The pursuit of beauty has acquired a frenzied, can-you-top-this tenor. Critics used to wring their hands when Botox was new, complaining that it turned devotees into expressionless statues, bots. That sounds almost quaint now. I mean, look where we are. People who haven’t seen their first gray hair are booking deep-plane facelifts and calling it “preventive medicine.” Every other person you meet seems to be injecting peptides—unapproved and unregulated from China—in hopes of building muscle mass, eliminating brain fog, increasing immunity, and gaining energy. So much for fear of needles. So much for fear of unregulated drugs from China.
I’ve reported on all of these phenomena. And at one point in the process, I actually stopped to consider taking the plunge. Plunges. How bad could those unapproved Chinese peptides be? Recovering from a facelift looks kind of relaxing, like a spa vacation with painkillers. And then it occurred to me that I’d lost my mind.
