Should I get Botox?

Women are damned if they 'age naturally' and damned if they don't

Photo by Vlad Kutepov on Unsplash

Hello! How are you faring at the start of the third week of the new year? I am getting into the swing of things. This week, I have to be at a client’s office for 6am most days, so I’ll be setting my alarm for 4.45am.

I aspire to be a morning person, so maybe, just maybe, this will help to tweak my body clock to wake me up a little earlier on regular weeks.

Last time I mentioned a comment my aunt made about me to my mother over Christmas, which was: “Lucy never ages. Although I haven’t seen her neck.”

That day, I had makeup on, and my hair had been relieved of its greys a few weeks before. My barnet – a curly mop – tends to cover my forehead and the sides of my face. As for my neck – well it was hidden underneath a jumper, but it and my chest become lined from sleeping on my side, and the lines fade somewhat throughout the day.

Other than dyeing my hair, I haven’t interfered much with my appearance from the neck up.

I recently had Invisalign, so my teeth are straight. I sometimes put whitening gel into the retainers I wear at night, and I use glycolic tonic on my face to try to even my skin tone.

I hardly ever go make-up free (photo here!), though I might if I looked less blotchy and had dark, curly eyelashes instead of pale, pig-like ones.

I’m 46, and my face is doing its mid-life thing: I have age spots on my temples, wrinkles around and below my eyes and two frown lines on my forehead which, until I read an article about Botox, I hadn’t realised were known as the ‘dreaded 11,’ and of course now I can’t stop looking at them.

I’m also worried about what people might say if I tell them I’ve done it, if I do it

I realise there are way more important things in life, and I’d love to say I don’t care about this, or that that I’m oblivious to the treatments and tweakments the beauty industry tells me I could or should be having or that I don’t compare myself to other women or Google celebrities’ ages.

But, in all honesty, I am vain, I would like to feel more confident with and without make-up, and frankly, I don’t want to start looking ‘old’.

As a woman, I’m stuck in the world America Ferrera’s character described in her three-minute speech in the film Barbie where she talked about where we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t, and that pretty much applies to anything.

For example: “You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin.”

People have a go at women in the public eye such as Meg Ryan, questioning what she has ‘done to her face’.

What she does is her business, and if she had chosen not to have any treatments at all that would be her business too, although then people might have used that other choice phrase, that she had ‘let herself go’.

There’s another element to this.

People think they are choosing from total free will to have treatments or not to have treatments. But I don’t think they always are: society, the beauty industry and the patriarchy (one and the same?) can make women feel like they have to keep attempting to ‘stay young’ or they won’t be noticed or taken seriously.

When I was thinking about putting myself forward to present videos for a client’s YouTube channel, I held back for fear of being outed as the oldest person on the team to do so (I was about 42 and my colleagues were in their 20s or early 30s).

You have to make an effort with your face, but not too much effort so people talk negatively about the effort you’ve made.

I finally got brave enough to go for it and my first video was about why physical books outsell e-books, and it has been viewed more than half a million times. Then I wrote and presented one on how apps have changed the way we date.

The second had fewer views and comments, which of course I scrolled through. Most were about the subject of the video, but one said: “If you're over 30 and still dying your hair blonde... come on, who are you kidding?”

I’m not sure exactly what this commenter meant, but perhaps he (let’s assume it was a he) was suggesting I should stop dyeing my hair and embrace its natural grey-ish dark blonde – and accept the ‘fact’ that women ‘over 30’ (not ‘over 40,’ whoop!) shouldn’t bother to be on screen.

Having been worried I would be ‘outed’ as an ‘older woman on the team,’ this comment actually just made me laugh. I realised I couldn’t give a shit that someone had noticed that my roots needed doing, or that seven people had given the comment a thumbs up.

As with other things in my life, as I get older, maybe I’ll give less of a shit

But my concerns about my wrinkles remain, and I do plan to investigate ways to zap my age spots with lasers (anyone have recommendations?) and even out my skin tone.

I am scared of Botox, though. I’m not worried about the pain of a needle, but I am concerned about how it might turn out.

In The New York Times this week, writer Jessica Grose (42) wrote about how Botox temporarily ‘destroyed’ what she liked about her face, namely her unsymmetrical eyebrows (the article is here - this is a gift link so hopefully you’ll be able to read it).

Botox can have a bad name because of how it can make a face look if done too much, but I know a few people who have tried it and their complexions look great.

And I’m also worried about what people might say if I tell them I’ve done it, if I do it. And that goes back to the theme of America’s speech.

You have to make an effort with your face, but not too much effort so people talk negatively about the effort you’ve made. Or you might keep that effort a secret so your youthfulness appears effortless and people don’t judge your vanity. But also, you have to maintain your face.

I would love to love my wrinkles, rid myself of comparisons and stride through the world confidently and without any worries about age prejudice - frankly I don’t think that’s realistic. But as with other things in my life, as I get older, maybe I’ll give less of a shit. I hope so.