Madonna gets an injection of Botox in her clip for Hollywood

Getting botox for the first time // Is it still “frowned” upon?

The tide has turned against botox over the last year or so as former celebrity fans of the procedure such as the Minogue sisters have opted for a more natural look.

Kylie recently commented on her days of botox being in the past:

I don’t use it any more, I won’t go near it. I have lines. You can see the lines on my face.

I can’t see any lines on her face, I do see one super arched eyebrow though.

Le Blow beauty // Kylie Minogue botox

We are continually exposed to the ‘gone too far’ images of celebrities with botox, fillers and lip injections leaving them with frozen, extra shiny or puffed up pillow faces. It’s therefore not surprising that we non celebs have become very suspicious of the effects of botox.

Madonna gets an injection of Botox in her clip for Hollywood

But the truth is that we see botox all the time unknowingly. Once you get past the ‘plastic surgery gone bad’ pages in the magazines to the best dressed, you are still looking at faces that have been touched up with botox, they just went to a better doctor.

Carla Bruni cosmetic procedures botox

You never hear “oh, her botox looks great” because when it looks great nobody should be able to tell it’s been done. With that in mind I decided to give it a go for myself…

Aged 25 I thought I might be considered one of the younger botox clients. Wrong!

19-year-old clients are at the younger end of the spectrum, these women (girls?!) start early for the preventative properties of botox, so the wrinkles never even get a chance to form.

wrinkly skinned Gordon Ramsay

I personally wanted botox for my scrunched up forehead, it’s looked like a concertinaed piece of paper for as long as I can remember. I frown when I’m concentrating or sleeping so that pretty much covers 22 hours out of the day.

Forever in hot pursuit of perfection, botox had been on my internal list of possible self improvements for a while. I’m sure other people have the same internal list don’t they? Compared to the other items – a bit of lipo, weekly mani/pedis, personal trainer, only eat fruit and veg, get a rock hard bum – botox was one of the more achievable things on the list and so it came first.

Despite it being easy enough to find a recommended doctor and to make an appointment the actual procedure wasn’t as easy peasy as I thought it would be.

Bride of Wildenstein botox

I began to panic just before the needle came out – images of Jocelyn Wildstein and trout pouts floating through my head – even though I wasn’t having anything done to my lips. I wondered if I would end up as one of those women addicted to plastic surgery and end up with torpedo boobs and sausage lips before the year was out.

girl being injected with botox

Then came the needles. To be honest if you’re NOT a totally squeamish wimp, then there really is nothing to worry about. It takes about 15 minutes, several injections that don’t hurt and you can leave straight away with no telltale signs to the outside world.

If, like me, you are a TOTALLY squeamish wimp, you may end up with the doctor refusing to see you again for any top-ups in the future. Apparently wailing, hyperventilating and thrashing around in the chair whilst shaking doesn’t make it easy for the doctor with a needle in his hand to hit the exact right nerves.

The Spock effect after having botox

So, I have to be totally honest with you, for a few days I looked like Spock. Some of the nerves are affected quicker than others, so whilst most of my forehead had stopped moving, that little peak in my eyebrow was the only part that hadn’t “frozen” yet so whenever I raised my eyebrows that’s the only bit that moved.

Spock or Dick Dastardly would both have been appropriate nicknames.

Once the Spock effect had worn off, I was left with a beautifully smooth forehead. My make up didn’t stick in the creases anymore and when I caught my reflection in shop windows I no longer thought “gosh what are you thinking about so hard that requires you to screw your face up like that, you look fifty!”.

Instead I thought “look at my nice smooth face”. I always think ‘fresh’ is a bit of a naff beauty editor word to use about skin but in this case it sums it up. Yes, I look fresh.

And yes, it is a bit freaky not to be able to move your forehead or raise your eyebrows but that movement (partially) comes back within a few weeks, whereas the wrinkles haven’t.

Now… what should I have done next?

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