GEORGE DRIVER: ON SEASONAL TWEAKMENTS
I RECENTLY LOST MY TWEAKMENT VIRGINITY. After years of working in an industry obsessed with the latest products, services and tools to turn back the clock on your face, I decided to take the bull by the horns and book in for my debut Botox. Now, I swear by it. With some caveats.
At 32, my face is pretty settled into its resting state – no early-twenties changes still to come. If anything, the (literal) downward trajectory of my complexion has crossed the starting line. So, it felt like the right time to dip my toe into a skincare service that might cost more than your everyday moisturiser, but can offer results a fancy pot of face cream never could.
For me, it’s no different from investing in a quality cut and colour. I book in three times a year for a sprinkling of ‘baby Botox’ (a more subtle technique that uses smaller-dose injections to avoid the dreaded ‘frozen’ face) around the corners of my eyes and frown lines, which costs around £250 a session. In the same way I get my faux-copper hair coloured in, I’m not looking to my Botox top-up for a drastic transformation, rather a boost that brings me back to looking like me, but on a really good day. Something that an elaborate 11-step skincare routine just can’t guarantee.
Investing in triannual tweakments feels considered, efficacious and more than worth the cost. But if needles just aren’t your thing, or you would rather stick to formulas that come in a bottle rather than a syringe, I swear by Tata Harper’s eye cream as the only eye product I’ve tried that actually tightens and lifts creases and lines, Exuviance’s Bionic Tonic, which feels like a Profhilo treatment in a pad, and La Mer’s juicy-skin-inducing lotion, which might not be cheap but will bring a dry complexion back to life.