Baby Botox: Taking the Edge OffThis Hot Mess
There might have been years in your 20’s where you thrilled when people assumed you were older than your age. Maybe you would naively attribute it to being worldly and well-spoken enough to be mistaken as almost-thirty at barely 21.
** cue eyeroll **
But somewhere in your actual thirties, that changed. Not all at once, or coinciding with any candle-count on your cake, but it definitely swung the other direction. The oh-thank-you smirk would appear when mistaken for someone a decade younger, which you’d quickly (and truthfully) attribute to your religious application of daily sunscreen.
Then you’re 40, and after you’ve developed a habit of pushing your thumb between your brows to remind yourself to stop unconsciously furrowing your 11’s (aka, the glabellar lines), you throw in the towel. Years of proselytizing that women should be allowed to age gracefully go down the potty as you make that appointment with the heavily-researched Botox dermatologist to “just talk” about your “options.” Seven minutes later, you’re sold on Baby Botox, because OMG, doesn’t that totally sound easy and approachable?
Because that’s how I got here: paying someone to Baby Stab my grump lines with poison.
Shooting Up
The concept of Baby Botox is definitely marketing genius – an assurance that the frozen faces of 90’s soap opera stars is history. Instead of 20+ units blanketing your forehead, you get 8-11 expertly placed mini units freezing juuuuust the right spots, while still allowing movement and expression.
The procedure is relatively painless, but there’s always the option of numbing cream. You just point to the offending area, scrunch up your face a few times, pop, pop, pop, and done. No aftercare, aside from not hanging upside down for 24hrs (for some moms, this could prove difficult). And for the first few days, you feel nothing. You see nothing. Then it kicks in, and continues kicking for about two weeks until you’ve reached peak immobility. This is the worst part, as the injection areas slowly get more and more numb and weirdly heavy. I panicked. I felt self-conscious. It felt obvious and plastic. I checked my forehead a dozen times an hour. I considered getting bangs.
I had told no-one except my husband (who gallantly shrugged and claimed not to see any wrinkles). Not my sister. Not my mother. Not my girlfriends. Not my coworkers. It was too embarrassing and I convinced myself this was just a self-experiment; if I hated it, it’d be gone in six months and poof, back to normal.
And guess what…nobody noticed.
To me, it was a giant flashing billboard reflecting off my shiny, 2000’s Nicole Kidman-smooth forehead.
But that’s not what others saw, weeks went by and the closest thing to a comment was a compliment on the new shape of my brows – assumed to have been achieved by tweezer, not needle. So I said, f*** it, there hasn’t been any interventions, it must look natural enough not to matter to anyone except me.
So I started to bring it up with my inner circle, and even my all-natural, plastic-free, no-palm-oil-in-my-PB-please friends immediately burst into questions and wanted every detail. And now, true to my TMI-nature, I’ll tell anyone who asks, and even some who don’t. Because quasi-hot-mess moms aren’t typically associated with Botox.
I haven’t brushed my hair in three days and I definitely picked this sweater off the floor, but I can’t look too upset about it!
There is one huge downside though: a truly effective mom-death-stare from across the room no longer exists without the angry eyes. I just look slightly peeved and must use words to really get a response.
This has thoroughly tickled me ?. I would consider it.