The eight-episode show is an adaptation of Julia May Jonas's bestselling debut novel of the same name playing on Netflix. It came out earlier this year, March to be exact. I wished I had known. It would have been great to binge during facelift recovery.

Rachel Weisz plays an acclaimed writer and English professor at a liberal arts college who develops an increasingly unhinged obsession with a much younger colleague named Vladimir, played by Leo Woodall.

Weisz is 56. Woodall is 29. Their characters appear to be roughly the same ages.

And I am into it.

We never learn Rachel Weisz’s character’s name. It is deliberately obscured throughout the season. She is only ever referred to as “M.”

We’ve spent decades watching middle-aged men become obsessed with much younger women. Vladimir flips the script. This time, the woman gets to lust. She gets to be inappropriate. She gets the wandering eye. The sexual fantasies.

Watching Rachel, a woman in her mid-50s, become completely consumed by her attraction to a much younger teacher is enthralling and wildly entertaining.

I love the role reversal.

I love the dialogue.

Her character is constantly talking directly to us, letting us into an inner monologue that is very sexual, candid, funny, occasionally uncomfortable and refreshingly messy.

It is all incredibly fun to watch.

There’s something particularly satisfying about watching a woman in her 50s portrayed not merely as still sexual, but absolutely consumed by desire. Vladimir basically takes up residence in her brain.

So I’m watching. I’m entertained. I’m appreciating all of this. And I’m also wondering how I completely missed the show when it came out. Apparently I slept through the entire March press tour.

Yet, somewhere along the way, I developed another obsession entirely.

I cannot stop staring at Rachel Weisz’s face.

I almost hate admitting that because I love the show so much.

And, I love Rachel Weisz so much.

Major girl crush.

About ten years ago, I saw her and Daniel Craig in a supermarket in Woodstock near my house and was genuinely starstruck. I can confirm that she is every bit as beautiful standing near the produce aisle as she is on screen.

And at 56, she remains insanely beautiful.

But as I watched Vladimir, I kept noticing her face. Not because I think she looks bad. She absolutely does not.

It’s because I remembered something.

In 2011, Rachel Weisz joined what was described as the British Anti-Cosmetic Surgery League, alongside Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet.

Yes.

A league.

Apparently being against cosmetic surgery once required organized sport.

And of course Kate Winslet was involved.

Kate has been publicly objecting to actresses messing with their faces since approximately the invention of Botox. As longtime Charlotte’s Book readers know, Kate and I have already had words about this.

Admittedly, she was not present for them.

But back to the league.

I’m not much of a joiner to begin with, but the British Anti-Cosmetic Surgery League is one organization I can confidently say would reject my application on sight.

Weisz also famously criticized Botox, arguing that it should essentially be banned for actors in the same way steroids are banned for athletes because facial expression is part of an actor’s job. Although her ads are insanely airbrushed they have gotten banned in some countries.

These are pretty definitive positions on the topic.

And now, 15 years later, I’m watching Vladimir thinking:

Has Rachel left the league?

To be very clear, I have no idea what Rachel Weisz has or hasn’t done to her face. Unless Rachel sends me her treatment history, neither does anyone else looking at photographs on the internet.

But I spend an arguably unhealthy amount of time looking at celebrity faces, talking to cosmetic dermatologists and plastic surgeons, and writing about facial aging. I grew up on Star magazine and spent my 20s watching Joan Rivers’ Fashion Police. Analyzing celebrity choices is basically my favorite pastime, except now I interview doctors and call it research.

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Almost 10 years ago, when I was first starting Charlotte’s Book, Dr. Shereene Idriss wrote this article for me. I came across it recently and realized something: the advice still holds up. Really well.

A huge shoutout to Dr. Shereene Idriss, who worked with me in those very early Charlotte’s Book days. She was brilliant then, she’s brilliant now, and I’m incredibly grateful to all the doctors who took a chance on my little platform before anyone really knew what it was.

Back then, Charlotte’s Book grew into a full-fledged beauty website. Then life twisted a bit. I dropped the ball. And now I’m back on Substack. But through all of it, I kept that content alive and well.

Ten years later, after writing endlessly about aging and eventually getting a facelift myself (Allure documented it), I’ve now actually experienced what Shereene was describing. Her analogy is evergreen, incredibly accurate and, at this point, strangely personal.

Yeah. Your face is basically a couch, just like Shereene said. I like to think that mine is at least a really expensive B&B Italia couch. But it ages like one nonetheless.

Good intel like this doesn’t need to be reinvented, and this article is just as accurate today as it was 10 years ago. Smart and thoughtful cosmetic doctors explain what is actually happening to your face so you can make smarter decisions about what, if anything, you want to do about it.

So here it is again, from the Charlotte’s Book archives, written by Dr. Shereene Idriss. Originally published October 22, 2017. Republished below and unpaywalled for your reading pleasure. Ten years later, the article is holding up beautifully. Unlike my jawline, which required professional assistance.

The Couch Analogy

To keep it simple (or, as simple as can be) let’s compare your face to a couch: you first start by noticing a small stain (note to self: avoid red wine when hosting parties), which can be lightened to appear invisible.

With time, that stain becomes more prominent as others appear around it, making the fabric appear discolored. Then, one day, you notice the fabric isn’t as firm as it used to be, having lost its elasticity in some areas.

Upon further inspection, your once plump and heavenly cushions have become saggy and sunken, exposing parts of the sofa’s skeleton. And then, the final stage, the last mortal blow, is the day you attempt to sit on your couch and the sturdy framework that lent you faithful support all of those years, finally gives in and crumbles.

This, my friends, is your face in a nutshell.

The Reveal

The fabric is your skin, revealing the earliest evidence of aging through discoloration. The plump cushions can be likened to your once youthful cheeks made up of all of the underlying glorious muscle and fat.

And, the framework, the pièce de resistance holding it all together, is your facial skeleton.

Like any chronic process, you don’t fully appreciate the changes of your facial skeleton until they are quite advanced. Minimal changes in your framework are masked through time by the superficial cushioning of your facial muscles and fat pads, until redistribution and loss reveal a frail structure.

A Closer Look: Bone Loss

The implications of facial bone loss on the aging face are crucial to understand in order to restore a natural youthful appearance.

By early adulthood, maximum bone density is achieved in both men and women. As we approach our early 30s, bone density begins to experience a gradual rate of decline. Unfortunately, women tend to undergo a more significant decrease in facial bone volume starting at a younger age, hence lending credence to the universal truth of women aging faster than men.

Four main areas undergo change resulting in dramatic repercussions:

1. The orbital rim (aka eye socket) widens, particularly along the outer inferior edges, giving your eyes a more sunken appearance with more prominent fat pads resulting in a tired look.

2. The mid-face recedes, softening support to overlying structures.

3. The nasal cartilage separates, lengthening the nose and dropping the nasal tip.

4. The mandible (aka jawline) retracts, unveiling jowls and an unstructured neck. All of this happens almost simultaneously, like a carefully orchestrated attack on your youth. The facial muscles and fat pads decrease in volume, while the casing holding them together (the superficial muscular aponeurotic system aka SMAS) loses its elasticity, culminating in a true domino effect. From the top down, your temples appear more sunken lending way to the formation of heavy pads beneath your eyes, followed by strong folds around your mouth, weighing down the corners of your lips resulting in jowls along your jawline and the appearance of a saggy neck.

Knowledge Is Power

With this understanding, you are now better equipped to understand your options when considering cosmetic work.

If your goal is to age gracefully, quick fixes are not your solution. For example, avoid cheek implants as you will only continue to age around them—and trust me, this is not a good look.

Likewise, filling the folds around your mouth with injectables will only result in the dreaded “muzzle” look. The answer, my friends, is “maintenance” through regular use of a thorough toolkit that should include daily basics such as SPF and antioxidants to periodic treatments with lasers, ultrasound, LEDs, fillers and neuromodulators. 

What it boils down to is strengthening your foundation through many little interventions along your journey through life. Like that sofa, our skin will inevitably age, but there is a lot you can do to delay the inevitable and embrace it gracefully.

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I brought in fashion writer Christine Morrison, author of Clothes Minded (no affiliate link) and Writing in Black and White for an actual expert opinion on why people are paying an insane amount of money to wear someone else’s logo on their head.

So the article wasn’t just a rant. There was journalism involved.

I called the series The Price Is Wrong. Since that article performed relatively well, welcome to installment number two.

I am deeply into spending money wisely, probably because I spent most of my former life working in finance. And there is a particular category of wildly overpriced items that makes something in my former Wall Street brain short-circuit.

To be clear, The Price Is Wrong isn’t about expensive things. I love many expensive things. It’s about expensive things that are terrible uses of money and what to buy instead.

Which brings me to today’s offender.

As summer comes to a close in the U.S., I would like to formally nominate one purse for permanent retirement: The YSL Icare raffia tote priced at $5,300.

Somehow, through the sheer force of influencers, celebrities and approximately 4,000 articles telling us what “chic girls” were carrying this summer, this thing became the bag.

Nothing makes me question whether something is actually chic faster than being repeatedly told that chic people are wearing it.

After this season, I hope it never rears its overpriced, impractical straw head again.

So before I start yelling about the price, and then show you what Christine and I think you should spend your money on instead, let’s discuss the actual bag.

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I even had a group chat with friends dedicated to analyzing ears. All we did was search for detectable signs of an incision and inspect the stitch work.

I did this f…

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Two weeks ago, I published Meet All the Middle Aged Women Who Don’t Exist. Since then, it has taken on a life of its own. As I write this, it’s racked up more than 4,700 likes, 871 restacks, 1,700 shares, and over 750 comments.

It quickly became a kind of public service announcement being passed from friend to friend: Be careful. These women may not even exist.

Even medical professionals have started sharing the article. proclaimed “every women over 40 needs to read this.” I don't think I could ask for a better compliment.

There was one small win, too. “Isabelle Santos,” the AI influencer I highlighted in my article, has been taken down by instagram. Hooray!

Unfortunately she is still alive and well on Facebook where her latest post invites people to comment "REAL" to receive her glow-up guide. The soundtrack? Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.”

At this point, the joke is writing itself. I couldn't write satire this good.

If you come across these AI accounts, keep reporting them. One report won't change much, but thousands might. Once you learn to spot them, you start seeing them everywhere.

I thought I’d just written an article about AI-generated women duping middle aged women into buying supplements. It turns out I'd accidentally started a much bigger conversation. One about authenticity, beauty, trust, AI... and what social media has quietly become.

A few days after my article was published, The New York Times reported on AI-generated supplement scams affecting all ages and sexes. Jia Tolentino also published a brilliant essay in The New Yorker about the increasingly artificial world of beauty, Instagram Face, facelifts, algorithms, and what happens when the face itself starts to separate from the actual person.

The conversation around AI-generated women and the increasingly artificial world of beauty is becoming more fascinating, more complicated, and frankly, very disturbing. What happens when we can no longer tell what's real?

“Wow, this is terrifying. But also, I guess, not surprising”… said.

I did what any Substack writer would do, this past week I spent an embarrassingly long time reading all 700 comments. Somewhere between comment #286 and #493, I realized this article wasn’t really about AI women anymore. I found something much more interesting and I’ll do my best to sum it up here.

It’s not about the artificial women. It’s their artificial life that hurts.

We already accept that magazines are now using AI models and Hollywood has AI actresses like Tilly Norwood scoring roles. We know commercials use actors. We understand that advertising isn’t real life.

One reader defiantly asked: “How is this any different from using actors in a commercial?”

It’s a fair question. But I think the difference is that we all know the person in a TV commercial is playing a role. These AI women aren’t presented as actresses. They’re presented as your friend. Your peer.

That’s a very different kind of persuasion than just a fake beauty image. And judging by the comments...That’s the part that made people the most angry. This is so much more. Someone who’s supposedly lived your life, solved your problem, and is generously “sharing” what worked.

As wrote,”If we reach a point where we no longer know whether the woman sharing her story is real, whether the photograph is real, whether the recommendation comes from lived experience or a carefully engineered algorithm, something precious is lost.”

added, “my biggest fear with the integration of AI. It’s not that we might start trusting the fake things, it’s that we will stop recognizing and trusting the real things.

Confidence scams have always worked the same way. They don’t start by asking for your money. They start by earning your trust. They tell you a story that feels familiar. They make you believe they’re just like you.

Only then do they sell you the miracle. That predatory nature of Isabelle and her friends is what outraged readers the most.

We Miss When Social Media Was Actually Social (And Not One Giant Sales Funnel)

While outrage over the army of AI-generated wellness women dominated the comments, an even bigger frustration emerged: people are simply exhausted by what social media has become. One reader described it as a “simulated reality” where nothing feels real anymore. Many others said they were ready to delete Instagram altogether.

Ironically, today Meta was ordered to pay $942 million after finding the company failed to adequately protect children on its platforms. Children absolutely deserve protection. I’d argue adults need a little protecting too.

To me, social media has just become QVC with better lighting.

What happened to the instagram where people just shared photos of their dog, their holiday, and an occasional blurry meal instead of funneling you into a seven-figure business course... or an Amazon Glow-Up Guide? put it simply that she is just “tired of being sold to” at every turn.

There is a general exhaustive feeling that every post, carousel, or reel is trying to sell, sell, sell. said “marketing has always been a dishonest trade but never so much as today.”

And it isn’t just beauty. It’s wellness. Productivity. Business coaching. Parenting. Dating. Apparently everyone woke up one morning and became an expert in everything. Everyone has a course. Everyone has a secret. Everyone has a link in bio. Social media has become an endless parade of hooks, Canva carousels, AI-generated slop, and sales funnels.

The mental gymnastics required to consume social media is becoming too much. And now we have to worry about AI women. Is this person AI? Is this an affiliate link? Is this person actually qualified? Does she even exist? Is it an AI clone?

People want a real mistake, a real conversation, a real face, a real expert. But it’s becoming nearly impossible to filter through it. detailed a moment watching her friend post every photo with a Snapchat beauty filter. “Every one. The face on her phone barely looked like the woman standing next to me.”

AI Is Pouring Gasoline on the Beauty Wars

If there’s one debate that can reliably start a civil war in the comments section of any beauty article, it’s this one: Should we age naturally? Or should we fight it?

This article on AI women was no exception.

There was a collective relief in the comments of intelligent women discovering they weren’t comparing themselves to real people. While most readers agreed they’d been fooled by Isabelle and her fictional friends, the comments did split into two camps and it gave me a lot to chew on mentally.

One side argued that if we were fooled by Isabelle in the first place, maybe that was the bigger problem. Maybe we’d become so willing to believe in miracle peptides, miracle creams, and miracle supplements that we wanted the fantasy to be true.

A few readers were basically saying:

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But the biggest mistake I see people make is spending months, sometimes even years, researching surgeons...and almost no time preparing for recovery.

Which is strange, because recovery is where you'll actually spend your time. The surgery itself lasts half a day. Recovery lasts weeks. Healing lasts months. A little planning beforehand can make those first few weeks dramatically easier.

The first 7 to 10 days of facelift recovery are a complete mindf*ck.

Your surgeon will do an excellent job explaining the medical side of recovery. They'll tell you which medications to stop, when to ice, when to shower, when to come back for your follow-up appointments. The care I received from my surgeon, his team, and my recovery nurse was exceptional. But the healing journey is far from easy.

There are plenty of recovery hacks that can make your post-op experience smoother. The less you’re scrambling to order a wedge pillow, the right face wash, or a baby spoon, the more energy you have to simply rest, both mentally and physically.

Those seemingly random purchases ended up making such a difference.

And thank goodness for Valium. Seriously. Put it on the shopping list. 😂 Recovery is really about reducing stress before it even begins.

Before we get into all the things I think you should buy before a facelift, I want to spend the first part of this Substack article talking about the one purchase that never made the list because, unfortunately, Amazon doesn't sell her: a recovery nurse.

You can't Prime one to your hotel room at 2:00 a.m. after you've decided you need her. By then, the moment has passed.

Let's dig into recovery nurse economics.

Every facelift has hidden costs. This is the biggest. In my opinion, it’s the smartest place to spend money. Here's exactly what I spent, why I extended my nursing care, what I'd do differently, what Olivia DeFilippo (my nurse) recommends, and why I think there's a magic number when it comes to recovery support.

Then we'll dive into the over-researched Amazon rabbit hole I went down on your behalf. If you’ve been reading Charlotte’s Book for a while, you already know I have an unhealthy obsession with ridiculously good Amazon finds. Facelift recovery was no exception. I probably spent as much time researching recovery products as I did researching surgeons.

By the time surgery rolled around, my hotel room looked like an Amazon fulfillment center. While I do discuss several key items in this article, I also co-created a 29 things you need to make your recovery smoother guide. I had to plug it. Emily Wagner and I worked hard on it.

How Much Should You Spend On A Recovery Nurse?

Initially, I was only planning to hire a recovery nurse for the first 24 hours. Most offices, including Dr. Mark Murphy's, require about 18 hours of nursing care, so I thought, "Twenty-four hours should be plenty." I was wrong.

Expect costs to range from $100 an hour to $250 an hour. I originally booked Olivia for 24 hours at a cost of $2,400.

As surgery day got closer and my panic level steadily escalated, I increased 24 hours to 39 hours. I wanted to make sure I had coverage for two full nights. It was expected I would emerge from surgery around 4:00pm, 39 hours would get me just that.

Olivia, who was also in the operating room with me, escorted me from surgery back to my hotel. I honestly don't remember much of it. She somehow got me into bed and the next morning took me back to Dr. Murphy at 7:00am to get my bandages off.

She also became my designated photographer because I refused to open my eyes for the first three days, and then refused to look in a mirror for another five days. At my instruction, Olivia kindly documented what was going down, which is why my eyes are closed in all of these photos.

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Normally I’m writing about facelifts, peptides, celebrity faces, and the psychological warfare that is aging. But recently I’ve developed an irrational fixation on certain luxury fashion items that I simply cannot stop thinking about.

Not because I love them. Quite the opposite. I despise…

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However, it’s also not where I expected to find myself a few years ago.

This week, my facelift journey officially made it into Allure.

My good girlfriend Michele Promaulayko, who writes for both Allure and Charlotte’s Book, published a piece called “I Spent a Week As My Friend’s Facelift…

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So yes. Potentially six to eight straight weeks of grey root buildup and a growing zebra stripe down the middle of your head.

To be extra safe, because I am wildly paranoid and wanted to risk absolutely nothing, I stopped coloring my hair two weeks before surgery and waited a full eight weeks post-op to start again. Ten straight weeks of grey roots was in stark contrast to my freshly lifted face. Thank God for chic vintage headscarves, Yankee baseball caps, and a great (yet gentle) root touch-up product.

During this incredibly glamorous chapter of my life (photos follow down below), I became mildly psychotic about finding a good root cover product and basically ordered every option I could find.

Prior to surgery, I had been using the Oribe root touch up spray that everyone loves and recommends. Walk into any beauty store and it’s treated like a root touch-up gift from God. I genuinely do not understand the hype. It only comes in two shades, and I personally find aerosol root sprays messy, inaccurate, and annoying to apply. Rita Hazan’s root touch-up spray is also a cult favorite, and I feel exactly the same way about that one too. No bueno.

I wanted something gentle, easy to control, and honestly something that matched my roots better. More importantly, I wanted something I could apply with precision around my incision lines without feeling like I was spray painting my scalp.

Then I found the holy grail. And what I find especially interesting is that after trying roughly ten different products, this one was on absolutely nobody’s “best of” lists. InStyle recently “tested” root cover products and somehow this wasn’t included anywhere. I suspect because it doesn’t advertise with them? This exact dynamic is exactly why traditional beauty media is slowly dying. Anyway. I digress.

Then I came across this incredibly magical little product. And yes, post-op photos ahead.

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I wear that badge proudly.

Could I have used the $5K on more treatments instead? Sure. But instead, I spent it working up enough courage to go under the knife and making sure I was making the right decision. And honestly? I learned a lot.

Is it moderately borderline psychopathic? Maybe.

I am an obsessive researcher by nature. On everything. Maybe that comes from my former life as a top-ranked Wall Street analyst at JPMorgan, where my entire job was essentially deep research and trying to avoid very, very expensive mistakes on the order of tens of millions everyday. Or maybe it came from the sheer anxiety of making a permanent decision about my face. Likely both.

Either way, I went D-E-E-P.

And judging by the volume of emails, DMs, and group chats, many of you are in deep as well. What started as me casually sharing my own experience somehow turned into a full-blown facelift thread. Many women I know are facelift-curious and overwhelmed. They don’t know how to choose a surgeon. They don’t know what questions to ask. And perhaps most importantly, they don’t know how much of what they are seeing online is real. In my humble opinion, so much of it is sugar coated and wildly misleading.

So, after an almost absurd number of consults, countless hours of research, and now having actually gone through the surgery and recovery myself, I wanted to start packaging some of this information together in a more useful way.

After seeing 11 surgeons in person, plus two international consults, the biggest takeaway is this: there are a lot of great doctors at all price points, and many have completely different opinions. You could meet ten “top” surgeons and get many different recommendations, plans, and vibes. The challenge isn’t just finding a good doctor. It’s finding the one who understands your goals, your psychology, your tolerance for the process, all within the budget that you think is appropriate to spend.

Choosing someone to operate on your face is terrifying as is paying the bill in full. Ouch. The price of a facelift seems to be going up rapidly. Some of the doctors I consulted with only 6 months ago are now double in price. All that said, I could not be happier to be on the other side of it. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve made.

There is so, so much information I want to share from these consults that it simply doesn’t fit cleanly into Substack articles. And more importantly, a lot of what I learned isn’t really written anywhere. I went into the dark depths of Instagram and YouTube, and I genuinely feel like I have a different perspective and value add than what is currently out there.

I am hoping to package up this information in a useful way. For my inaugural guide, I teamed up with my girlfriend Emily Wagner of GroomedLA was also having one. Literally the same week.

She’s also a-New Yorker that relocated to Los Angeles, which is probably why we get along. We chose two completely different surgeons, and we are both ecstatic with our results. We also chose very different recovery paths. I went full rest-and-Valium mode. Emily went full hyperbaric chamber and every recovery extra imaginable. I’m 48 and Emily is 60. She also felt like she had too much information not to share.

Because both of us were getting bombarded with questions, we decided to move forward with this collaborative content initiative aptly called The Girlfriend Guides, co-authored by both of us and includes everything we learned from the consult process.

These are practical, no bullshit, fully transparent guides designed to save you time, money, stress, and hopefully a few emotional spirals. If you like them, more to come…

These are not medical guides. And they are definitely not “best doctors” lists. They are practical guides about choosing a doctor, navigating consults, managing expectations, and understanding the emotional and psychological side of all of this.

So if you do purchase a guide, let me know what you think! Now, because so many of you have asked, here is the full list of surgeons I consulted with. You already know about Dr. Ben Talei and Dr. Steven Levine, and that I ultimately chose Dr. Mark Murphy to perform my surgery. Below is the full rundown. All excellent doctors at the top of their game. And if you have questions, leave them in the comments, DM me, or email me.

The Consults

I started with

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During the April 29 episode (my first time watching this podcast… and wow, tough viewing), in a very orchestrated interview, the mighty momager made it very clear she loves her $400,000 facelift and her surgeon.

I watched the whole episode so you don’t have to, because it will actively lower your IQ. And after having a facelift 12 weeks ago, I feel very qualified to weigh in. My group chats and DMs have been blowing up with “what do you think of this?” so this felt worth breaking down.

I believe a large part of this facelift media circus is the swelling honeymoon period (which I’ll break down day by day below after just going through it myself), but let’s not pretend Photoshop, Facetune, and ring lights aren’t doing a massive amount of heavy lifting here.

In my former life, I also had an intimate dinner with Kim Kardashian and saw firsthand the lighting, media, and Photoshop circus likely contributing to all of this.

I have thoughts. Many of them.

But Before We Start, Kris’ Facelift Is Great

Before I dive into the swelling honeymoon period, lighting, and everything else, I want to say this clearly: for anyone, and especially surgeons on Instagram claiming her facelift is “slipping” and publicly critiquing the technique, that is wildly unprofessional and should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

If you are following, consulting with, or considering surgery with someone posting videos breaking down why Kris Jenner’s facelift is “bad,” I would seriously reconsider. No reputable, high quality surgeon would do this. That is not expertise. That is marketing. And not the good kind.

Kris Jenner looks amazing. I wrote about it. It’s gorgeous. It’s a great facelift. And while I personally didn’t have a great consult with that doctor, there is no doubt his work is great.

Ok. Let’s keep going.

Photoshop, lighting, etc.

I’m honestly confused why more people aren’t talking about this and just discussing the facelift technique? Are we not all smarter than this by now?

So, if you watch Kris Jenner’s facelift defense episode, the podcast is almost unwatchably contrived. The commentary feels “creatively innocent” as she talks about “minding my own business” while attending Lauren Sánchez’s party. Poor Kris was dragged into a facelift media storm.

I am absolutely sure Lauren Sánchez’s parties are famously private among celebrity circles. Completely devoid of photographers, special lighting, and photo editors. That is obviously why Kris went. The first “viral” photos came out of that event, and those same images are now being treated as the final result.

Not only was Kris’s face still likely in the early healing stages, where even light swelling can make your face look unusually smooth and lineless, but are we also meant to believe her team did not edit those images within an inch of their lives? The idea that these photos are organic and untouched is about as believable as saying Bradley Cooper didn’t get an upper bleph or that Demi Moore never had a facelift.

If you do decide to watch this mind-numbing episode, fast forward to around the 21 minute mark. Kris very sweetly explains this sticky situation that brought unwanted attention to her facelift. It’s semi hilarious to watch these words come from the momager of a family whose entire existence is being photographed, filmed, edited, and distributed globally. Their literal business model is being seen, filmed, lit, posted, and analyzed. And now we are pretending post-facelift photos from a major event just… appeared? That she was somehow swept up in it all?

My take? Kris was likely in that post-facelift high, loved how she looked (I get it, it’s intoxicating), and wanted those photos—**which were also clearly edited—**out immediately. I actually briefly touch upon this dynamic in the Facelift Consult Guide when looking at before and after images.

I have sat at an intimate birthday dinner with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West about eight-ish years ago. This was not a press event. A real dinner with real friends. And even there, the photos went from phone to editor before they were ever posted. No raw image. Ever. I am always surprised how many people still think “candid” means unedited. It doesn’t.

I now live half the year in Australia, which I can confidently say is the influencer and fake lighting capital of the world. Until I lived here, I did not fully appreciate how manipulated images are. Now I see people in person all the time and think, this is not how you look in real life. Influencers carry ring lights around like their Rhode Lip Tint. It’s always in their purse. I am not kidding.

You know what I would actually love? If Kris Jenner posted real before and after medical photos the way Denise Richards did. That would be honesty. What we’re seeing now is not honesty. It’s presentation. And, quite honestly, a little bit of gaslighting powered by image manipulation and the internet happily eating it up.

Now, let’s move on to more highbrow topics: the swelling honeymoon period and how to actually align your aesthetic with your doctor.

The Honeymoon Swelling Period

What you are likely seeing is absolutely not a failed facelift. It is healing. It is settling. It is the slow exit from what I call, and what many doctors call, the swelling honeymoon period — aka what I fondly refer to as the “I look 19 again” phase.

Yes, there is a brutal phase right after surgery where you look completely insane.

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I certainly did not think I’d ever be someone seriously considering a facelift. That was for other people. Richer people. …

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This new era of celebrities actually admitting what they’ve done feels… refreshing. Long overdue, frankly. More of that, please. Maybe Demi Moore will finally come clean? Please Demi. I implore you.

What makes Denise Richard’s facelift story even more interesting for me is that I recently sat in a consult with her surgeon. And I learned so much.

YES, I SAT IN HIS CHAIR

I actually had a consult with Dr. Ben Talei late last year when I was deciding who to use for my own facelift.

I can truly honestly say that Dr. Ben Talei was one of the best consults I had (and remember I had 12 of them). I also say that having met with some very expensive, very well-known celebrity doctors, including Kris Jenner’s surgeon.

The experience is not always what you would expect. I personally expect a lot. When you are paying $500 or more for a consult and they are expecting you to pay potentially hundreds of thousands for surgery. I want a deep dive. I assume you are getting a deep, thoughtful analysis of your face. That is not always the case.

Before I even stepped into Dr. Talei’s office, his team asked me to submit not just current photos of every angle, but photos of my younger self. That alone told me a lot about how he thinks.

I DID MY HOMEWORK (OBSESSIVELY)

During my facelift journey, I consulted with 12 surgeons. Yes, 12. Across New York, Beverly Hills, Palm Beach, Dallas, and even South Korea. Many readers have been asking me to put together a pros and cons list of all. It’s a great idea. If you have specific questions or requests, leave them in the comments or email me.

Photos, details, all the juicy stuff. It’s coming. Soon I’ll be sharing my pre-facelift nutrition protocol that the wonderful Jennifer Hanway walked me through.

But given all the conversation around Denise’s result, I wanted to add some real, firsthand perspective from my consult with her surgeon.

Also, I’ll admit it, I love chiming in on celebrity gossip… especially when I actually have something useful to say.

THE CONSULT

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I am taking a quick break from facelift content and celebrity chatter for a quick and unglamorous non-luxury product tip.

I’ve tried every lip product from the iconic (but honestly kind of foul-smelling) Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream my mother used, the standard Aquaphor tube that every dermatologist on planet earth recommends, to Glossier Balm Dot Com (I remain completely baffled why everyone likes this?) In addition to every lip balm I have tried every lip scrub from La Mer to Tatcha.

And the BEST product, while not glamorous and with objectively ugly packaging, that works absolute magic on lips: baby diaper rash cream. Otherwise known as panthenol, or provitamin B5. I purchased it on Amazon for $16 and use a tiny amount at night before bed.

I originally bought it during this past brutal New York winter while I was upstate recovering from my facelift. There were lots of long walks in the cold, very dry air, and my lips were wrecked. Luckily my jawline was looking snatched. More on that to come.

The “celebrity cult product” commonly associated with the ingredient panthenol is

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Something strange has happened in the last 6 months sinc…

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This is the longest my face has gone without “assistance” since I was 30 years old. That’s when I first started getting light botox to prevent crow’s feet. At the time my then husband forbade it. I went anyway and h…

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The story …

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Personally, I love Tom Ford glasses and sunglasses. They’re quiet-luxury perfection. Minimal to no logos, just that sleek gold “T.” I can’t stand giant logos screaming down the side of someone’s frames. Unless they’re vintage and iconic, oversized branding is a no for me.

And since I’ve been on a Botox break while I wait for my facelift in 2026, I’ve been buying more and more sunglasses and tinted eyeglasses — my current form of camouflage.

Recently, I discovered a website where I’ve been scoring authentic Tom Ford glasses for nearly 50% off. Friends have snagged Prada frames for similar deals.

This is my two-minute share below.

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