Everything I wish I had asked before I got Botox…

As answered by my injector. Plus, a meditation on why I get it at all.

Me…

Ever since I was a little girl, I always knew I wanted Botox.

Okay, that’s not quite true. I didn’t grow up knowing about Botox—or any other neuromodulators—but I did grow up knowing that the world isn’t very kind to aging women. Men get to be “rugged.” Women are expected to “age gracefully.” (I’ve never actually figured out what that means. Does it mean not interfering with the aging process at all? Or making your aging more palatable for the people around you?)

I eventually learned that neuromodulators could temporarily paralyze your muscles to soften dynamic wrinkles and help prevent new ones. And somewhere along the way, I decided I wanted that. I wish I could say I don’t care. I actually do believe aging is a gift—as cliché as that sounds—but we live in a society with certain expectations and standards, and I’m not immune to them.

That’s not to say everyone should get Botox (or anything else). Life is a choose-your-own-adventure story. I even find myself wondering often if my participation only reinforces the same expectations I claim to question. But at some point, among some of my friends, it stopped being a question of if we got Botox and became a matter of when.

I got Botox for the first time at 29, prompted by an invitation to get it for free at an aesthetic boutique on the Upper East Side. This isn’t uncommon—invites like this are easy to come by in this industry—and it’s part of why it’s so easy to go overboard. To be honest, even as a beauty editor myself, I went into it sort of... unprepared. Not that you need to study an SAT prep book before getting injected, but I just didn’t think too much about it. That’s partially due to the privilege of knowing the practice was good—a subjective term, sure, but in this case, I knew the injector had a medical background, worked in aesthetics full-time, and wasn’t afraid to say no—and partially because I already knew so many people who were getting Botox regularly and even framing it as “empowering.” (Is it actually empowering? That’s something to consider and answer for yourself.) “What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked myself. Thankfully, nothing did go wrong—but there are cautionary tales out there.

It also feels important to mention that I got Botox for the first time three days after losing one of the most important people in my life. Maybe it felt like something I could control at a time when everything else felt out of my control—my version of chopping off your hair after a breakup, I guess. Either way, I walked in and told them I wanted to go as subtle as possible, while still restricting a bit of movement for my “highly emotive face” (I can’t remember who said that to me, but it stuck).

I didn’t get Botox again for a whole year afterward—I listened when Dr. Shereene Idriss said to wait until full muscle mobility returned and then tacked on even more time. Then I re-upped six months later. These last two times, I saw an injector who came highly recommended by my friend Richelle Marty, who is exacting about her treatments—and she didn’t miss. He carefully drew lines all over my face to guide him and optimize my facial features—after we discussed my goals—and explained what he was doing as he injected my forehead, glabella (my dead giveaway), eyes, and masseters (a temporary fix for my chronic TMJ). Like I wanted, I wasn’t completely frozen; I just left with more of a poker face.

I’ve learned so much in the year and a half since I first got Botox. I was recently telling

tariro makoni

how surprised I was to learn that the actual substance doesn’t look anything like I thought it did. She admitted she didn’t know either.

So, I sat down with my injector for a conversation about WTF Botox—and other neuromodulators—really are, and to answer the questions I wish I had asked before I ever sat in that Upper East Side chair.