In the latest issue of British Vogue, 59-year-old Nicole Kidman was featured in a celebration of beauty at 59. But it also made me wonder how much harder it has become to distinguish age and individuality. These days, 35 or 65, it can be strangely difficult to tell.

Are we not erasing the individuality that makes people interesting in the first place?

Lately, it feels as though more and more women are chasing the same features: Fuller lips, smaller noses, wrinkle-free faces, and waif-like bodies. But why are we so averse to looking different from the template? Why are we covering or changing the very things that make us endearing and unique in the first place? The thing is, we’ve never had more freedom to change the way we look. Yet instead of using that freedom to become more individual, it seems we’re using it to look more and more alike.

Why is society so drawn to the same ideal?

Perhaps because the template is everywhere. We see the same faces on our feeds, the same features on celebrities, the same beauty treatments being praised, and the same filters reshaping what we consider attractive. When an ideal is repeated often enough, it stops feeling like an ideal and starts feeling like the norm. And when looking a certain way becomes associated with empowerment, confidence, desirability or even success, choosing to step outside of it can feel like a disadvantage.

“I’m not suggesting we abandon vanity and aesthetic tweaking altogether. I so indulge in the art of makeup. In making myself up, and looking my best. And God knows I still catch myself thinking my life would be better – and I happier – with that tweak here or imaginary facelift there.”

The problem isn’t looking better but maybe the loss of individuality. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look your best, experimenting with makeup, or even changing something you don’t love about yourself. Beauty has always been about transformation. But when the same features become the goal for everyone, the question is no longer “What makes me feel beautiful?” but “How close can I get to the ideal?”.

And so I ask you, my perfectly flawed friend, could you love yourself – lumps, bumps, slumps and all?