The Botox Fountain of Youth

This is the lovely Rachel. She recently appeared in a local Swiss Magazine praising Botox. Rachel is just 25 years old.

Tired at 25?

Rachel loves the Botox effect claiming it makes her eyebrows higher, opens up her face and that she is less tired looking…at twenty five. It may be a long way back for me, say twenty years, but one thing I do NOT recall about my twenties is feeling tired and more importantly looking tired. At twenty five I was working hard and playing even harder. It was a time when I went from the nightclub/lover’s bed straight to work, putting my make-up on in the car and no-one was the wiser. I had limitless reserves of energy that I took for granted. Any spare cash was spent on airtickets, weekends away, clothes and records (Hah! that’s a give-away I think the word now is CDs). Aesthetic upkeep was minimal as wearing the glow of youth there was little need for more.

My Face

I like my face, it’s the one I was given and I’m sticking with it but around my early forties I started to notice frown lines and a general overall look of tiredness that never left. I am proud of my face; my crows feet prove I laugh a lot but they do not have to start at the corner of my eye and end up at my ears, nor do I need tram lines across my brow. So I did my research and chose a well-respected cosmetic doctor who is also a surgeon and who now knows my face better than me. I am happy with the results. I still have history on my face: growing up in the drizzle of England, my years on the ski slopes; the beaches in the Middle East; my three children; my happy marriage. All come through but don’t necessarily hit anyone in the… face. (Note from Jules: I thought long and hard about writing that last paragraph but I promised an honest, candid look at women’s lives when writing this blog so I am keeping to my word).

Poison?

The dangerous part of putting Botulinum Toxin in my body does terrify me but so far there has been no scientific proof that this will kill me – any related deaths are almost always found to be caused by an underlying illness.

I’m in my mid-forties and look it. Botox helps me look the best I can – a healthy, energetic mid-forties. The lovely Rachel is twenty-five and is likely to stay that way all her life. Practitioners are now saying the earlier Botox is used the better as the stronger the muscle, the more efficient the treatment. So it is best used as a preventative measure before the wrinkle forms, and any human expression with it, I take it.

The important thing about Rachel’s age now is that this is when she says goodbye to her girlhood and we start to see the woman that she will become. There are no lines or wrinkles as yet, just a few traits of laughter, of expression, as light as the strokes of a charcoal etching. If Rachel continues to use Botox we will never know this beautiful woman, how when she smiles her eyes crinkle in the corner and when she concentrates her brow furrows just a little bit.

Copyright JulesRitter February 2008