Botox marks the spot
Younger people are using this popular treatment as a preventive measure against wrinkles
The young woman looks straight into the camera and raises her eyebrows. Instantly, a mass of wrinkles appears on her forehead. “Before Botox,” reads text superimposed on the video.
Over the next 20 seconds, the now-viral video uploaded to TikTok in March documents the woman's rapid transformation. In the video, she appears to be able to still easily lift her eyebrows post-treatment, but with each passing day, the movement triggers fewer wrinkles. The final clip shows her with a smooth, unlined forehead.
“Yes I had preventative Botox at 28,” reads the caption on the video that has been watched more than 2.2 million times. “I am so happy with the results!!”
Viewers agreed, flooding the video's comments section with compliments about the woman's youthful appearance and how natural the result looked.
“This might have just convinced me,” one person wrote.
In recent years, the tool kit for warding off visible signs of aging has expanded to include preventive Botox, also known as “baby Botox,” which aims to soften the movement of facial muscles to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles before they become permanent. While Botox received FDA approval to fight existing wrinkles in 2002, experts say preventive injections are a more recent trend, fuelled in part by influencers on social media and advertisements targeting younger people. For many people in this age group, particularly women, “the gospel of prevention has just seeped into their everyday vocabulary,” said Dana Berkowitz, a sociologist and author of Botox Nation: Changing the Face of America.
From 2000 to 2019, injections of Botox — a neuromodulator scientifically known as botulinum toxin, which blocks certain nerve signals to muscles — rose 878 per cent in the United States, according to a report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. One possible indication that preventive Botox is responsible for some of that increase is the fact that people ages 20 to 39 made up about 20 per cent of all botulinum toxin procedures reported in 2019. While some dermatologists and plastic surgeons say they are seeing rising numbers of men coming in for preventive treatments, the majority of people interested in starting Botox at a younger age, they say, are women in their mid-20s to mid-30s.
“This is a generation who is getting facials and taking care of their skin and using natural makeup,” said Ashley Amalfi, a plastic surgeon in Rochester, N.Y. “Doing Botox to prevent aging and to prevent wrinkle formation has just become an extension of that.”
But while specialists say preventive Botox can be a safe and effective, they also caution against thinking that it's the norm, or the only approach to slowing signs of aging. Some people may think “if you're not doing it, you're not beautiful, and that's simply not the case,” said Tina Nandi, an assistant professor of dermatology at Johns Hopkins University. “It's an option for people to consider, but absolutely not requisite.”
Here's what Nandi and other specialists say you need to know about this treatment trend.
UNDERSTAND HOW IT WORKS
When you frown, smile or furrow your brow, your facial muscles contract and “crease the skin over and over,” said Naomi Lawrence, director of micrographic surgery and cutaneous oncology at the Center for Dermatologic Surgery at Cooper University Health Care in New Jersey. As your skin ages and loses elasticity, this creasing can leave permanent lines, “so it just makes sense that softening that movement before the lines form really can do a lot to making you look better at every age.”
Injecting small amounts of botulinum toxin into targeted muscles temporarily weakens and relaxes them, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. Preventive Botox typically requires less product and fewer treatments than if you were tackling existing wrinkles.
CONSIDER THE POTENTIAL COMMITMENT
The cost of each treatment can range anywhere from several hundred dollars to more than $1,000. Prices depend on how many areas of the face are being treated and how much product is needed. As with traditional injections, preventive use will require continued maintenance, Nandi said. A one-time treatment will only result in “transient improvement.”
While patients often ask Murad Alam, a professor and vice-chair of dermatology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, if something bad will happen if they decide to discontinue treatments, the answer, he said, is “a very unequivocal and certain no.”
THINK CRITICALLY
“I would really advise young women to just be critical about the messages they're getting about what they should look like and what sort of things they should do to make them look a certain way,” Berkowitz said.
And you can also consider other skin-care treatments.
“You can achieve almost the same results if you're dedicated to regular sunblock use and a topical retinoid,” Nandi said. “You don't have to undergo these procedures to maintain a youthful appearance.”