Great, yet another beauty standard women have to meet

News.com.au

2 days ago

OPINION
First, it was our waists in 2019 when Skims launched tummy control shapewear.
Then in 2022, it was tiny bikinis, with Kim Kardashian, the brand's founder, telling her customers, 'I wanted to take away the anxiety of buying swimwear'.
The bottoms were smaller than dental floss.
2023 arrived, and the brand, currently valued at nearly $5 billion, decided women must shun their current breasts in favour of having perkier ones with constantly erect nipples, thanks to their 'revolutionary' nipple bra.
This year alone, we've seen the launch of Skims' bum-enhancing shorts with actual butt pads to give you that Brazilian Butt Lift look without the surgery.
And then just months later, the 'Ultimate Hip' shorts launched, which feature foam pads at the hips to give you that cartoon-hourglass silhouette.
Now it seems Skims has run out of body parts to mould, lift and enhance, so they've turned to … our face.
Introducing Skims' face shapewear
Just when you thought your jawline was safe, this week, Skims launched its Seamless Sculpt Face Wrap.
It's no coincidence that the eerie-looking pull-on contraption closely resembles a post-surgery compression garment because it promises to sculpt the cheek, neck, and chin to give you that 'snatched' appearance. Yes, the same look that the Kardashians achieved with much more expensive, potentially surgical treatments.
But for the comparatively cheap price of $88, this face wrap promises to give you similar results, and all you have to do is wear it every day for the rest of your life! And while you sleep! Because women apparently aren't ever allowed to rest.
According to the Skims website, the product, which is made from the same fabric blend as its snatching bodysuits, is a 'must have'.
And given that it's already sold out worldwide, clearly that messaging has worked.
Naturally, the internet is flooded with opinions about the product, with camps clearly divided into: 'This is what we've come to?' and 'Actually, low-key love this'.
And Skims definitely expected this debate, and dare I say it, planned it.
A controversial product is in their DNA. But at what point do we say enough is enough?
What are we going to see next? Shapewear for your feet, à la foot binding in Ancient China?
Our heads can't even relax now
While it's funny to joke and brush off these products as dystopian rage-bait, I feel like we actually need to call this out for what it is – Kardashian continuing to capitalise on women's insecurities and the beauty standards she has been shaping forever.
The Skims Instagram account has over six million followers, and Kardashian's has 350 million, which means there's a whole lot of women whose perception of beauty might be changed from a single post.
Don't get me wrong. I love a bit of a beauty gimmick, like dunking your face in ice water in the morning for a more 'awake' look. It's relatively harmless, albeit momentarily painful, based in science and most importantly, it's free.
But this goes beyond an innocent wellness trend.
When you start charging nearly a hundred dollars for something that looks like a medieval torture device while implying you'll look snatched like Kim if you buy it, even though you won't, it doesn't just feel like a fun beauty trick – it feels harmful.
'Relentless cycle of perfectionism'
Jaimee Krawitz, founder of the Hide N Seek Foundation, a national initiative aimed at changing the language around body image and eating disorders, tends to agree.
'Products like this reinforce the idea that even our faces need 'fixing' to be acceptable, feeding into a relentless cycle of self-surveillance and perfectionism,' Ms Krawitz tells news.com.au.
'For young people especially, it sends a harmful message that natural features aren't enough, eroding self-worth and distorting what beauty really means. It's not just about the product, it's about the pressure it silently places on those watching.'
No lasting change
Seriously – is there a single woman on this planet who ever thought, 'You know what my life is missing? Spanx for my face.'
Cosmetic experts have even said that a tight garment like this will likely only give you a few seconds of a slimmer face, due to reduced puffiness and swelling. But ultimately, things will just revert to how they were before.
So while you might look more snatched in a mirror selfie, I worry about what this might do to your lasting confidence.
Will you think that you're not as beautiful without it? Will this become a gateway product making you want to get surgery?
But could this somehow be empowering?
If you think I'm being dramatic, I get it.
I can already hear you typing through the screen: 'Let women do what they want!'
And I'm a big supporter of that sentiment. I really am.
But with this, I fear it's not really what women want. It's what they've been told they should want.
And it's outdated.
The history of facial straps and bandages goes back centuries, most recently in the early 1900s, when beauty salons advertised chin straps to 'lift' sagging skin and get rid of double chins.
It's the same concept now, just packaged differently, with Skims giving it a chic twist and adding an Instagram-worthy filter.
In 2025, this is just the latest version of a long tradition that tells women they need to compress themselves, look thinner and appear younger.
And in a world where it's normalised to talk about weight loss injections, buccal fat removal, and face taping, it's easy to feel angry about Skims' latest release, which seems perfectly timed.
Can Kardashian stop trying to cash in on this skinny-obsessed climate and leave our jaws, and faces alone?