Sarah Harte: Singers like CMAT and Iona Lynch are relentlessly judged — all women are

We know we are being fed nonsense about the latest wonder serum to improve our appearances, but we buy into it anyway, writes Sarah Harte

CMAT performing at Glastonbury last June: The social media abuse she endures apparently intensifies with her growing success.

The singer CMAT, who is currently touring her Euro-Country album, has spoken about "deep sadness" over the body-shaming she endures online. She would like to change her body "to fit in and avoid all of this abuse". 

The abuse apparently intensifies with her growing success. Is this because she’s stepping outside her lane? She’s an ultra-talented songwriter with witty, smart lyrics considered by some to be on her way to being an icon. As an older woman, it’s incensing to think she must endure this abuse, but she’s not alone.

Iona Lynch, lead singer of the Cliffords, told the Irish Examiner at the weekend: "A lot of egotistical men seem threatened by a girl having confidence." 

Ordinary women, too, are often judged through a lens that men experience to a comparatively lesser extent. Teen girls get their first taste of this pressure. And social media amplifies it. This pressure lasts way beyond that stage of life.

As girls, we’re told fairytales in which beautiful, passive heroines are rewarded with love. As middle-aged women, we’re peddled the fairytale that an anti-ageing product will make us look younger, so we’ll remain worthy of attention.

Endless companies exploit our insecurities. Currently, beauty brands are targeting an older demographic, known as ‘The Grey Space.’ A report from Nielsen IQ and World Data Lab reveals Gen X is "the most valuable generation to beauty spending". This spending is predicted to grow.

This targeting is reflected on social media. One influencer marketing insights firm suggested in 2025 that the number of influencers or creators over 40 posting beauty content on social media had "grown 41% year-over-year". 

The lure for advertisers is obvious. Social media allows them to target specific users by gender and age. If you are on social media, you may have noticed the rise in ads targeting middle-aged women with anti-ageing solutions.

Logging onto Facebook this week, I was besieged by a carousel of ads. Irritated, I watched them. The same unhinged theme emerged.

A middle-aged woman faces a beauty crisis. A female relative with zero boundaries steps in to dispense life-changing beauty advice. She is usually a sister-in-law or mother-in-law of a different nationality.

To give you a flavour. In one ad, a British woman, concerned about her skin, finds her mother-in-law applying a Korean sheet mask to her face during Christmas dinner. Nobody appears to find this odd. Her husband says the next morning: "You look different." 

Male validation

Male validation and the approval of husbands, in particular, are standard components of these ads, including lines such as "he looks at me now like when we were dating". As the audience, we are told the product is back in stock and on sale, but we should hurry before it sells out again.

In another ad, a British woman arrives in Seoul only for her sister-in-law to stand in the bathroom doorway, watching her unload her serums and creams from her washbag.

She steps forward with a miracle cure: a Korean hydra gel that promises to solve all her problems. The next morning, the British woman races into the kitchen at 7am to say her life has changed.

My favourite was an American woman who landed in Paris, presumably jet-lagged, when her French mother-in-law stormed the bathroom, announcing she had a solution to her daughter-in-law’s frizzy, unruly hair. "Come with me," she said.

Maman was prepared to share a secret passed down through generations of her family with us, too, if we reached for our credit cards. She had a smug face you’d love to smack, by the way.

These ads blind us with hokum science about collagen, gels, snail mucin, salmon sperm, the size of pores and on it goes. There’s usually a money-back guarantee, too, if it doesn’t work its magic after a month. 

Presumably, some of these companies rely on your not having the time or energy to interact with their non-existent customer service departments.

In sharper ads, there is a shift from anti-ageing narratives to subtler empowerment and wellness messages.

A serum purchased online left Sarah Harte looking like Shrek.

What suckers are prey to these messages? Me for one. And probably some of you too, because a lot of women have a schizophrenic attitude to appearance and ageing.

You know you’re being fed nonsense, but occasionally, against your better judgment, you succumb.

Recently, ahead of a work event, I caught sight of myself. I looked like something dug up out of a bog. Having been repeatedly targeted by the same ad, I purchased a serum. This ad is ubiquitous. Both a family member and a close friend were on the verge of buying it until I put them off. They commented on how credible the testimonials seemed.

I applied this serum, got up in the morning to see Shrek. Welts decorated my face. The serum seriously disrupted my skin barrier. 

It’s allegedly manufactured by a family company in Europe. Maybe it’s legitimate, but I’ve seen several negative reviews, including one on Trustpilot, saying her face burned red and her eyes were swollen shut, and warning "buyer beware". Who knows? I bought it after being bombarded, and because, like other women, I’m subject to pressure to appear younger, the holy grail.

Does it matter if a credulous middle-aged woman buys a serum? The EU Commission’s Safety Gate Report 2026 flags many cosmetics as dangerous due to hazardous chemicals. Notifications about cosmetics represent more than one-third of all reported dangerous products. 

Surge in hazardous items

Thanks to unregulated e-commerce marketplaces, there has been a surge in hazardous items, as documented in the report.

A raft of legislation at both the domestic and European levels regulates cosmetic products. In Ireland, regulators include the Health Products Regulatory Authority, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, and the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland.

Legally, claims made on websites, packages, and social media cannot be misleading and must be supported by evidence. The problem, of course, is enforcement. Many of these companies use shell companies, temporary Shopify companies, and sellers who may not even be in Europe. It’s harder for authorities to regulate largely anonymous cross-border shippers flogging their products through social media accounts.

What can we do to protect ourselves? Practically, we can check whether products are verified. Look up the EU Safety Gate database. Be sceptical about exaggerated claims. The more a company hypes a product with aggressive social-media marketing, the more sceptical we should be. Check reviews beyond social media platforms, such as Trustpilot.

And as a friend who I discussed this with said, shop in your parish. Go to your local pharmacy and speak to a woman you know who sells beauty products and won’t sell you a pup.

Another aspect of this is our complicated attitude to beauty. Women may take pleasure in femininity while navigating a culture that relentlessly judges them for their appearance, as CMAT touched on.

Maria Popova, the Bulgarian cultural critic, describes the challenge of ageing well. "Perhaps the greatest perplexity of ageing is how to fill with gentleness the void between who we feel we are on the inside and who our culture tells us is staring back from that mirror." 

That’s it, really, isn’t it? Taking charge of your own happiness and accepting yourself. As Eleanor Roosevelt said: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."