From celebs announcing that they’re having them dissolved to a backlash against the doughy aesthetic, fillers are getting a bad press of late. WH asks if we’re finally tiring of the tweakment that defined a decade
The #MeToo movement, Game Of Thrones, Brexit. Cast your mind back over the past 10 years for some of the culture-shaping moments and there are too many to count. And yet, where beauty is concerned, you can define the aesthetic that’s dominated the past decade in a single word. The moniker given to substances designed to be injected beneath the surface of the skin, fillers have become the go-to treatment for adding volume to the face, fullness to the lips and definition to the jawline. The recognisable results have gone from niche to non-negotiable in certain circles, inspiring hundreds of lookalike filters and leading millions of women to submit to the needle themselves. Some 13.6 million non-surgical treatments were carried out globally in 2019, 4.3 million of which involved dermal fillers – a16% increase on the previous year, and a 51% increase since 2015*. That’s a lot of filler.
But lately, the needle has been shifting. Perhaps the most famous example of filler’s fall from grace comes from Courteney Cox. In March, she spoke of her disbelief while looking back at old photos of herself when she was using filler. And she’s not the only one with regrets. Love Island’s Faye Winter took to her Instagram Stories to show her 1.2 million followers what her lips looked like after having her filler dissolved, while YouTuber Alana Arbucci’s video titled ‘I miss my old face… getting my filler removed’ has had 4.5 million views.
Fillers are also facing some fierce competition. Buccal fat removal – a facial contouring procedure that reduces the appearance of lowercheek fullness, giving a sculpted appearance – is trending on TikTok, with videos on the subject having racked up more than 267 million views. Meanwhile, Emface, a new sculpting treatment that uses highintensity electrical stimulation to strengthen the muscles in your face, is quickly becoming known as the needle-free alternative. Skincare brands are also doing their best to mimic the aesthetic, with Shiseido’s Bio-Performance Skin Filler Serum the latest product to rack up hundreds of five-star reviews. So with a cultural kickback brewing and safer treatments entering the arena, have we finally had our fill of fillers?
Fulfilling demand
While they’ve been around for 40 years, it wasn’t until 2010 that fillers really penetrated the zeitgeist. Known as non-surgical ‘tweakments’, they’re usually made up of cross-linked hyaluronic acid; molecules that have gre
