Why I’ve never had Botox (and probably never will)
Does it really make us look younger, or just more the same?
I was really interested to read Alex Casey’s story on the Spinoff this morning about botulinum toxin, otherwise known by the brand name Botox. It’s the most common of the injectables; the things people pay to have injected into their faces with the goal of making them appear temporarily younger or at least wrinkle free.
It’s a good read. Alex is a woman in her 30s, seeing her contemporaries having this done, and wondering where that leaves her if she doesn’t go down the same path. She grapples – as do other women quoted in the piece – with the idea of being the ‘oldest looking’ in her friend group if she’s not artificially smoothed.
I’m twenty years older than Alex – I’ll turn 55 later this month. I have never had Botox, and honestly I’ve never even really considered it.
It could be that I am part of a generation (the Xers) which did not grow up with Botox in our lives. It wasn’t something I ever observed around me; when I was younger only older celebrities had cosmetic interventions and then it was in the form of facelifts, sometimes with quite alarming results – think Joan Rivers or Mickey Rourke.
Also relevant is that I’ve never really had the money (or the kind of money I imagine it would take) to get into this kind of thing. There has always been something more important to pay for. That goes for most beauty treatments tbh; I can probably count on one hand the number of facials I’ve had in my life, for example.
It’s not that I am not vain, or conscious of getting older and that showing on my face. I look in the mirror. I see my face is changing, and I do not love it. I would be delighted to wake up one morning and find the face of my 30s looking back at me.
Which is partly what makes me so sad to read that women as young as their 20s are getting injectables; changing their faces to look – what exactly? Not younger, surely. I’m not a regular watcher of reality shows like MAFS or Real Housewives but whenever I do, I’m struck by how much older the young women appear than they actually are. And also: how samey they look. The same smooth brow; the same bouncy cheeks; the same puffy lips. With the identical manes of hair and makeup techniques they’re all using, it’s honestly sometimes hard to tell them apart.
When I look back now at pictures of myself in my 30s, I think: wow, look at me! I look so young and fresh. But I don’t know how much impact saying that to a woman in her 30s now would have. I don’t remember loving my face back then, either.
It’s all patriarchal bullshit, of course. Society (most of white, western society, anyway) worships at the altar of youth; the standard is that young = relevant. It’s just part of the system we all live in, designed to keep women in our places and keep us from taking up too much space, especially as we grow in age, experience and power. Just when we’re fully stepping into our most powerful selves, in midlife and beyond, the message comes through loud and clear: it doesn’t matter what you have to contribute if you don’t look fuckable.
Though there is no doubt pressure on men to stay youthful, too, I think we can rest assured most of the men around us are not sparing a moment’s thought – let alone hundreds or thousands of dollars – to stop their foreheads from wrinkling when they frown. And that’s a test that has served me well over the years; what I know as the Caitlin Moran Rule, to test, as she says, “whether or not some sexist bullshit is afoot”:
Are the men doing it?
As Moran writes in How to be a Woman:
“Almost always the answer is no. The boys are not being told they have to be a certain way, they are just getting on with stuff.”
That comes through loud and clear through the women Alex Casey talks to for her story. The women getting Botox are smart; they are well aware, and often quite conflicted about, spending money and energy conforming to a bullshit patriarchal beauty standard. But they can’t not conform.
Zero judgment from me for that. I can’t say, hand on heart, that I’d never conform, either. Maybe if I had the money, some time in the future? Never say never.
But for now it doesn’t feel like me - like it would align with who I am – to do Botox. I’ve researched it for my books and written about it and other cosmetic interventions, and while fascinated, I can’t say that made me want to take it further.
One of the things a very wise dermatologist said to me in the course of that same research was: “how you live shows on your face.”
We all know this, don’t we? We know that if we’re stressed out and not sleeping and drinking too much and not exercising, that’s all going to show? I might not have known that in my thirties, but I sure as hell know it now. If you’re getting Botox – as some of the women in the Spinoff story said they are – to stop looking exhausted and stressed, maybe the answer lies deeper? Maybe dealing with the source of the exhaustion and stress might be a good idea?
For me right now, I am spending time and energy on things I know will help me feel good, not only now but also in the future. The money I spend on good food and the gym and the time I spend on sleep and rest is helping me to be healthy now, and as I get older. It’s helping me move well and stay strong and be mobile, I hope, as long as possible. It’s helping me in my goal of being able to get up off the toilet on my own when I’m 95, if I’m lucky enough to get to that age.
Maybe – maybe – some of that stuff will have an impact on my face. We’ll see; genes are a powerful force, too, and mine are not, as far as I can tell, going to give me a glamorous Audrey Hepburn-like jawline as an old lady. On the other hand, another genetic quirk means I have zero grey hairs at this stage, so I haven’t even had to think about that other bullshit beauty standard: dyeing my hair.
I’m learning as I move through my life that that old cliché is true: getting older is a privilege. And I want to own that. I want to own my life as it shows on my face; my experiences and my time spent on this planet. The laughs I’ve had as well as the struggles. Just like the men do. I want to look as good as I can look, for me, for how I am now. I don’t want it erased.
Another thing I’ve learned as I get older – and I definitely never had this at 35 – is that what other people think doesn’t matter to me any more. I truly no longer care if strangers on the internet – or friends I see regularly, for that matter – think I look ‘old’. I sincerely hope that how I look is the least interesting thing about me.
Thank you for sharing your thinking on this. Alex’s story is so good - I have been thinking about this topic a lot, partly because I have a young colleague who tells me all about her ‘tweakments’, including what she’s planning to have next and what hasn’t worked as she desired. She’s about 24, less than half my age. This worries me for all sorts of reasons (including vain ones, like does she look at me and think, ‘jeez you’re a haggard old bird’?) Hard not to judge either way, isn’t it?
I’m not sure it is just a Western thing; I’m in South Korea at the moment and everything, everywhere, all at once is about improving one’s appearance (including for men).
When I was in Auckland a couple of months ago, looking for something to eat at Commercial Bay, I noted a series of nail bars, lash bars, waxers, hairdressers etc, and felt that the overall message is that to be a woman is to need ‘improvement’ in some way but it’s sold to us as ‘self-care’. That sickens me.
I too am 54 and recognise my Gen X experience in everything you wrote. I also read Alex’s article this morning. Thanks for writing this so we can all remember getting older IS a privilege and how amazing to have that life in vivid detail etched into our faces. I love seeing that in other women and hope more women can continue to resist the patriarchal bs.