THE NEW BOTOX FACIAL

I watch anxiously as Rowe mixes my sui generis blend (I’m in the anti-ageing rather than the acne life stage). While he attaches a small glass vial to a stamping device that contains 20 cannulated needles, I ask about numbing cream. “The needles are so fine that you really don’t need it,” he says. He assures me again that my fear of ending up with a face frozen in place is unwarranted because the needles penetrate just 0.6 millimetres into the skin (regular Botox injections go into the muscle at about 10 times that depth). “I would normally use 30 units of Botox just for the brow. For the facial, I use five units for the whole face,” he adds.

The first stamp on my forehead feels like a rubber band snap, but I quickly grow used to it as he continues to needle his way around the circumference of my face, my mouth, and under my eyes. The whole procedure takes less than an hour. I leave with a slightly pink face and the advice not to apply make-up for six hours lest it seep into my pores. Rowe had warned me that I might look slightly wind burned the next day, but the following morning the only evidence is a few faint blotches that soon faded.

Rowe realises that this is an unorthodox use for Botox. “Microneedling has been around for decades, but mixing it with other techniques is creating a whole new way of doing things,” says Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, a cosmetic dermatologist in New York. Nevertheless, he says, “while combining it with Botox makes sense, there have been zero trials and no FDA approval. It’s an exciting future, but there is no proof.”

Personally, I found the effects to be subtle—a bit more clarity, a slight tightening. But a week after, when I met a friend for dinner after a Pilates class sans make-up, the first thing she said was, “What have you done? Your skin looks amazing.” While Botox facial will never take the place of the occasional injectable, I’m definitely looking tighter and brighter—and booking my next appointment.

J