Someone grab the anti-aging cream.
A viral TikTok filter that predicts how users might age over the course of a few decades has been hailed by dermatologists and surgeons as accurate — much to the dismay of wrinkle-averse TikTokers.
While it isn’t the first of its kind, the recent buzz around the “Time Travel” filter has resulted in both anguish from youth chasers and bittersweet emotions in others who transform into their parents.
“Aging is so beautiful,” gushed Jacquie, 28, in a TikTok video while using the filter. “She looks like she’d offer you cookies and sneak you $20.”
Meanwhile, viewers lamented their results, saying they look like a “sewer monster” or that they’re “decomposing.”
“Turning into my mom,” a creator named Carrie wrote on her demo of the filter.
“This made me so emotional,” actor Jonathan Bennett wrote on a video of his own, comparing his gray-haired reflection to his late father. “I miss him so much.”
New York dermatologist Dr. Toral Vaidya, who boasts more than 15,000 followers on TikTok, was “shocked by how accurate” the filter presented the aging process, she revealed in a viral video this week.
While she theorized that lighting and angles play a role in how sunken or saggy users look — it is a filter, after all — it can “provide insight on age-related changes,” such as “volume loss, wrinkles and dark spots,” she continued in the comments section.
“We all age!” she wrote in a subsequent clip. “Naturally our skin and facial structure will go through changes over time — commonly it’s volume loss, deeper lines and dark spots.”
She added: “We can’t stop it, but we CAN slow down the process.”
The cardinal rule, she said, is to always use sun protection, such as SPF. Cutting down on smoking and drinking, coupled with using a retinoid and ample moisturizer, can help “maintain youthful skin.”
The “Time Travel” filter is just one variation of AI-induced aging on the platform; others compare users’ current appearance to their elderly selves instead of showing the progression slowly over time.
Board-certified plastic surgeon Jonathan Kaplan, based in San Francisco, revealed that such filters are accurate in the way they portray eye-hallowing, drooping cheeks and deeper forehead lines.
Even Kylie Jenner, 26, dared to try out the filter for herself, posting what she might look like in old age — Botox and fillers be damned.
According to board-certified dermatologist Dr. Aleksandra Brown, the filters highlight the thinning of skin and the work of gravity, which results in sagging, “deeper smile lines, hollows under the eyes [and[ excess skin around the mouth.”
“This process is normal,” she assured viewers in the video caption.