E very couple of years, I’m invited on to some radio show on the implicit understanding that as a Guardian beauty columnist, I’ll sound suitably appalled and outraged by the latest opening of a high street aesthetic clinic chain. Well, I’m not. I positively welcome the democratisation of Botox.
Anyone thinking that these more affordable, more accessible aesthetic clinics are pushing hitherto unsullied damsels towards the needle are wrong. That particular ship has long since sailed. Rightly or wrongly (and, certainly, the politics of injectables are a conversation worth having), toxin (“Botox”) injections are regarded by many – not all – younger people in much the same way older consumers once saw retinol and teeth whitening.
They’re doing it regardless. The reason I’m all for brands like Superdrug and Thérapie Clinic offering more affordable injectables is that I believe patients on the high street should be as safe as those on Harley Street. Without them, we continue with a two-tier system whereby women with cash and contacts visit prestigious doctors with sexy equipment, extensive training and flawless technique ( Dr Wassim Taktouk of Taktouk Clinic , in my case), while those on a budget visit private residences, hair salons or “Botox parties”, to be jacked up with unlicensed chemicals by someone with a certificate from an internet college.
Any objections to a highly insured middle ground in the form of quality nationwide chains are snobbish and down.
