London - Well, what do we have here, staring at me from the bathroom mirror? Is that a frown line I see?
I think it is, quite a deep one, and there are crow’s feet too, two sets, fanning out below my eyes, not quite joining but certainly creeping their way towards the creases coursing from my nose to my mouth. I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, what woman reaches the age of 62 without time carving its initials and experiences into her face?
But for me this is all new because, for best part of two decades, I’ve been shielded from the effects of ageing, as I have worshipped every six months at the shrine of my beloved Botox. We go back a long, long, way — dear old Botox and me. I was a Botox guinea pig, one of the first people to try the controversial injection in the UK for cosmetic purposes, and I’ve been hooked for two decades.
The joy of having smooth skin and wrinkles without having to undergo a Joan Rivers wind-tunnel style facelift was fantastic. I thought I’d found the holy grail of anti-ageing and swore to use it for the rest of my life. But as my 60th birthday loomed, my letter reminding me to book my Harley Street appointment arrived, I hesitated before ringing.
Why? Botox may be brilliant at halting the march of time, but it can’t hold back inflation: when I first had the treatment, back in 1993, it was £200 (about R2 400) . Now it’s closer to £400. It’s still cheaper than a facelift but when you’ve had it as often as me, only just.
But my hesitation wasn’t just down to money. Not only have I grown older, I’ve finally grown up. As a 40-year-old surveying my first wrinkles with horror, I’d always assumed that my need to conceal them would increase over the passing years. But I’ve actually discovered the opposite.
I found myself staring in the mirror and wondered for the first time why I was continuing to use Botox.
It’s not as if I’m a newsreader, competing with ever younger auto-cuties. When I walk past building sites, workmen no longer whistle — with or without Botox. And my husband loves me both with and without make-up — he can rarely tell the difference.
I’ve realised it’s finally time to stop worrying about looking ten years younger and accept that, with a decent frock, a slick of lipstick and a pair of heels, I still scrub up pretty well.
I’m actually using less make-up, and ask what’s wrong with looking like an attractive, well-preserved 62-year-old woman when that’s exactly what I am?
I confess, however, I did recently have that horrible experience of glancing in a shop window and not recognising the old dear staring back at me.
But surely it’s far worse to be one of those deluded women who are so used to their scary, frozen faces that they don’t notice themselves slipping into the ‘weird and slightly deformed’ category.
And, to add insult to injury, they no longer look any younger than their contemporaries.
Singer Lulu recently admitted she stopped using Botox for that very reason, because it stopped making her look youthful. Felicity Kendal gave it up because she said, at 66, it was simply undignified.
And I couldn’t agree more. As I approach 63, I’m finally starting to feel happy in my own, wrinkled skin. I don’t want to compete any more, or feel the need to fake my looks. And besides which, we still don’t really know what the health risks of Botox are over long-term, regular use.
Among younger women the popularity of Botox marches on, unchecked: in a recent survey, cosmetic surgeons reported an 18 percent increase in demand for injections — especially among women their 30s and 40s.
This very paper reported the rise of the “mummy makeover”— the stampede of school mums to cosmetic clinics before the start of term to make sure they look as young and smooth as the other mothers at the schoolgates.
And I do sympathise with them. I was in my late 30s, with young, school-age children, when that deep furrow first appeared between my eyebrows.
My husband kept asking me what was wrong and workmen would shout: “Cheer up love, it may never happen.” Friends said I seemed permanently stressed.
Even though I felt fine, I really did look like Mrs Angry all the time. But what could I do?
Then something wonderful happened. I was sent to interview a Harley Street cosmetic surgeon about a drug that was brand new to the UK.
I read, fascinated, about this thing called Botox which had been injected into patients with involuntary facial tics and spasms.
I learned how it was discovered that one of the side-effects of paralysing the over-active, twitching muscles was that the patient’s wrinkles vanished too.
How fantastic, I thought. I pointed out my frown line (which hardly needed pointing out) to the surgeon and asked if I could try it.
I was slightly perturbed at the thought of having a drug injected into me that was derived from poisonous botulism bacteria, however diluted and mild, but the effects were miraculous.
My horrid little furrow vanished, along with some forehead lines, and my brow seemed to have lifted, leaving me looking wide eyed and fresh — as if I’d just come back from a long holiday.
The surgeon warned me that it wasn’t permanent and I’d need regular treatments. That was no problem. To me, it was a tiny price to pay for looking and feeling so great, even though I am a bit of a coward and the injections stung, despite liberal amounts of anaesthetic cream.
Over the years, I kept up my regular appointments. Those little jabs took me through the highs and lows and stresses of life that cause your skin to sag and plough deep worry lines.
I think I even dealt with life a bit better because of them — knowing I looked good made me feel more confident and more in control of everything.
And of course, I wasn’t the only one to catch on to the benefits of Botox. The news of this miraculous little treatment spread like wildfire, and this was in the days before the internet.
Suddenly Botox was everywhere. The genie was out of the bottle and anyone who was anyone had to have it.
There were Botox parties in private homes where women sat chatting with layers of anaesthetic cream or post-injection ice packs on their foreheads as the cheese dip and Chardonnay were passed round.
Celebrities seemed addicted to it, and the immobile faces of Madonna, Nicole Kidman, Kylie Minogue and Sharon Osbourne peered out at us from magazines and TV.
And where previously it had been de rigueur to flatly deny any helping hand you’d had with your looks, Botox was so cool, A-listers were actually admitting they’d had it.
And still the party continues. Botox has just had its 25th UK anniversary and is still the top anti-ageing product, even among the ever-growing range of miracle creams, fillers and bizarre freezing treatments.
But not for me. Botox and I have parted company for good.
It’s been two years since my last jab and new lines are appearing every day. I’ve even got lines on my lines!
But the difference is that now I’m happy to display my battle scars, and I’ll be saving myself a great deal of time and money in the process.
I’ve had all the ups and downs of marriage, two children and a career — and I’m not afraid to show it.
Sometimes when I see my two daughters scowling I don’t just give them my own mother’s folklore waffle — the wind will change and your face will stay like that — I simply say stop frowning or start saving for your Botox.
But for me it’s bye bye Botox. It’s been great, but now I’m happy to frown. - Daily Mail