The rise and rise of cosmetic injectables is now fuelled by demand from Generation Z, who want ‘prejuvenation’ before wrinkles even appear. Hannah Evans comes clean about her needle habit. I can remember clearly a conversation I had with a good friend of mine when I was 28 and she was 27.
We were sitting in the pub and she was lamenting the fact that, one by one, all her friends were getting anti-ageing injections such as Botox. “They are all so gorgeous and beautiful and young,” she said. “I don’t understand why they’re doing it.
I don’t even think they have wrinkles.” I nodded but stayed sheepishly mute. Little did she know I had recently made my first foray into the world of botulinum toxin, the name of the neurotoxin used to relax muscles and smooth wrinkles, with a mini dose injected in my forehead.
In the syringe was the most famous anti-wrinkle injection, Botox, manufactured by Allergan Aesthetics. The doctor holding the needle called my mini dose by its most commonly known nickname, “baby” Botox, “a cosmetic treatment involving smaller doses of botulinum toxin to achieve a more natural reduction in fine lines and wrinkles”, he said. If my friend in the pub had looked closer as I gave her an empathetic smile (or tried to), she would have seen the famous Evans frown between my eyebrows had softened.
I am now 30 and as well as the botulinum toxin to uncrease the lines in my forehead, I have had injections in my crow’s feet (the crinkles around.