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Hi Ugly,

How do I respond to my friends when they criticize their bodies, faces, skin?

One friend frequently complains about her weight. It would feel preachy to tell her that she’s supporting the beauty industrial complex and reinforcing a status quo that keeps women fixated on their physical appearance. But saying, “You’re beautiful!” feels shallow. Another friend told me she needs to get more Botox soon because she hates the lines in her forehead. I told her (honestly) that I don’t see any lines, but she blew me off, saying it was the wrong lighting and I was being too generous.

How do I navigate these conversations?

- Conversationally Confused

The only thing contemporary beauty culture hates more than an ugly woman? A judgy woman – particularly if she has an opinion about other women’s beauty behaviors. These days, any criticism of cosmetics must conclude with the disclaimer: “No judgment, though!”

I personally think we’d all benefit from harsher judgment of the oppressive standards sustaining the $427bn diet industry and $700bn beauty industry, but I also think you’re right. When a friend tells you she’s worried about her weight, “you’re an agent of the patriarchy” isn’t a helpful response.

“You’re beautiful!” isn’t great, either – it reinforces the idea that individual beauty is the solution to the insecurity that beauty culture breeds in us all. Yes, your looks do determine your worth, you might as well say. But you look good, so it’s not your problem!

It’s been a minute since I’ve had to navigate a situation like this myself. (When you’re a curmudgeonly industry critic, your community knows exactly where you stand on the subject of skin-plumping salmon sperm injections – works like a charm!) So I reached out to some colleagues to get their takes.

“These moments can feel like the perfect opening to challenge beauty standards,” says beauty reporter Zeynab Mohamed. “But in reality, they’re rarely the right time for that kind of conversation and can go very wrong.” Instead, she says, “listen without judgment, and without overcompensating with compliments.”

Exchanges like these are signs to strike up more beauty-related discourse. “The key is to make conversations more frequent, so they don’t feel like an attack,” Mohamed says. Rather than pegging these chats to their (or your) perceived aesthetic shortcomings, “be more intentional about having [general] conversations around the beauty industry, the pressure we internalize and the standards we work so hard to meet and maintain.”

Invite a friend over to watch The Substance or American Psycho and break down the beauty themes over a bottle of wine after. Drop a critical book or podcast episode in the group chat. (“Unshrinking by Kate Manne blew my mind! Anyone want to read and discuss?”) Share this Tressie McMillan Cottom video about the “everyday eugenics” of GLP-1s to your Instagram story and see who responds.

Another option: connect and commiserate. “I don’t try to dissuade them from their perspective … because I will never be more persuasive than the critical voice that lives in their head,” beauty journalist Val Monroe shares. “But I tell them how I respond to my own occasional dissatisfaction with my appearance, which, for the most part, involves turning outward.”

How have you dealt with your dissatisfaction? Share it with the class! It can be as simple as, I know what you mean. I was so fixated on my crow’s feet on a Zoom call once that I had to disable the mirror video function and meditate for 20 minutes after work. It actually helped! Cheaper than a red light mask, anyway.

Virginia Sole-Smith, writer of the body liberation newsletter Burnt Toast, recommends adopting a “hate the game, not the player” mentality. “I try to lean into responses like: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we didn’t have to devote so much time and money to all of this?’”

It’s also fine to not engage. “If the friend talks about these things in ways that you find triggering, I think it’s very valid to say: ‘Sorry, I love you but I’m just not the friend for Botox talk,’” Sole-Smith says. “Set that boundary.”

If your discussion partner seems down for debate, “try to move the conversation toward the politics behind it”, suggests Moshtari Hilal, author of Ugliness. “Instead of reassuring friends that they’re beautiful, I ask why it matters so much to them,” she says. “‘Would you love or respect me less if my appearance changed? Do you deserve to be treated better for having youthful skin or a symmetrical face?”

More from Jessica DeFino:

• Why is this column called ‘Ask Ugly’?

• How should I be styling my pubic hair?

• How do I deal with imperfection?

• My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done

No, these aren’t easy questions. Yes, they could lead to some tough talks. Most modern beauty standards have roots in white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, sexism and other destructive forces. But, as Hilal puts it, don’t you “expect a certain depth and integrity in [your] friendships?”

Breaking the pattern of “appearance talk” could benefit all involved. This negative commentary about bodies and faces permeates society. Think of your mother calling herself “bad” for ordering dessert or the self-critique-as-social-bonding scene in Mean Girls. But it isn’t innocuous. Research shows that participating in or simply listening to appearance talk can increase body dissatisfaction and anxiety, which may in turn lead to harmful diet and beauty behaviors.

“These ideas are contagious,” Hilal says.

Could shifting negativity away from individual bodies and faces and toward systems and structures be contagious too? Of course. Second-wave feminists called it “consciousness-raising”. Gabbing with your girlfriends about the ageism inherent in anti-ageing won’t change the world – organizing and legislating against discrimination does that – but it could help externalize the shame of beauty culture, challenge false beliefs and alleviate appearance anxiety.

Some friends might not be into analyzing Ozempic via text. Maybe your Botox-loving BFF wants a compliment on her freshly frozen forehead and nothing more. It’s up to you how to handle that.

Hilal finds it tough to be around people who fixate on, say, wrinkles or body shape. “If your fear of ‘ugliness’ doesn’t lead to care or compassion, but to reproducing those standards as its salesman, I need to take a step back from the relationship.”

Hey – no judgment here.