Botox...
2/21/2012 06:00:00 pm
Sooooo, I thought I'd do a little bit of a different post today.
As you may (or may not) know, I used to work in a medical spa, and my fave fave fave aspect of it - apart from the fact I truly love beauty and skincare etc - was really was the free treatments! I worked at said medi-spa for a year, aged 22-23, and (shock horror!) I was given botox. Now 22 is really definitely no age to start having botox. To be honest, a responsible botox practitioner shouldn't be doling out botox to anyone kind of under the 25 year old mark. Firstly, hardly anyone needs botox under 25. I thought I had the worst glabeller lines ever - the vertical line between my eyes - but, after being botox free for a year (and trust me, my botox has defos disappeared now), I hardly notice the line I thought was so horrendous.
So the facts.
Firstly, your medical history must always, always be taken by the practitioner, and talked through with yourself. If this doesn't happen run as fast as your teeny little legs will carry you out of the building. This is irresponsible, and is a sign that something is not quite right. In the same way, you must always have a consultation with the practitioner who will carry out your botox treatment, so they can address your expectations and explain a few bits to you. They should explain that it typically lasts around 3-6months, at which point you may have to come back for more. Risks of botox include drooping, especially of the eyelid and eyebrow, allergic reactions, shock from the injections - I'm sure you can think of more! This is why it is vital to go to someone reputable.
Essentially, botox is derived from a poison called Botulinum toxin - Botox is actually a brand name! - so please be mindful of this in your decision to have the treatment.
Top: Kylie - Eyebrows look artificially raised from an overload of botox.
Bottom: Dana Delany: admitted she had botched botox, as you can see, one eye is drooping.
Right before your treatment, the practitioner should ask you to make a facial expression based on where you want your botox, so in my case, it was a frown - which allowed the nurse to use a white pencil to mark the injection sites.
So does botox hurt? Well it depends on your pain threshold. I have a high threshold - so much so that I had lip filler injections without anaesthetic (this is a story for another day) - and as such, I found it more uncomfortable as opposed to painful. It felt like a sharp scratch, which made my eyes sting, but was over quite quickly. After this, you should be advised not to lie down for a couple of hours, and to make the face you made earlier over and over again for a few hours to direct the botox into the right place. Your practitioner should always under use the botox on you, asking you to come back in two weeks, when the full effects of your treatment can be seen, and a top-up added if needed. It really does take around a week to see results.
Kimmy K is a cautionary tale, botox didn't agree with her at all, and left her bruised. I'm sure many of you have seen this episode, but if not, it's Season 5, episode 3 of Keeping up with the Kardashians.
The reason you should wait until around 30 to have the botox is to ensure your body doesn't almost become immune to the botox. To explain to a friend what I meant by this, I said that if she started using it fairly consistently from age 20, at age 63, her face would be touching her knees. Of course this is an exaggeration I used to really put my point across, but use of botox from an early age really decreases its efficacy - probably at a time when you'll actually need it! The form of botox I had was known as 'baby botox' and is given for really quite superficial lines in the younger end of the spectrum, so around the 30 year mark. If you are trying botox for the first time, perhaps this is something you would like to discuss with your practitioner!
I hope this interested a couple of you!
Botox is a wonderful short-term fix, but is expensive - at least £100 - and is measured by area. So, your line in between your eyebrows is one area, the lines on your forehead another, and the lines around your mouth are the third. Botox is charged per area! Take note though, around your mouth, botox can look really weird - perhaps think about fillers here. Also, the long-term safety of this really isn't known - it hasn't been around for a hundred years, so that's always a slight issue!
Love A.x
