Ageism is real. Looking like a Giles cartoon granny can get in the way of work, social life and, well, being the person you want to be
to drawn-in cheeks, hollowing under the eyes and deep lines at the side of my face.
She is preparing the places where she will inject hyaluronic acid, which hydrates and inflates tissue, and platelet rich plasma, which will minimise the appearance of undereye wrinkles. Profhilo (a hyaluronic acid dermal filler that improves the skin — a bit like injectable moisturiser) will also be going into the rings around my neck.
She says I will need three sessions over three months, as I haven’t had treatment before. It will all cost £5,000. The Botox lasts for three to four months, while for the filler it’s about nine to 18 months. The plumping from fillers which bond with our natural collagen does not wholly disappear for about a year- and-a-half, and has a buildup effect. If I want to keep up the look then I need to return every three to six months for Botox, and every nine to 18 months for fillers. I am no fan of injections, but I am surprised by how little the procedure hurts. At the end of each fourminute session, the only signs that the needle has gone into my face many times are a couple of small bruises around the chin and a bit of swelling, which makes my face a bit chipmunk-ish. I have not had Botox or substantial fillers before, but this is not the first time I have had cosmetic help. In my early 40s, when I was juggling two riotous sons and a demanding job, while doing up a wreck of a house, my exhaustion levels were off the scale. It showed in my eyes, which seemed to slip into a sandwich of loose skin. I looked like a lizard. I was told cosmetic surgery was the only thing that would help, so I had skin removed from the top and bottom of my eyelids. It brought my eyes back into my face.
In those days, feminists didn’t admit to tampering with nature, but I use my eyes a lot to communicate and had stopped feeling confident in doing so.
I am well aware that wanting cosmetic procedures to remove the evidence of a life lived is a dangerous route to the overdone effect.
There are plenty of cautionary tales: Melanie Griffith, the Leslie Ash ‘trout pout’, or the plasticised look of Joan rivers, who had the chutzpah to admit: ‘I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.’
Following the backlash I got after my eye-lift treatment, I also know that wanting to improve your looks — vanity, if you like — is often met with opprobrium. Why can’t we accept ourselves? Don’t we love the wrinkles and crinkles as trophies of all we have done? Why disguise the story of our lives?
In my own defence, what’s the use in that when the story is too overlaid with markings to be read? I value what I have done with my life and don’t aspire to the impossible dream of looking years younger than I am.
But nor do I love the idea of resembling a passion fruit in its shell, all wrinkles and deep lines — no matter how tasty the inside might be.
It’s the desire to present ourselves as ‘the best calling card possible’, as top cosmetic dermatologist Dr Tapan Patel puts it. At his London PHI Clinic, he does non-surgical treatments with ‘a far larger toolkit than we had a few years ago’.
He says he has loyal clients in their 80s, who are not trying to look radically different, but want a face that looks fresh and bright. ‘Ageing is not a level playing field. Some age far earlier than others and they don’t want to be disadvantaged.’
This is surely the point. The human race has done what it can to enhance its appearance for millennia, but now there is more to it. We are likely to live decades longer than before, and it is a simple truth that looking like a Giles cartoon granny can get in the way of work and social opportunities and, well, being the person you want to be.
AGeISMis real and it can be very difficult if your mind is as sharp as ever and your abilities are intact, but your face suggests otherwise. It may not be fair, but that’s how it is.
Besides, why is getting Botox any more vain than sweating through a Pilates class five days a week, wearing make-up to flatter and disguise, or splashing out on a figure-shaping party dress?
Whatever anyone else may say as I go public with my face, my husband likes the result and says my cheeks are as girlish as they were when he first met me (an exaggeration for sure, as I was 29 then!).
He even wondered whether he should have a bit of a fillip, too, but I squashed that one fast. I’m not into competitive tweakments and, anyway, he is for ever being told how young he looks.
When I saw my friend, a beauty expert not unacquainted with the Botox needle herself, she gave a shriek of delight: ‘Your skin looks really smooth and you now have a lovely curve to your cheek.’
My glamourpuss Spanish daughter-in-law said I look no older than 50 and that she wanted to look just as I do when she is my age — but she only saw me on FaceTime.
other friends didn’t spot that I’d had anything done, but several have told me how well I look and said my eyes seem brighter.
And, most importantly, like the results. My face feels perkier, I feel more like smiling, and I find myself putting on silky summer dresses rather than my usual trousers and T- shirts. I feel as though a new confidence has been injected into me with the fillers and Botox — just in time for that 75th birthday.