When Botox is not enough

LANA can’t remember the first time she had Botox, it’s become a regular procedure. But after years of use, doctors are recommending something scary.

Botox is now incredibly common. But what happens when it’s not enough?

I’M NOT sure when I first had Botox injected into my face but I remember it was because I was desperate.

I had tried almost every wrinkle cream on the market and funnily enough no magic potion could erase the ravages of time, laughter and tear tracks from my face. I was deeply creased.

Botox seemed as natural a move for my face as the decision to use hydrogen peroxide on my hair was many years before when I successfully covered the fact that I was more a natural grey than a born brunette.

There is no denying that the use of Botox is vain. It’s not actually necessary but it does make you feel good and look better. And it’s a growing phenomenon, even if a lot of people aren’t confessing to it.

While women in their mid twenties and early thirties are happy to assert their right to hold back ageing, it is the middle aged and older women claiming they look luminous, crease-free and 30 because they drink water and stay out of the sun.

It’s getting harder and harder to believe that. Especially when you see 45-year-old women looking almost identical to their 30-year-old counterparts.

There are virtually no wrinkles on Hollywood stars says Debora L. Spar in her book The Bitch Is Back. And the same thing is true for female entrepreneurs or women in the news media. “There are few wrinkles on the women in Congress and even fewer on Wall Street,” she says.

While we don’t keep specific records of how many cosmetic surgeries take place in Australia we do know that in 2015, Australians spent over $1 billion on non-surgical cosmetic procedures like dermal fillers for cheeks and lips, or anti-wrinkle injections like Botox.

The biggest problem with this ridiculous amount of money spent on vanity, aside from the obvious fixation on youth, is that because so many people are doing it, everyone is starting to look the same. Picture the puffy faces and pouty lips of almost every A-lister you see.

And it doesn’t stop with injections. Beauty Editor Jenny Berich recently went for a Botox top up only to be told by the doctor that injectables are no longer the right thing for her. She should contemplate a “mini lift”.

Not only would a mini lift help her achieve a “more natural look”, she would not look the same as every other 50-year old woman. Let me state for the record that Jenny looks absolutely gorgeous. She looks younger than me, even though she is older and we both get Botox!

Jenny interviewed Dr Jack Zoumaras, a Sydney-based plastic surgeon for Professional Beauty. He explains “injectables cannot hide visible ageing indefinitely. There does come a time when filler will no longer provide desired results and the only way to avoid the ‘puffy look’ is to undergo surgery. Contrary to popular opinion plastic surgery, in the form of a facelift, addresses the causes of facial ageing directly so the results are more natural.”

Zoumaras explains “although under-eye ‘bags’ can be “masked” by fillers temporarily, if an injector “overfills and repeat-fills, the client will end up with a puffy face”.

I’ll pause here to allow you to think how many puffy faces you have seen of late …

So to avoid the puffy clone face we should be looking to the facelift which removes excess skin, re-positions the fat and, according to Zoumaras “tightens the orbital-malar ligament to correct the underlying ageing process resulting in a more natural youthful look”.

No more injections of botulism into our faces, now it seems we should be cutting the face open and scrambling a few things around just to look younger or as Dr Zoumaras suggests “correct the underlying ageing process”

The idea of “correcting” the ageing process seems to be a complete anomaly. Ageing is a gift, it is ultimately the very opposite of death so it makes no sense to “correct” it.

But perhaps as a person who gets a Botox top-up every three to four months, I should I say it makes no sense on paper. My vanity argues I should disguise the signs of ageing while my brain argues against defying the ageing process.

Sadly for me, and perhaps in an indictment of the society we live in, my vanity wins. My face doesn’t show the years of laughter and tears I have experienced, well at least for a month or two after the Botox top-up, but my brain remains resolutely 48 and happy that I am continuing to age in the time of Botox.

But as for surgery? Ask me again in 10 years.

Lana Hirschowitz is a blogger, writer and reformed toast lover. You can follow her on Facebook.