tox/ic

righteous discussion of "beauty" culture is often judgmental, fear driven and impulsive, just like the beauty industry it critiques

Six months ago, I made a quiet decision to stop getting Botox. I had been getting it to freeze the dynamic lines around my eyes every few months since 2023. For good measure, I also stopped getting Botox along my glabella, which had the effect of paralysing my eyebrows, stopping them from coming together in a frown, which produces a fine line that does remain when my face relaxes, albeit in a softened form that is (very possibly) only visible to me.

I have been getting the toxin treatment in this area since I was 29 (I know…), when I went to an aesthetician and asked what they thought would help me look more feminine. I was told Botox along the glabella would keep my expression open, cheerful and more youthful and – therefore – more feminine. So, I got Botox, originally, because of a hangup about femininity, not specifically a hangup about ageing. But, as Miranda July writes in All Fours, the two are often perceived as synonymous: “So much of what I had thought of as femininity was really just youth.”

I honestly think the Botox had minimal effect on my attractiveness (again, I was twenty-nine) or my adherence to conventional femininity. But I was very dysphoric in my twenties, I’d had fewer years with female hormone levels than I do now, and I was an active alcoholic i.e. bit sleep deprived, occasionally verging on haggard. The Botox gave me a quick fix and feeling of agency – for a price. Honestly? I don’t regret it.

Since I made my decision to stop getting Botox, the motion in my upper face has returned to normal. The prompt to try and stop getting any anti-wrinkle treatment in my face was seeing myself attempting to smile in flash photography after treatment. With the muscles around and above my eyes deactivated, my face compensated by making my cheeks rise, hamster-like, and form shelves beneath my eye socket. There was an unnatural effect, a bulging shelf of flesh and, all of a sudden, I had the epiphany: “you’re paying to look weird because you’re scared”.

So, I decided to try and let my mind adapt to my face without the effect of botulinum toxin. Gradually, my eyes began to crease again when I laughed and smiled. I had a couple of wobbles where I almost booked in for a re-up. But I pushed through and now I am really enjoying the extra money and my more emotive face.