Anne Hathaway’s natural face-lift hack went viral: What doctors say

Anne Hathaway is no stranger to scrutiny over her appearance. So, in March, the Oscar-winning actress, 43, decided to finally give the people what they’ve been clamoring for: Her secret to looking perpetually young.

No, it’s not a face-lift. Or any other kind of plastic surgery. It’s … two braids of hair.

“All right, drumroll please,” Hathaway says, while getting her Oscars glam prepped in the Instagram video, which has 1.4 million likes. “Show them our secret.”

The actress then reveals two small braids, each by her temples, which then get pulled back, tied behind her head and concealed under the rest of her hair. The result? “I do look a little bit more awake,” she says with a laugh.

Since Hathaway’s viral video, people have posted themselves doing her trick, sometimes to shocking results. In an interview published May 21, Elle magazine asked Hathaway if her video was intended as a pointed denial of the rumor that she’s had a face-lift.

“I wouldn’t say pointed. But we’re at a time when people feel very confident in assuming what they think is fact, and sometimes what they think is accurate and sometimes it’s not,” she said. “My preference would be to never comment on anything and to just live in the mystery and not draw attention to myself, but the speculation has gotten so loud that you do feel the need to just get your truth out there.”

The truth, also, is that Hathaway’s trick isn’t really anything new. Dermatologists say people have been styling their hair in ways to intentionally pull up facial skin for time immemorial. They also say there are some health risks to the technique too − and, overall, they’d prefer people not do it.

“It’s so funny that she posted that,” dermatologist and surgeon Dr. Anthony Rossi says. “I think she was making a joke, because everyone’s accused her of getting a face-lift or a brow-lift. And she might have. But that trick, of pulling the corners of your hair back like that, people have been doing it for ages.”

The problem with Anne Hathaway’s natural face-lift hack

Some of the videos of people trying out Hathaway’s trick are jaw-dropping. In seconds, their faces seem to transform, all from pulling back those braids by their temples.

Doctors say it’s certainly not a long-term fix. And it’s not something they recommend either.

“You can actually get traction alopecia, which is a form of hair breakage,” Rossi says. “As dermatologists, we see traction alopecia, especially in women who always pull their hair back in ponytails and really pull it out at the edges. So, that’s not great to do for your hair, because you can actually cause it to break.”

Traction alopecia can lead to hair loss, fibrosis and scarring, Rossi adds. Not to mention, dermatologist Dr. Brooke Jeffy says, pulling your hair back like that is often uncomfortable, too.

“I walked into the bathroom and tried to do this, kind of mimic this on myself,” she says. “It doesn’t really change that much. And it doesn’t feel good to have that much traction, personally.”

Instead, she recommends people protect their collagen by using sun protection and skincare ingredients like retinol. Other than that, she says, there really isn’t a way to keep your face lifted, outside of medical intervention.

“I absolutely do not think people should be doing this,” Jeffy says of Hathaway’s hair hack. “I just don’t think any minute benefit you might get from this is going to be worth that risk.”

What Anne Hathaway’s hair hack might really mean

Perhaps more telling of today’s beauty landscape isn’t Hathaway’s hair trick, but the scrutiny that drove her to share it in the first place.

The actress told Elle she still questions if posting the video was the right decision. “I’ll probably always wonder, ‘Should I have posted that or not? Should I have just kept going and done the thing that makes me happy and makes me feel more confident on the red carpet?’” she said. “But I felt like the conversation was becoming distracting.”

The conversation is also much bigger than Hathaway. In recent years, the internet has been abuzz with talk of the current so-called “undetectable era” of plastic surgery − a time when procedures have become so advanced that, often, you can’t tell when someone’s had one.

Dermatologists and surgeons have previously told USA TODAY that the undetectable era is, indeed, a reality, and it has pros and cons. On the one hand, it’s motivated more people to not go overboard with their cosmetic procedures and to seek out ones that complement and enhance their natural beauty, rather than ones that drastically alter their aesthetic. But it’s also made people even more skeptical of public figures whose appearances seem naturally frozen in time.

Hathaway opened up about the presumptions people have made about her to Elle.

“Also, by the way, these are huge medical decisions that people are presuming,” she said. “I wanted to show that like, no, I didn’t make a huge medical decision. It’s just two braids.”

She added: “And by the way, the other thing about all this is, I might still get a face-lift someday.”