There they are on Bravo, the plumped lips. And on Instagram, the rounded cheeks. And at your local Starbucks, the frozen foreheads. “It’s manipulating your own features and creating this weird new look in the process,” says Amy Wechsler, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York City. Wechsler is also an adjunct assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. And on that front, well: “This manipulation is messing with our minds. You walk into a room and you’re not sure how old anyone is anymore—no one necessarily looks younger, but everyone looks the same.”
Dermatologists and plastic surgeons across the country are seeing it happen—yes, in many cases, they’re also making it happen—and everyone we spoke with agreed: It’s a little freaky.
