I can remember clearly a conversation I had with a good friend of mine when I was 28 and she was 27. We were sitting in the pub and she was lamenting the fact that, one by one, all her friends were getting anti-ageing injections such as Botox. “They are all so gorgeous and beautiful and young,” she said. “I don’t understand why they’re doing it. I don’t even think they have wrinkles.”
I nodded but stayed sheepishly mute. Little did she know I had recently made my first foray into the world of botulinum toxin, the name of the neurotoxin used to relax muscles and smooth wrinkles, with a mini dose injected in my forehead. In the syringe was the most famous anti-wrinkle injection, Botox, manufactured by Allergan Aesthetics. The doctor holding the needle called my mini dose by its most commonly known nickname, “baby” Botox, “a cosmetic treatment involving smaller doses of botulinum toxin to achieve a more natural reduction in fine lines and wrinkles”, he said.
If my friend in the pub had looked closer as I gave her an empathetic smile (or tried to), she would have seen the famous Evans frown between my eyebrows had softened.
I am now 30 and as well as the botulinum toxin to uncrease the lines in my forehead, I have had injections in my crow’s feet (the crinkles around my eyes) and my masseters, the muscles on your jaw near your ears. It is recommended by some dentists if you grind your teeth, but I had it because a side-effect is that it pinches in your jaw and slims your face. “Your cheeks look smaller. Have you lost weight?” a clueless friend asked one evening over a glass of wine, eyeing up my newly jabbed jaw. I confessed. The next morning she texted me asking for the name of my “anti-ageing guy”.
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I still look like me though. My face isn’t frozen and unnaturally taut. My botulinum toxin is barely there, but it is enough to keep my skin smooth and me looking the ambiguous age of twentysomething. There is no single reason why I started having these injections, but the lasting impact (I go for a top-up twice a year) has been that I am much more confident without make-up.
I am on the cusp of Gen Z, who, according to research by Teoxane, another manufacturer of injectables, have aesthetic treatments on their wishlist more than any other age group. I am only scratching the surface of what my younger peers are after. The study found that more than a third of Gen Z want treatments such as lip fillers, anti-wrinkle injections or under-eye fillers to minimise wrinkles and folds beneath their eyes. Last year, the American Academy of Facial Plasticand Reconstructive Surgery reported that under-thirties were behind the surge in demand for botulinum toxin, and the number of injections administered had jumped by 73 per cent between 2022 and 2023.
I asked my doctor, who is based in London and prefers to use the original Botox product to treat his patients, if he’d noticed a similar trend. “For Gen Z, anti-ageing treatments have become a normal part of their beauty regime,” he said.
I have only ever had anti-wrinkle injections. Dermal fillers, which are injected to bulk out and build up the curves of the face, are off the table for me. You just have to watch an episode of Love Island to see how wrong and unnatural they can be. The cast, most of whom are in their early twenties, have clearly had, in my opinion, enough work to make Dolly Parton look like a natural beauty.
The reasons for getting these “tweakments” do not surprise me. Social media has changed the dial — or should I say needle? — on what is considered beautiful. It was the selfies and videos posted by celebrities such as Kylie Jenner, who had her lips plumped when she was just 17, that fuelled the epidemic of “duck lips” that we see now.
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On TikTok and Instagram, users can morph their faces into “perfect” shapes and realign them using AI-generated filters that smooth their skin into a silky canvas, raise their cheekbones and pinch in their cheeks.
Besides, Gen Z have grown up recording every millimetre of their daily routine and posting it on social media apps such as TikTok and BeReal. I’m not surprised they are all a bit more vain.
Above all, I attribute the rising popularity of injectables among people my age and younger to “Bo-Tok”, the corner of TikTok dedicated to videos about aesthetics. Here you can find 66.3 million posts and clips uploaded by aesthetic doctors, lots of them explaining (most of the time guessing) which treatments celebrities have had, circling and pointing to their faces like they’re maps in a geography lesson.
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On TikTok I’ve seen a video of Jessica Chastain that compares what she looked like in 2011 and 2021, pointing out all the tweakments she’s had. “It’s aesthetics [treatments], guys. I hate to break it to you,” the narrating doctor says. The video has had one million views.
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Other accounts feature similar videos analysing celebrities’ faces and suggesting the work they have had done to achieve their perfect proportions. I have watched clips of doctors dissecting Margot Robbie’s face, along with Lady Gaga, the actress Blake Lively and, most recently, the singer Sabrina Carpenter, who is 25.
A lot of the time these clips are informative — the great mystery of celebrity beauty has been unpicked. “I am so much more aware of all the treatments out there,” says another friend who is yet to try anything. “It’s fascinating.”
But it is also a slippery slope. Suddenly there are aesthetic opportunities. Take “Barbie trap tox”, for example. No, that’s not the name of a rapper or a K-pop band. It’s the nickname of a treatment that is trending now, and even appeared in a segment on This Morning last year, in which botulinum toxin is injected into the trapezius muscles in your shoulders to relax and smooth them, so you look like you’ve never lifted anything heavier than a pint of milk, just like a plastic doll.
The concerning thing is that, for lots of people, these videos are saying: “With this tweakment here and there, you can look like Barbie.” Should we really be aspiring to look like a Mattel children’s toy?
TikTok is also where you hear terms such as “prejuvenation”, a buzzword among my peers. The theory goes that by using botulinum toxin before your wrinkles are established, you slow the formation of them, thereby futureproofing your plump skin and maintaining your youthful complexion. If only someone had told Dorian Gray.
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It is what convinced Georgina Downe, 26, a fashion stylist who lives in London, to have her first injection when she was 22. “The doctor who did my first injections used the analogy of a piece of paper. Once you scrunch up the piece of paper you can never flatten it,” she says. By her own admission, Downe is “fighting ageing like there’s no tomorrow. I’m determined to have no lines. Ever.” She pays on average £300 three to four times a year for her injections. Starting early was important.“I have seen traditional anti-wrinkle injections in older women who’d waited to get it and it looked terrible,” she says. “You could tell they’d done it. Their faces were completely frozen, but they still had lines on their forehead.”
Sarah Wood, a 28-year-old who works in digital marketing, was told a similar story when she had her first micro-dose of botulinum toxin, aged 25. “My doctor said any later and I’d have missed the window. You need to start getting anti-wrinkle injections in your mid-twenties if you want to prevent them.”
I have spoken to various aesthetic doctors, many of whom think preventive injections are just a marketing ploy and I have not seen any hard scientific evidence that it works. On the other hand, there are plenty of doctors I’ve met who use their own faces as proof that “prejuvenation” is real. Only time will tell.
Social media is also where you will find evidence for the argument that you should stay away from needles altogether. Botulinum toxin has the word “toxin” in its name, after all — red flags don’t get much redder than that.
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I have seen dozens of viral clips online of botulinum toxin and filler botch-jobs, warning about the risks of overdoing it or not researching your practitioner properly. Often these are uploaded by people who have made those mistakes, showing off their dodgy results. If you want a reminder of how anti-ageing tweakments can leave you looking less like Kylie Minogue and more like Gordon Ramsay, I suggest searching the hashtag #botchedbotox on TikTok where you will see dozens of videos of users who have been left with droopy smiles and saggy brows after their botulinum toxin injections accidentally froze the wrong muscles.
This is something that Amy Ball, 28, an investment banker living in London, considered before she had her first anti-wrinkle injection when she was 26. “I have always been wary of people who offer injections for less than £100,” she says. She pays £250 four times a year while some friends of hers pay closer to £50. She budgets for this “just like a haircut. I don’t want to go to someone who is basically doing injections in their back garden. I want to go to somebody I trust. I found my doctor on Instagram and what I liked is that we spent almost an hour going through my skin and routine before we got around to the injections.”
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When I was in my early twenties, living in the body positivity glory days, my peers saved up for personal trainers to help them get strong, rather than skinny. Today, most of my friends syphon off a chunk of their pay for their injections.
I have always saved up and paid up front for mine — £360 for one area, £390 for two. It is one of the small luxuries I allow myself. Other people spend that on boutique gyms or expensive facials. But I also know that you can pay for these kinds of treatments in instalments on 0 per cent finance plans. It makes anti-ageing treatments more affordable. At Charmelle London, where treatments include dermal fillers, you can use buy now, pay later platforms such as Klarna. I have come across numerous clinics that offer the same.
This terrifies me. I was reckless with money for most of my mid-twenties, but my splurges were frivolous — nights out, ridiculous dresses, make-up I could just about afford. The idea of someone that age getting into debt for the sake of cosmetic procedures makes me uneasy.
Lots of Gen Zers see anti-ageing treatments as an established part of their beauty regime, just like getting a bikini wax or going for a fake tan.“I see them as self-care,” says Jenny Lola, 28, a property investor from London who had her first botulinum toxin injections when she was 25, a few years after graduating from the University of Cambridge, but had been thinking about it since the age of 22. “I eat really healthily, I go to the gym, I dance and I take care of myself. This is another way I look after how I look. I’ve always frowned in my sleep, so I was getting this big, horrible line in my forehead, like a crevice. It’s not just an ego thing. I do it for myself. It makes me feel more confident. Even a tiny bit of botulinum toxin will lift my face and eyes and make me feel more sexy. Getting it topped up is like getting my nails done.”
“Maybe it’s because the younger you are the more you are putting yourself on social media and in front of a camera,” says Downe. “Everyone is becoming a harsher critic of themselves and each other, so they look for solutions.”
I can count the number of friends who sit in the “I would never have Botox” camp on the fingers of one hand. When I was a teenager, these injections were what glamorous older ladies I knew had. Now, one by one, my friends are succumbing. Those who haven’t yet have it on their wishlist. Most of us have just turned 30. I have only one friend, Miranda, who is adamant she will never give in. “I am happy with the face I have,” she says. “I still look after my skin and I always wear sun cream. I don’t want to start having to rely on injecting a toxin into my body to feel confident.” I am proud of her for sticking to her guns. Whenever she reminds me, I give her an encouraging “good for you” smile. Or I try to. My forehead tells a different story.
Just say no
Sidonie Wilson, 31, journalist
I wear SPF50 daily, but sticking needles in my face? No, thanks. I look at my mum, who’s 71, wrinkles and all, and I think, she’s had a great life.
Last weekend a bunch of girlfriends and I were getting ready for a wedding. A familiar routine. Then the conversation turned to anti-wrinkle injections and one friend, then another, then another piped up to say they had been sneaking off to have them. One, who barely wears make-up, said she was considering “getting rid of these horrible lines on my face”. What lines? As I looked at her, pointing to her face, at her smile lines, I laughed and said, “Those are meant to be there.”
Then I caught another friend studying the frown lines on my face.
At dinner the other night with a good school friend who’s getting married next month, the topic of anti-wrinkle injections came up again. Like me, she prefers the natural look. “I think it’s quite cute that we’re getting older,” she said.
Hannah Rogers, 31, fashion editor
I have not had anti-wrinkle injections. I do not plan to. But I have friends who have and a few who can’t wait to take the plunge. And, look, I have thought about it. Every time I spot more smile lines around my eyes I wonder if I am being daft not to nip to my dentist and have them erased.
Maybe I would look fantastic if I had my face shot up with botulinum toxin — glowy and smooth and probably a bit less tired. But I have seen enough celebrity faces in the flesh to know that few look good after a decade of doing it. My forty and fiftysomething colleagues who haven’t caved in to the pressure, on the other hand, look fab.
I don’t judge anyone who wants to have them. My mum had them for the first time, at 55. I have spent enough on my appearance already. I have been seeing a dermatologist to treat acne for years. Ditto laser hair removal on my face. Then there is brow threading and tinting, pedicures, microneedling and mini acid peels. My night cream costs £59 a pot.
But I draw the line at freezing my face. Once I step over that line, who knows where I would stop? I could tell you lots of things I don’t like about my features, but I would like to be confident enough to embrace them, not eradicate them.
