Bonding over Botox
Mothers and daughters are bonding over cocktails — and cosmetic injections
EVERY four to six months, 52-year-old Eva Slikas takes the subway from Astoria to Long Island City for an outing with her 35-year-old daughter. The pair then hops on the 7 train and heads to Midtown for a day of eating, shopping — and cosmetic procedures.
“It’s like our date,” says daughter Helen Economou, a makeup artist who jokes that their appointment is the only time she can see her busy mother. Economou gets Botox on her forehead and lip injections, while Mom gets fillers for her neck, forehead and around her eyes. They sit at the doctor’s office side-by-side, holding hands and cracking jokes, and follow up their appointments with a trip to H&M or Sephora and lunch at a steakhouse.
“I love going with my daughter,” says Slikas. “We laugh so much. Rain or shine, I’m not missing our appointments for nothing!”
Having a joint cosmetic procedure, whether it’s filler, Botox or liposuction, is the newest mother-daughter bonding activity, particularly in New York City. Doctors such as Upper East Side-based plastic surgeon Stafford Broumand, who says his number of mother-
daughter duos has tripled, are reporting an increase in such patients. Reasons range from a chance to bond and have fun with a loved one — making it more like a spa-day outing than a doctor’s appointment — to giving moral support for procedures some would otherwise be nervous undergoing.
“It’s the next-generation beauty parlor,” declares Melissa Doft, of Doft Plastic Surgery in Lenox Hill. “There’s a huge increase in motherand-daughter pairs from once in a while a few years ago to two to three a week.”
“It makes you feel better about yourself, and you want to share that with other people, like a mom or daughter,” adds Jennifer Levine, who says her plastic-surgery practice on the Upper East Side has seen a big uptick in mother-daughter treatments. They tend to come in, she says, for noninvasive procedures such as lip injections, Botox and SculpSure, a laser treatment that reduces fat in the stomach and thighs.
And now that wedding season is here, doctors’ offices are even more packed than usual with family members.
“They want to look good for photos, so they come a couple of times to make sure the Botox is perfect and the filler is symmetric,” says Doft.
Pamela Grant wasn’t planning a wedding, but she did have another big event last December: her daughter’s bat mitzvah.
“A bat mitzvah is a big deal,” says the 43-year-old Grant, a lawyer who lives in Williamsburg. “While it’s all about my daughter, I want to look my best for the family.” To ensure she’d fit into her tight sheath dress, she signed up for a consultation about SculpSure. When her mom told her she was also interested, Grant arranged for both of them to see a cosmetic surgeon.
“I think whenever you have any sort of procedure, you want to have moral support,” Grant says. “Doing it with someone makes it a little more fun. And we both felt great the day of the bat mitzvah.”
Alex Sonnenblick was looking for emotional support when she approached her mother, Pamela Sonnenblick, about her weight. Pamela, a designer for the jewelry line Pamela Grace, had previously had liposuction and a tummy tuck, along with a few other minor procedures, and Alex — after endless trips to dietitians — wondered if her mom’s plastic surgeon could be of help.
“I definitely would not have suggested it [had we not tried other methods] first,” says Pamela, 57, who splits her time between the Upper East Side and Los Angeles.
Alex, now 28 and living in Denver, says that seeing someone whom her mom trusted helped her go under the knife. “I probably would not have done anything, except for the fact that my mom had previously seen [the doctor] and he had done such an amazing job [with her],” she says.
Now the two say that they’re not only happy with their bodies, but that the experience has brought them closer together.
“She held my hand; she was there when I woke up in the room,” says Alex about her mom.
“We’re an open family anyway,” says Pamela, “but it’s definitely helped us talk about things more easily.”
And then there’s 65-year-old Deborah Engelman, who is lucky enough to have a dermatologist as a daughter. “She called me one day in 2004, when she was in medical school, and said, ‘I need your help! I need a practice patient!’ ” says the Charleston, SC-based counselor. “I said, ‘Sure!’ ”
Daughter Dendy Engelman must have done a good job, because 13 years later, Deborah continues to see her, flying every few months to New York City, where Dendy is an associate at Medical Dermatology & Cosmetic Surgery in Midtown, for some fillers or Botox.
Dendy makes sure to book her mom at the end of the day, so that afterward they can cap off the doctor’s visit with drinks or dinner.
“We’re very close,” says Dendy, who says treating her mom has made her more mindful of her own genetics and problem areas. “She’s such a giving person. It makes her feel bad to get all these beauty treats, but it makes me happy to give her something.”