Imagine explaining to a Victorian child what we’re doing to our eyelids in 2026 in the name of beauty

Emer McLysaght Author and journalist

In Nobody Needs This, a new series for The Journal, Emer McLysaght focuses her eagle eye on the trends, products and notions we can do without. It’s not all giving out, however. She’ll also be keeping up with what’s catching her attention, keeping people interested and, quite frankly, driving her mad.

IMAGINE TRYING TO explain to a Victorian child that in the year 2026 we’re snipping off tiny slivers of eyelid skin and sewing the hole back together, all in the name of beauty.

Picture the scene. You travel back in time to 1862, landing with a bump and just missing a steaming pile of donkey shite in the street. A Victorian child clocks you with a gasp, reaching out a trembling, grubby hand to finger the screen on your phone, where an Instagram Reel of a woman from Laois restocking her pantry (in my day we called it a press) is playing on repeat.

The child, agape with wonder and fear, moves the finger on the screen and inadvertently swipes to the next video which shows a 27-year-old woman on day one of her recovery from upper blepharoplasty surgery. She was worried her hooded eyes were making her look “saggy and old”. She’s also self-conscious about her laugh lines, her cavernous pores, her ageing neck. Again, she’s 27.

The child touches their own eyelids. It would cost the equivalent of 30 years of their father’s wages to pay for the procedure. The money would probably be better spent on a round of smallpox vaccinations for the family.

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In the past twelve months upper blepharoplasty surgery has gone from something I’d never heard of to something I’m receiving a “lunchtime discount” for in a marketing email. It’s a procedure that has a medical basis; sagging eyelid skin can, in later life, cause vision problems. However, it has become the cosmetic procedure du jour. In the same way we’ve become completely conditioned to Botox, fillers, implants and chemical interventions we are now, at increasingly younger ages, being convinced that our eyelids are the problem.

We were never meant to look at ourselves this much. We were never meant to be able to zoom in on every aspect of ourselves; to spend hours poring over every perceived imperfection. It is crazy to me that people – not just women but predominantly women – in their twenties are already so terrified of ageing that they’re taking drastic steps to delay and avoid evidence of the passage of time.

When I look at pictures of myself in my twenties I want to cry at how soft and baby-faced I am. I want to shake younger me and tell me I’m gorgeous. Back then I was definitely highly critical of myself for various reasons but at least wasn’t at the mercy of 2026 social media scrutiny and the bullet train of cosmetic advances.

“Choice feminism” tells us that it’s none of our business what another person does with or to their body. It allows a belief that criticising cosmetic procedures is anti-feminist, because ultimately, it’s a woman’s own decision to have an upper bleph or a facelift or Botox and therefore the choice is feminist. But choice feminism in this instance is not for the collective good. It doesn’t centre the liberation of women from patriarchal norms. In fact, it enforces them. And I say this as someone who got Botox twice, mostly because everyone around me was getting it, and I was worried about looking like an old bag beside them. I found myself going from not really looking at myself that much at all, to scrutinising my lines and pores and droops in a mirror with my phone torch lighting me up like a ghoul.

We are too far gone in the invented war against ageing to ever come back from the frontlines. I would just love if we could slow the roll on the invention of insecurities to sell cosmetic procedures. We’ve had hip dips, thigh gaps, tooth gaps, thin lips, gummy smiles, turkey necks and bingo wings to worry about.

I was served a TikTok recently of a woman showing her followers that one of her nostrils is bigger than the other and that she’s considering surgery to correct it. The supposed disparity – which was so miniscule that I couldn’t tell which was the “bigger” nostril could only be viewed from a preposterous angle. We were never supposed to look at ourselves this much. You don’t need eyelid surgery. Wear your SPF. And if you do travel back in time to 1862 you can depress them by informing them that we still haven’t managed to eliminate child labour but that we are getting a season two of Heated Rivalry, so swings and roundabouts.

Everybody needs this

Here comes the hypocrite! I have still been looking at myself in the mirror a bit. I’ve been struggling with some woman-in-her-forties skin breakouts recently, dragging my mood and my confidence into my boots. A friend recommended trying azelaic acid and I opted for this €13.50 option from The Ordinary. It’s still early-ish days but my skin is softer, clearer and I’m somewhat freer from that teenage torment of where the next whopper spot might be making its appearance.

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Somebody tell the parents that the kids don't need to be constantly celebrating something

My pleasure list

The Hay literary festival in the UK has released what it’s calling its Pleasure List, a crowdsourced collection of 39 books aimed at reinvigorating a love of reading. It’s way more accessible than many “best books ever” lists and includes titles like The Song of Achilles, A Man Called Ove and Jilly Cooper’s Riders. Books that I’d include on my own pleasure list are:

• The Queen and I by Sue Townsend
• Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy
• Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes
• The Wedding People by Alison Espach
• Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
• A Town Called Alice by Nevil Shute
• We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Watch list

The Martin Short documentary on Netflix is a joy. The actor is best friends with all of the Hollywood heavyweights – Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, the late and great Catherine O’Hara – and this film chronicles his life, his loves and the amazing group holidays these stars and their families have had in his Canadian lake house over the years.

Emer will be back next Friday morning with more recommendations. 

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