In general, people who use Botox to smooth over facial wrinkles are mostly those over 40. However, there’s a trend gaining in popularity: it’s called prejuvenation. It has you starting on Botox in your 30s (and sometimes even in your 20s), to help you make sure that wrinkles don’t form in the first place. It’s a preemptive move against wrinkle formation. It’s a hot topic of discussion on social media and on Tik-Tok, and about one in five people using Botox today are in their 30s, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (plasticsurgery.org/documents/News/Statistics/2020/plastic-surgery-statistics-full-report-2020.pdf).
Is Botox for prejuvenation a good idea?
Dermatologists don’t challenge the assertion that starting Botox in your 20s and 30s helps head off wrinkles later in life.
Botox works by making it hard for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine to function. Using Botox to block this neurotransmitter weakens your facial muscles, and makes it hard for the muscles to crease the skin by making the facial expressions that the muscles are capable of. It used to be that using Botox to smooth over wrinkles meant that you had to do without the ability to smile with your eyes or use your face to show how you felt. These days, however, people want the kind of Botox use Jennifer Lopez is known for: baby Botox.
It involves the use of very small quantities of Botox to address wrinkles without freezing your face. While dermatologists 10 years ago would use 30 units of Botox on each facial muscle they targeted, they use 30 units across the entire face today, for baby Botox procedures.
Studies on the effects of Botox prejuvenation have compared twins (liebertpub.com/abs/doi/10.1001/archfaci.8.6.426). A twin receiving Botox in her 30s was shown to reliably have fewer wrinkles 13 years later, than her identical twin who received no Botox.
Prejuvenation with Botox can have downsides
When you begin using baby Botox, you get by on smaller doses of Botox and keep wrinkles away for longer. Once you stop, however, wrinkle formation does begin at some point. You may start with a new baseline age for wrinkle formation, but they do eventually appear. When they do, you may be particularly unhappy with the way your face looks all of a sudden, compared to how you might feel if you saw those wrinkles form over a decade.
Additionally, since Botox does disable the facial muscles to some extent (less, if you use baby Botox procedures), the facial muscles thin out from underuse. This can alter the way you look. You may like it or you may not, but visible changes from thinning facial muscles do happen. These changes are reversible, however, once you stop using Botox for a couple of months.
The use of Botox over periods as long as ten years may cause a tendency in the skin around the eyes to droop.
It’s also important to take into account the fact that Botox treatments cost about $400 a sitting. If you start early in your 20s or 30s and accept three procedures a year (traditional or baby), you could end up spending $25,000 on Botox by the time you hit 50. It’s a significant investment, and it’s important to make sure that this expense doesn’t hurt you financially.
Prejuvenation with Botox is a good idea in theory, especially if you use the baby Botox approach. All you need to do is to consider the potential downsides, and arrive at a decision.
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