Botox in your twenties?

Prevention is better than cure, goes the adage – although one does have to wonder if ageing is something that needs a cure. A young woman has revealed why she chose to have muscle-numbing Botox injections at the age of just 29.

Writing at The Gloss, the anonymous writer said that she turned to the cosmetic treatment because she had ‘weird and clenchy’ forehead muscles that she considered to be ‘overactive’, leaving her with wrinkles. Despite costing $500 every four months, the woman has been having the non-invasive procedure, involving many small injections into the facial muscles, for several years. Having noticed crow’s feet and brow furrows, the young woman headed to Dr Bracci at Verve Cosmetics, based in New York and New Jersey, who ‘corrected’ her face using Botox and then a filler, Radiesse. The plumping filler, administered to deep lines every six months, costs around $1 000 per syringe. That her face was deemed ‘incorrect’ to start with is, of course, in the doctor’s very best interests. The result was that the confessional writer ‘felt serene.’ The troublesome forehead muscle was suitably numbed and she found she ‘could smile without crow’s feet!’
Rather than looking unnaturally young or expressionless – as is the case with some injectables fans – the writer is determined that she simply does not ‘happen to have a nasty forehead cleft, giant crow’s feet, or deep nasolabial folds’ anymore.

While she compares the discomfort of Botox to having her eyebrows tweezed, Radiesse, a filler that contains an anaesthetic, involves ‘sticking a much longer needle up and down the length of [her] entire cheekbone, as well as directly into [her] nasolabial folds.’ Despite bruising – which the writer has lied about to boyfriends, blaming cheek and eye discoloration on run-ins with doors – she says that she is ‘sold’. The benefits are not simply feel-good, the dedicated Botox user suggests as she convincingly compares her vice to face creams and facials.

‘Yes, it’s expensive,’ she writes. ‘But lots of regular women spend $50 or more on a jar of face cream that they expect no real benefit from – you just kind of hope that you’ll end up better-looking when you’re old’.

She calculates that many women will spend $12 000 on expensive moisturiser over 40 years and disregards facials as ‘absurd waste[s] of money’ given that they are around $100 and only produce a ‘glow’ for a day. Instead, she uses a $15 drug-store moisturiser and puts her dollars towards the ‘dramatic and immediate’ effects that bacteria Botulinum Toxin Type A – aka Botox – is known to have. She now considers herself to be less ‘scowly’, which she believes is good for humanity – and is more than aware of her detractors.

‘Maybe 29 is young to start injectables, but I’d rather fix problems in a gradual way as they start. You can either try to preserve certain aspects of your youthful appearance through elective medicine, or you can let your face age at full speed – either way, your face will be changing. I prefer to direct that change.’ But while the writer started the cosmetic treatment at an unusually young age, she is certainly not alone.

Dr Samuel Lam, based in Dallas, told the New York Times that he has performed a hundred Botox procedures on teenagers, and defended his actions by explaining that teens tease each other about things that may not be considered important as adults. The chemical injections have been linked with botulism and are said to be addictive. Side effects include headaches, flu-like symptoms, temporary eyelid droop, nausea, double vision, eye twitching, facial pain and redness at the injection site… and a rather large credit card bill, in some cases.

Although we at BeautySouthAfrica.com are all for looking our best, we do think that ageing (and gracefully, if you can possibly manage it) is a gift – after all, the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about!

Written by Daisy Dumas, this article originally appeared in the Daily Mail