Ageing gracefully or fighting the clock? Photo / Getty Images
Why your attitude to beauty treatments, and whether you’re a secret tweaker, says more about you than you think, writes Shane Watson
Vicky McClure, of Line of Duty fame, is back in the news because she’s starring in a new series of Trigger Point and so naturally (she’s 40 after all) the subject of cosmetic work has come up.
McClure is firmly in the “no” camp. “Botox? Do you think? Really?” is what she actually said, wrinkling her forehead in a way that, these days, Nicole Kidman can only dream of. The reason she gave – because you have to pick a side and explain why – is she’s “not too arsed about looking older”.
Had you guessed that McClure was Not Bothered? Or did you have her down as a Secret Tweaker, since she’s on the telly? If you’re remotely familiar with the actress you’d be in no doubt that she’s the former, because McClure is firmly in the take-me-as-you-find-me category of human and this lot have no interest in wasting their money on ironing out natural wear and tear.
Even if we didn’t know that her main interest is running a dementia choir and living a quiet life with her family, we have developed an instinct for spotting the Not Bothered and the Secret Tweakers and it’s only partly by looking at their faces.
What used to be a game (“Ooh, do you think she’s had work?”) is now an automatic reflex like swiftly checking which supermarket queue is moving faster, or keeping one eye on the drunk bloke at the bar. It’s part of our social sorting software. “Friend and potential ally”; “not sure”; and “alien” are broadly the categories we put strangers in the moment we come across them.
If you’re a Not Bothered yourself they are the allies and, presumably, if you’re an alien the Not Bothereds are the freaks who refuse to move with the times.
They think we look awful and down at heel, we think they look like fear most of the time, money and emptiness some of the time and, occasionally, a poignant bloody minded determination to survive in a cruel ageist world. Sharon Osbourne would be in that camp.
The Not Bothered are the easiest to spot and not just because they look roughly their age. Actress Sarah Lancashire (Happy Valley), for example. Things we know about Sarah Lancashire without having read a word about her: she does not shop on Goop. She does not dabble with Ozempic or make her own almond milk.
She has never muttered the words “my truth”, or watched and loved Emily in Paris, or queued up for a celebrity audience with Adele/Kylie with a prearranged question about where they get their energy, or barked “this is unacceptable” down the phone when her driver was not on time to pick her up from Kate Moss’ birthday party, or thrown her pet a party including Pawsecco.
All this we know about Vicky McClure and all the other Not Bothereds. However rich and famous they get, however many accolades come their way, they wouldn’t dream of messing with their faces because they don’t buy into any of the norms of the rich, successful person’s life.
Succession’s Sarah Snook is another (she’s spoken about refusing to change to suit someone else’s idea of how she should look). They’re still out there, even if they are a rarity and the Secret Tweakers and the Proud Face Fixers are gaining ground every day. It’s the Secret Tweakers (“not sures” on our sorting radar) that are the enemy.
You might say each to their own but the supposedly naturally dewy ones – the ones with the snatched jawlines and apple cheeks, peddling creams or posing on the red carpet, or just sitting on the sofa at the party making your daughter think that’s what 60 looks like and it’s all about green juicing – owe it all to Dr Vim and yet they would sue you for saying it.
Tell the truth: I look like this because I spend lots of money on cosmetic interventions. Then maybe we can be friends.
- This story originally appeared in the Telegraph UK