Beauty in the Mystery

Thoughts on on $2,500, recreational, full-body MRIs, etc. etc.

Last year, I got my face scanned. Stuck it right into a portal in the middle of a restaurant during a cocktail breakfast. A beauty brand was launching a new line of products promising to lift, sculpt, firm, and smooth without needles. This skin analyzer was capable of collecting a bevy of data I can no longer recall, except for one. The official term is lost on me, but it was essentially a wrinkle map. In thirty seconds the contraption spit out something akin to a Google Map, and bourgeoning wrinkles were marked with red lines careening across your face like an interstate. When they asked me if I was game to try, I said yes—with hesitation. I was curious. But I was also afraid. What if the map revealed that I5, I40, I10, I15, I75 AND Route 66 were had already entrenched themselves?

As they say, curiosity killed the cat, so into the machine I went. The results, shown above, were a relief. Most of the red traced flyaway hairs. Perhaps I was overblowing the whole thing; I’m 27 years old…maybe I scanned pretty normal? But the praise was effusive. This is what people with Botox look like! They exclaimed. Or, I suppose, hope to look like? It was weirdly and grotesquely gratifying to be praised for something that at my age, is probably more expected than not, and to feel smug that I had a Botox face without actually ever having gotten Botox.

A couple years ago, Kim Kardashian posted about her experience with Prenuvo. Paris Hilton, similarly, went on the record extolling its benefits. Prenuvo bills itself as a “comprehensive whole body MRI scan for preventative care.” If you’re like me and throw the term around without really knowing what it is—the acronym stands for “magnetic resonance imaging.” It can provide detailed images of pretty much every body part, from the brain and spinal cord to the liver, kidneys, heart and blood vessels. As anyone who is a bonafide adult and has had to deal with the healthcare system knows, MRIs aren’t run-of-the-mill procedures. You need a doctor to refer you—and then, it’s usually a question of, “Does my insurance cover this?!”

Suddenly, here were a flock of celebrities and influencers encouraging their followers to plunk down $2,499 for the privilege of laying prone on a cold table as the machine assessed you for early stage tumors, auto-immune diseases, metabolic disorders, cysts, hematomas, spinal degeneration…and more!!! No referral needed.

Prenuvo isn’t the only company that offers this service (which, obviously, is not covered by insurance). Others include Ezra (marketed specifically for cancer detection), simonOne (similar to Prenuvo), and Stockholm-based Neko Health.

Something I found interesting was the first FAQ on Prenuvo’s site: “Approximately what percentage of customers get an ‘all-clear’ result?” The answer leads not with a concrete number but this: “Nearly all of us have some degree of imaging ‘abnormalities’ and findings.”

Personally, I don’t find that very comforting.

It’s not a secret that we’re in the pursuit of longevity. Sure, beauty has always been about “anti-aging",” but lately we’ve blatantly turned to living as long as possible—with a quality of life to match. I’m talking about Bryan Johnson’s Netflix-documented quest to live forever. The way that your AppleWatch, Galaxy Watch, Whoop and Oura ring provide an avalanche of data on a daily basis so that you can make micro-adjustments to your lifestyle. All in the pursuit of living longer, and living better.

Knowledge, as they say, is power. But you know what we’ve forgotten? Ignorance can be bliss. I think my colleague Dana Dickey summed it up best in her review of the Oura Ring with this anecdote: “[My friend] was seriously agitated over what she perceived as such an alarmingly elevated resting heart rate that she called her cardiologist—she’s seen a heart specialist ever since suffering a mild stroke a year ago—who gently told her to take off her Oura Ring until she’d had an EKG to make sure everything was fine (it was).”

We live in the post-Enlightenment era where science reigns and anything with the air of mystery is written off. Our need for control has rendered nothing mysterious anymore. But I think that there can be real beauty in the mystery.

Some years ago I read a book titled The Measure by Nikki Erlick. The premise: One day, everyone in the world wakes up with a box on their doorstep. Inside is a string known as “the measure,” and its length will determine that of your life. The world descends into chaos as some open their boxes and others resist. Through the perspectives of a handful of characters, we explore the consequences and possibilities of what happens when we know almost exactly when we’re going to die.

In some ways, Prenuvo and its siblings are a manifest of “the measure.” Opting for the scan is like opening the box. Do we really want to know? As Erlick’s characters show, the knowledge might change your actions and your mindset (read: Everyone who opened their box was paralyzed and obsessed, and because they knew, some even facilitated their deaths in a self-fulfilling prophecy moment), but in the end…there isn’t an escape. What’s the best case scenario for knowing? In the case of these full-body MRIs, you could pursue treatment. It could work. But there is the possibility that it won’t. A diagnosis doesn’t guarantee survival. Knowledge doesn’t change what’s in our cards.

I feel like shoving my face into that scanner was akin to opening a baby box. I think about those red lines now, when before, I was living my life in relative peace. Just the other day, I subjected myself to a radio frequency facial sculpting procedure that required a waiver due to the possibility of a slew of serious side effects. I signed blithely, of course, and was thankfully unscathed. But the absurdity of what I was willing to do because I had seen this face scan wasn’t lost on me.

This year I’ve told several friends that my word for 2025 is “magic.” I want to believe that life is still magical in many realms, that I can find it in love, in New York, in chasing an impossible dream…but, also, perhaps part of the magic is embracing the beauty of the mystery of being alive, and making the best of it while I’m here.

Yours in the mystery,

mw

What I’m Reading

• Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu

• “The Spiritual Hunt: Searching for Rimbaud’s Lost Manuscript,” Mitch Anzuoni, The MIT Press Reader

• “Adrien Brody Found the Part: The Brutalist is his best, most personal work since The Pianist.” E. Alex Jung, Vulture

• The Storm We Made, Vanessa Chan

• “Bienvenido a Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rico Benito” Antonio Martínez Ocasio’s new album is a history lesson and a homecoming.” Jen Ortiz, The Cut

• Suite Française, Irène

• “Jennifer Lawrence And The History Of Cool Girls,” Anne Helen Petersen, BuzzFeed

• “The Cruel Reality of Public Assistance Programs,” Mariana Chilton, The MIT Press Reader

• The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

• “The New Literalism Plaguing Today’s Biggest Movies,” Namwali Serpell, The New Yorker

• “Who Were the Women Novelists Who Really Inspired Jane Austen?” Rebecca Romney, LitHub

• The Empress of Fashion: A Life of Diana Vreeland, Amanda Mackenzie Stuart

What I’m Writing

• “7 Things Stylists Are Begging You to Stop Doing If You Have Thin Hair”

• “15 Beauty Tricks That Stand the Test of Time”

• “17 Memorial Day Weekend Getaways from NYC to Book ASAP”

• “A Rose Perfume Aficionado’s Review of Tom Ford Rose Exposed”

• “My Foolproof Hack for Getting the Perfect Photo from a Stranger”

• “The 26 Best Hotels in Los Angeles at Every Price Point”

• “This Famous Julia Roberts Movie Has a Shockingly Low Rotten Tomatoes Score—Here’s Why the Critics Are Totally Wrong”

• “Why I’m Convinced Margaux Shoes Really Are for *Every* Type of Foot”

• “Everything You Need to Know About Micro Bangs, According to Hairstylists”

• “I Was Ghosted by a Super Close Friend. I Wish I Handled It Better”

• “Is Gen Z in Its 'Grey Gardens' Era? Here’s What You Need to Channel Your Inner Edith Beal”