“OMG, I think I may have vinegar face – do you?”
It’s 1987. I’m on my way home from school, my yellow Sony Walkman playing tinny Roxy Music. Suddenly, a girl strides right up to me and slaps me around the face. ‘Don’t ever cut your eye at my cousin again!’ she declares and disappears into a corner shop.
I stand on the pavement, stunned, Love Is The Drug, reverberating in my ears. Which cousin? When? What? Then I realise. Her cousin is probably a student at my new secondary school. I don’t know which one. But I sometimes, and totally inadvertently, do this with my face. I know this, because I’ve been called lots of names as a consequence. ‘Stuck up’, ‘Posho’, ‘Bitch’…
Now, there’s another name to add to the list, courtesy of the Pope who – at the start of this year – said that a group of Dominican sisters had ‘vinegar faces’ and needed to be more ‘affable’. I’ve probably had ‘vinegar face’ (or, as it was formerly known, ‘resting bitch face’) all my life – mainly because I’m a bit of a worrier and, up until recently, always wore my feelings on my face.
At school in South London, I learned never to make eye contact with anyone in case of offending. Still, the words ‘cheer up love, it might never happen!’ were soon being shouted at me from white vans, building sites and once even from a male colleague. These days, I try to smile at people if I catch their eye. But I worry that this looks creepy. Or desperate – like I have no friends and am about to give them a hug.
What is vinegar face? When someone has a 'grumpy' looking expression on their face when it's relaxed, also known as a 'resting bitch face'.
The only consolation for me is that my vinegar face isn’t as pronounced as it once was. I have Botox when I can afford to, so I now have to make a concerted effort to have any expression at all. Most of the time I look like I’ve had my brain removed and had it replaced with a bag of egg fried rice (a bit bland with a few interesting nuggets floating about somewhere).
Even this has its risks. Look neutral and you might be seen as disinterested. Do the no-teeth/lips-only smile and you look patronising. Lean in to appear engaged and, at my phase of life, you look hard of hearing.
The thing is, women have to worry about a lot of stuff. Kids’ play dates, five million WhatsApp messages, caring for elderly parents, ageing ‘gracefully’ ourselves (whatever the heck that means) and also, doing all that with the right facial expression.
Plus, it’s hard to keep up with the faces we need to avoid these days. There’s Ozempic face (thin and haggard), Sugar face (puffy and dull), Alcohol face (red and bloated), Moon face (fat deposits due to stress), Carb face (your face looks like the puffy processed bread you scoff too much of).
Men rarely get ridiculed for having the ‘wrong’ expression. They are either laughing or serious. There’s no ‘grumpy bastard face’ equivalent, which leaves them free to focus on important things like, I don’t know, AI.
Rewind back to 1987, and me standing outside that corner shop listening to Bryan Ferry. What would I say now, to make her feel better? ‘Don’t worry, darling. People will always have an opinion. Don’t waste your time on them. Best to be yourself and deal with the consequences.’ And I’d take my vinegar face, put the volume right up and be on my way.
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