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Tarot card of the month: The Moon
Are you really behind in life? Or are you under the illusion of society’s standards? During retrograde season the Moon card can help you
Text: Irène Schäppi
Photos: Courtesy of the subjects
Are you exhausted too? I am not only tired, but completely floored, the moment I am confronted via social media, Substack channels or sometimes even within my own circle with beauty routines that simply overwhelm me. A possible example: 4.30 a.m., the alarm goes off, and woman and/or man free themselves from beauty gadgets such as mouth tapes, strategically placed scar patches – designed to prevent the creasing caused by sleeping on the side or stomach – castor-oil belly wraps, and who knows what else. Then a variety of supplements, ideally mixed with creatine water, followed by at least fifteen minutes on the vibration plate, red-light LED mask included. In the bathroom: layering of various beauty products, gua sha massage or ultrasound device for taut skin, sun protection not to be forgotten. Then out with the weighted vest. Back from the morning 10k-step walk, there is breakfast – please as high in protein as possible, otherwise fat-burning won’t work. Coffee only afterwards, since on an empty stomach it is said to drive up cortisol levels. And all this because a large part of our society aspires to look like Hailey Bieber, Anne Hathaway or Braden Peters aka Clavicular.
Scrolling, comparing, falling short. A mechanism that is anything but accidental.
Yes, I belong to that camp too. Which is why my Instagram archive is full of saved posts on face yoga, dietary regimens, Pilates routines @home and whatnot – which I rarely if ever revisit. To this is added the constant comparing with various A-listers and a faintly subconscious feeling of not being beautiful enough – which is to say, not good enough.
That I am not alone in this is well documented. Researchers around Minhui Li proved in August 2025 in Frontiers in Psychology: it is not the posting but the scrolling through images of more beautiful bodies that increases body-related envy and dissatisfaction with one’s own. The mechanism is called Appearance Upward Comparison. A systematic review by Xu et al., published in SAGE Open in 2025, arrives at the same finding: women are structurally more at risk – not because of individual weakness, but because this mechanism has been deliberately built into platform design. Instead of celebrating individuality and body positivity, social-media corporations stoke misogyny within women’s own ranks. And, naturally, consumption. Which delights the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
For this piece I spoke with 63 people of varied backgrounds, professions and ages. The voices that follow are a selection. The evaluation of these conversations shows: 62 percent currently experience a split between perfected beauty on one side and consciously lived naturalness on the other. 63 percent feel that “being beautiful” is more highly valued socially than “feeling well”. More attractive people still have it easier professionally and socially – the “Pretty Privilege”. Franzisca Gartenmann, founder of Keen Wellbeing: “When Instagram really entered daily life around 2014, suddenly there were constantly curated images of ultra-slim bodies. I still remember those moments when I was convinced that beauty meant eating less, taking up less space.” Franziska’s account is not a personal moment of weakness – it is a collective experience. Yours truly too. The photographer Raphaela Pichler: “I keep questioning myself: why do I still associate being slim with beauty?” Even the 65-year-old content creator and pro-ageing activist Heidi Clements struggles with it – she becomes depressed the moment she gains weight. And hates that in herself.
So what happens in a culture in which Ozempic has become a status symbol? At this year’s Oscars, this was more obvious than ever: faces taut and extremely polished, slender and over-trained bodies almost disappearing into the haute couture creations. Demi Moore in her custom-made feather dress by Gucci. Various media called this look “dazzling”. Not so Kirsten Fleming of the New York Post, who called the event the “Oscars Ozempic Parade” and dared to ask: “Why is no one brave enough to tell these stars how frail and sick they look?”
The fact is: Ozempic, Botox, fillers and cosmetic surgery have long since become more than a lifestyle choice. As soon as performance can be optimised, it rarely remains optional. Leyla Hajrovic, an influencer in the luxury sector, finds this development highly problematic: “We live in a time in which knowledge is more accessible than ever – about techniques, risks, choosing the right doctors. All the more difficult to watch, then, when people approach procedures, especially invasive ones, with such casualness. Social media in particular sometimes plays down or even romanticises certain treatments.” Charles Blunier, Creative Director in Zurich and publisher of the international STUDIO Magazine: “Self-optimisation often suggests that we are not enough. I believe not in optimisation but in precision – not in becoming someone else, but in showing more clearly who you are.” Philipp Rossmann, freelance journalist, finds the whole debate “absolutely boring and devoid of style”. He doesn’t want to be injected with salmon sperm or anything of the kind, however great the pressure from his surroundings may be: “I love being able to move my face – including my forehead – even if that means I now have visible lines there.”
Elay Neal Moses, photographer and filmmaker, raises a theme that is discussed too rarely in this context: “Ugliness sometimes seems almost like the illegitimate daughter driven out of the village. I believe a more open discourse about it could actually benefit the topic of beauty.” But who exactly has the right to decide what counts as beauty – or ugliness?
Longevity, biohacking, self-optimisation – and the question of whom we are really doing it for.
We find ourselves in what is called a holistic phase – and that is no coincidence. Longevity, biohacking, self-determination: a multi-billion-dollar wellness industry and an entire generation of self-optimisation gurus have declared these terms the new normal. One of my interview questions was: “How do you recognise when care turns into control?” I can answer that for myself – as someone who suffered from anorexia in her teenage years – very well. Stephanie Neubert, founder and editor-in-chief of HEYDAY, a magazine for women over 40: “Taking care of yourself can be something very beautiful – movement, care, health. But when it becomes permanent self-surveillance, beauty loses its lightness. For me, the most important question is: am I doing this out of care for my body – or out of fear of not being enough?” Hugo Tiburccio, CEO of The Front Row Group with offices from Los Angeles to Tokyo, answers with poetic radicality: “… when my inner voice becomes punishing. When rituals stop being supportive and start to feel compulsive, when numbers dominate the mood and the mirror becomes a place of inspection rather than recognition.” I know what he’s talking about. And, currently in perimenopause and therefore with a few extra kilos on my ribs, I am very much in the middle of it.
These conversations and the answers they bring help. Among them, those of Kelley Ralph. The transpersonal integrative psychotherapist from London: “I no longer look at the outer shell. I sense the level on which someone is operating – that tells me far more than any face.” Which leads me directly to the next question: what do faces reveal about us – even when we don’t want them to? Or when they no longer can? Whether on the street or in our feeds, more and more faces – both women’s and men’s – have become almost indistinguishable from one another. That isn’t a judgement, but an observation supported by research: the systematic review by Xu et al. finds that social-media platforms structurally homogenise beauty ideals – regardless of origin, age or skin tone. Not because we all want the same thing, but because the algorithm keeps showing us the same thing. Matin Maulawizada, makeup artist in New York, who has been preparing celebrities for red carpets for decades: “When it’s well done, my first thought shifts from ‘wow, pretty’ to ‘wow, there’s nothing distinctive left.’ Everything melts into a template.”
What faces tell us – and what happens when they no longer can.
There is an area in the brain called the Fusiform Face Area, which reads faces exclusively – more precisely, patterns of movement. When those patterns are missing, we perceive a face as vague, diffuse. Even when it is technically perfect. The American beauty journalist Valerie Monroe, in June 2025 in Allure, applied the term Uncanny Valley – coined by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970 – to Botoxed faces: that strange uneasiness that arises when something seems almost human, but only almost. What lies behind this is more than an aesthetic problem. Emmeline Clein pointed out in April 2026 in The Cut that a great part of our emotional education happens via micro-expressions – those minute, unconscious movements of the face which we neither produce intentionally nor consciously perceive. Anyone unable to show these limits not only their own expressive capacity – the face becomes unreadable to others. Even negative emotions.
Melanie Winiger, model, presenter and entrepreneur, puts it plainly: “You can’t Botox away your frustration. You can Botox away wrinkles. But the frustration sitting deep inside – that stays.” Anna Rosenwasser, member of the Swiss National Council: “Everything that makes us look younger allows us to express less anger – in our expression.” Or joy. I experienced that for myself in 2018, when – absurdly – just before a video shoot on face yoga for the former Friday Magazin, I had my frown line frozen. And then, precisely because I felt so embarrassed about it, I never had Botox again.
Young faces are pleasing faces; faces that demand less. At Hergett, content creator and product designer with Thai roots, took a long time to free himself from this dogma. As the only Asian child in his kindergarten, he had a distorted image of how he was supposed to look – as a child he even wanted to have his nose operated on. Over time, he stopped automatically using Western beauty standards as his benchmark: “Ever since I stopped seeing only Eurocentric features as beautiful, I can see beauty in everything.” Philipp Rossmann is convinced: “I’m convinced that natural facial expression will make a comeback in a few years, and that signs of ageing will come to be considered chic.” I hope he is right.
Joëlle Ciocco, facialist in Paris and founder of the Épidermologie® method, has been devoted for more than fifty years to the understanding of the “skin-soul” relationship – in the deep conviction that the natural equilibrium of the skin is the key to its longevity. Her verdict on exaggerated beauty regimes is clear: the loss of a basic hygiene routine is today being compensated by a veritable “cosmetic obesity” – overconsumption of products, excessive layering, unsuitable combinations of active ingredients, to the detriment of skin physiology. She cites Plato: “Truth, goodness, beauty – three foundations indispensable to the growth of the inner life.”
This quotation reminds me of a Taoist philosophy that makes complete sense to me: our energy shapes our face. Not what one does, but how one is. A person who is fully themselves has a magnetic quality from which you cannot look away. Whether their mouth corners droop or they have a turkey neck: utterly irrelevant. That sounds like Healthy-Girl-Talk on social media, I know. But then Sophie Carbonari offers something that for me captures this philosophy perfectly: “Beauty is coherence. It emerges when the inside and the outside stop fighting each other. Beauty is not smoothness. It is integrity.” No wonder the successful Parisian skincare specialist is trusted by stars like Naomi Campbell and Rihanna.
Pro-ageing on the runways. SkinnyTok in the feed. Where does this contradiction come from?
This still rather quiet conviction seems to be manifesting in a counter-movement. When Joan Juliet Buck, 77, former editor-in-chief of French Vogue, posted a bathroom selfie this March – no make-up and no filter – it went viral. Her caption: “The face I never thought I had.” Joan showed the world that the long-held belief “growing old isn’t for the weak” is, at least where beauty is concerned, slowly losing its grip.
According to an April 2026 report in the New York Times, the most recent fashion shows featured plus-size models from only five percent of the top-20 brands on the runway, but a full 100 percent included older models. Chanel opened its Fall/Winter Ready-to-Wear show in Paris with Romae Gordon, 50. Matthieu Blazy’s directing brief backstage was clear: no retouching, no making anyone look younger. “Come as you are,” the briefing read.
The sociologist Ashley Mears, professor at the University of Amsterdam, names the paradox plainly: older women are more visible – but they do not look their age. Visibility comes at a cost. Rica, performer, drag and journalist, puts it even more sharply: “The world is becoming more fascistic, and these tendencies are reflected in beauty ideals. Those who can afford it optimise themselves, harden their bodies, rely on analysis tools and cosmetic surgery. Everyone else has to figure out how to keep going – if they even have the time to think about these questions at all. Often it’s about survival.”
Word. Because while on the runways there appears to be a pro-ageing movement, on social media SkinnyTok rages on – the French politician Clara Chappaz called the hashtag “disgusting and absolutely unacceptable”, after which TikTok removed it worldwide from search results. SkinnyTok exists nonetheless, hidden behind so-called health tips. Joanita Sidi, who works in Ghana as an intercultural operations and customer experience manager, names another physical shift she has been observing for years: “As a Black woman, features like larger bottoms or fuller lips were once mocked. Today, many white women are surgically appropriating those exact forms. I find that troubling on several levels.” What the beauty industry or the Kardashian/Jenner clan present today as norm is not inclusion – it is yet another absurd beauty ideal.
At least, statements like that of Franziska Glauser give me hope. The content creator and plus-size activist says: “Diets – that self-hatred cost me 20 years of my life. I never want to go back there.” And then, what the contemporary dancer and singer Momo Tanner said about her mother: “She is seventy years old, and to me she is still the most beautiful woman in the world. There is something wonderfully youthful in her aliveness.” Which makes me think immediately of my favourite de-influencer Leon (@xskincare), who keeps insisting in his Insta and TikTok videos: “You are all beautiful exactly as you are!” Leon himself, after a TV appearance in early 2026, became the target of a wave of bodyshaming hate. Which says it all, really.
Where the pressure eases – and what comes into view beneath it.
In The House of Beauty (W.W. Norton, 2025), the author Arabelle Sicardi describes beauty as an ocean filled with things – and all of us as people trying not to drown in it, while simultaneously reaching for someone’s hand among the wreckage. All the more light and hope come from the 63 conversations I conducted for this piece. What struck me: almost no one described beauty in terms of appearance. The German jewellery designer Saskia Diez: “Beauty, for me, has a lot to do with love.” Nick Steward, perfumer and founder of the fragrance label Gallivant: “The most beautiful things have a touch of imperfection in them. They feel lived-in.” Lina Hanson, founder of her eponymous skincare brand: “Beauty is not something we achieve or correct. It is something we embody.”
And one more conversation actually helped me fear the ageing process less – for myself and for the person I love. Carmen Meier-Meister, 75, who works successfully as a model on international runways: “Every person has something beautiful. Whether it is charisma, attitude, individuality, naturalness. Today it does not have to be beautiful – today it has to be interesting and expressive. That is true beauty. And: being real is better than being perfect.”
Honestly? I would happily tattoo Carmen’s last line onto my right forearm, next to the Greek word for light and the English word “Victory”. Because even though this research and these conversations leave me looking with hope into the beauty future. Even when Sophie Carbonari is quite right to say: “Beauty is not something you chase. It is something that happens when you stop fighting against yourself.” The fight in me is still raging. But I recently had something of an epiphany in connection with my current body weight: I am in a phase of life that clearly requires more substance and strength. A very, very slim Irène would not be able to bear today’s emotional daily life. For which I am very grateful, and which I am now managing – to say to my own reflection: I love you. You are beautiful. And: you are good just as you are.
