by actress Amanda Peet talking about why she hasnever had Botox. "Letting my face age naturally will be my ace in the hole. My counterclaim. Proof that I didn't pander to the male gaze," she writes. Her point is that she has refused to engage in the un-winnable race to a more youthful state.

"IT HAS TO DO WITH A REFRESH, WITH WANTING TO TAKE CARE OF SOMETHING THAT HAS, IN ITS PETTY WAY, ANNOYED ME SINCE I WAS A TEENAGER. IT ALSO HAS TO DO WITH FAKING IT ON THE OUTSIDE UNTIL THE INSIDE FEELS BETTER."

Yet, my decision to go uptown on a Friday afternoon, where I iced my face nervously while sitting in the waiting room, had nothing to do with the male gaze, I told myself. Hey, I'm the girl who can't even go on a date without blurting out something about what stage of grief I am currently in; I'm not about making men more comfortable or happy at the moment. It has to do with a refresh, with wanting to take care of something that has, in its petty way, annoyed me since I was a teenager. It also has to do with faking it on the outside until the inside feels better.

In Peet's essay, she extols the virtue of her brainy, accomplished doctor sister, who seems as disinterested in her looks as Peet is invested in hers. She could be a swap for Dr. Hale. Not to say that Dr. Hale looked unkempt; she was just no-nonsense. A lab coat and scrubs, comfy ortho-clogs, and her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she wasn't the Dr. Frampf or suave playboy that shows like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or Nip/Tuck might have us believe. "People should choose a doctor whose aesthetic you might trust," Dr. Hale says. Check.

I asked her if she was surprised to see someone as young as me in her office as she was applying numbing cream to my face, and she almost laughed. "There is no normal age," she tells me. "It's not unusual that the lips are something that people come in for when they are thinking of a minor cosmetic procedure. It's such a focal point."

"So," I asked her. "How are you going to make me not look crazy?" The idea of being known as the girl who had the breakdown and turned to plastics was not super appealing to me.

"There is a ratio, generally, for lips. It is 1 to 1.6, as the bottom lip is generally fuller, and it's important to keep that ratio in mind. It's very important to maintain the arch, that 'cupid's bow', of the upper lip. That's why lip fillers get a bad rap.... If you overfill it, you get what is called an 'effacement of the Cupid's bow.' Or duck lips," she says. "Also," she explains, "look at the cutaneous lip, the mustache area. If you have a large one [Edit: I do not], don't try to fill it in.'"




THE AUTHOR AFTER THE PROCEDURE
COURTESY LEILA BRILLSON

Juvederm Ultra, she explains, is made from an ingredient called hyaluronic acid, which is naturally occurring and simply acts as a volumizer, binding to water and elasticizing skin. The effects of the Juvederm last anywhere between six and nine months, and then the Juvederm gets absorbed back into your body. So, unlike my tattoos, this treatment wasn't permanent, wouldn't freeze my face or make me look plastic or unrecognizable. But it is injected into your face, which is why she says it is important to see a board-certified derm or plastic surgeon. The risks are low, but having your internist or facialist do this is just a bad idea.

Dr. Hale goes to work, sticking needles in my upper and lower lips. I am one-hundred percent certain that she is injecting too much. She must have put ounces in there, maybe gallons. But when she is done, she has told me that she has used only 70% of a single unit, opting to keep things natural. It's less painful than getting my tattoos—it just felt like having a cystic zit.

She shows it to me and asks if I like it. I do, though my lips look stung and a little painful. But looking back at me is a person I like, one who doesn't look like she has just put herself through an emotional wringer. Just a fresher version of myself, but entirely me.

She steps back and looks at her work, and her professional demeanor slips. "Gorgeous," she says. She calls in her assistant to look. I get now what Amanda Peet is talking about a little bit, how women are praised for being fresh and attractive, but also how it feels good. "You look great!" Dr. Hale says. And I can tell she means it.

Truth be told, I don't see that much of a difference. I went out the evening of the procedure to a (darkly lit) club, and the next night to a bar, and no one accused me of being a botched science project. In fact, the lasting effects were pretty minimal. Except now I have less trouble wearing lipstick. And maybe this is psychosomatic but when I apply a tint, it doesn't look like it is desperately fleeing from my mouth in terror. I'm more confident in my lipstick-wearing abilities, which is (to my friends, at least) a true miracle.




COURTESY LEILA BRILLSON

Putting filler in my lips isn't going to make my sads go away. It isn't even going to make them marginally better. But it was, in the same way that getting a tattoo after Prince died or cutting my hair post breakup, a way to reclaim my body and make my own mark, to feel better when all I wanted to feel was sorry for myself.

To be clear: I am not suggesting using fillers or injectables as any sort of way to deal with trauma. But for me, putting a temporary gel solution into my skin is not a capitulation to the male gaze. It is not something I apologize for doing. The stigma is simply not one we should be entertain, anymore. Especially since, for the first time in over six months, I don't look like I've been hit by a bus driven by angry ghosts.

This "fix," if you can call it that, is like anything that occurs externally: Totally, entirely temporary. Truth be told, I would be happy to see Dr. Hale again. Except, this time, I won't be as nervous about the skin pricks. After all, I've got nearly a sleeve of tattoos, so a tiny injection is a walk in the park. And maybe a step forward, too.