Show Notes
What does it mean to cope with a beauty standard that pretends not to be a beauty standard at all?
This week, we’re talking about looking “natural” – which, in 2026 means botox in your 20s and three‑hour self-care routines.
Alice Griffin and Jannah Anderson explore how “aesthetic inflation”, a concept first articulated by writer Jessica DeFino, has shifted the baseline so dramatically that simply existing feels like falling behind. We unpack the psychological toll of chasing an ever-changing beauty ideal marketed as effortless, and ask whether celeb transparency around cosmetic work is actually all that liberating…
And because the wellness zeitgeist never sleeps we’re also talking: oral dissolvable strip supplements (a no from us) and the new Korean lash lift that is (frankly) blindingly good.
"Appearance Inflation: 3 Beauty Writers Sum Up 2025", CNN “Wait, Why Do I Want A Facelift?'" by Jessica DeFino The Year All My Friends Got Botox by Emmeline Clein, The Cut Listen: Botox, Fillers and Aesthetic Inflation, NPR It's Been a Minute podcast The New Plastic Surgery Playbook by Rheana Murray, The Atlantic The Forever-35 Face by Bridget Read, The Cut Beauty Standards Make Me Ashamed Of My Features, And AI Makes It Worse by Humeara Mohamed, Refinery29 Nothing Looks Beautiful Anymore - And We Did This to Ourselves by Melissa Fleur Afshar, Newsweek Listen: The Butt Blush Boom, Mess World podcast Would You Use Cadaver Fat Injections? by Jessica DeFino, The Guardian "Will Being 'Ugly' Be Aspirational One Day?" by Kish Lal, Dazed Watch: How Much Are Australians Spending on Cosmetic Procedures?, SBS Insight
Want to support our show? We'd be so grateful if you hit 'follow' or left us a 5-star review so we can bring you more Coping content.
Plus, you can follow along with us on Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. Find out more about what we're up to (and how you can get involved) at copinginc.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Coping
We suddenly seem to care a lot about what the person next to us is reading. Between celebrity book clubs, literary moments on the runway, and the rise of the professional tastemaker, taste itself has never been so public. You may even have started wondering whether the book tucked under your arm on your morning commute is something you love, or something you’d like to be seen loving.
This week, we're coping a little differently ! Following our AI takeover spiral a few weeks ago, we thought it only fair to balance things out with a timely celebration of what it really means to be human.
Harry Styles is rumoured to be retiring. Amelia Dimoldenberg is bringing the Chicken Shop Date era to a close. We all remember Simone Biles stepping away from the gymnastics mat. More and more, we're watching people opt out of goals they've built their identity around and spent years publicly pursuing. Quitting seems more socially acceptable than ever, so why does walking away still feel like failure?
It seems everyone around us is moving through life at exactly the “right” pace: getting engaged, having babies, buying houses, building careers, finding purpose. Meanwhile, we’re left wondering, are we running late to our own lives?
AI experts, executives, and inventors themselves are sounding the alarm – warning us that an AI takeover could threaten all of humanity within just the next ten years. In other words, the call is coming from INSIDE the house.