Jenny Mollen says plastic surgeon warned her against going under the knife: 'You’d be crazy to start messing with your face'

Jenny Mollen is reflecting on aging and plastic surgery in a new essay for Oprah Daily.

The I Like You Just the Way I Am author, 43, recalled going into her plastic surgeon’s office to discuss having an upper blepharoplasty, a procedure in which a doctor removes extra skin from one’s eyelids. But she was ultimately denied by the surgeon, who told her, “You don’t need your eyes done. You’d be crazy to start messing with your face, and if you do, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

In reflecting on the surgeon’s thoughts, the Girls alum, who wrote that she had previously undergone breast augmentation surgery, a breast lift, lower blepharoplasty and regular Botox treatments, noted, “Today, our choices are endless. Potions and procedures promising not just pre-pubescent pores but photoshopped perfection accost us at every turn. Social media has given us the power to create the mythology of our own aging: With the swipe of a finger, we can filter out our flaws, cinch our waists, contour our cheekbones, and stay looking forever 21. But trying to embody this unrealistic beauty standard is as absurd as trying to fit into a too-tight piece of fast fashion.”

Of the push-pull of aging, she continued, “I want the respect of being over 40 but the power of being under 30. I want it all, the way every Hollywood rom-com promises. I want to be a mother of three, but also the CEO of my own company. A woman who has time for dry brushing and pedicures and date nights with her Armani-model husband who gets an erection the second she walks in the room. I spent the best years my body will ever see in a velour tracksuit, only to reach my 40s and learn that black-tie now means a bikini covered in full-length fishnet. It’s not fair. But despite the surgeries, facials, lasers, and fillers, nothing has changed the way I feel about being older. It’s both bittersweet and infuriating.”

She concluded her essay with, "As the people around us start looking more and more like their iPhone Memojis, perhaps the biggest act of rebellion is to do nothing. But I’m too big a narcissist for that. What we need as a culture is group therapy and transparency, people talking about how maddening it feels to be out of control. We need to fill our world with sticky notes reminding us what is real. Regardless of your current age, you are never going to be younger than you are right now. See, you just aged a second. So stop deleting pictures of yourself that you don’t like, because 10 years from now, even a bad pic of you is a good one. And while you’re at it, stop beating yourself up for being human. Life is happening. And unlike your forehead, you can’t make it stand still."

Mollen has previously spoken about feeling more confident with a little cosmetic tweaking. In 2019, she told Us Weekly of her regular Botox use, “If you can smooth out a few lines, I think it does wonders for your psyche. It’s important to empower women in any way possible. And I think that this is something that actually makes you feel good about yourself.”

In 2020, she spoke to New Beauty about her love of Botox, adding that while she also tried lasers and other skin procedures, she had done “nothing crazy” yet to her face.

“I’m down for crazy, though,” she added. “Maybe I need to get into more now that I’m in quarantine. Maybe that can be my new social life, just going to see my dermatologist a bunch.”

Wellness, parenting, body image and more: Get to know the who behind the hoo with Yahoo Life's newsletter. Sign up here.