Welcome to The B Word

​Why in 2019 is Botox™ still considered a dirty word? This came to my attention last year when we worked a wedding fair promoting our facial aesthetics company.  When we asked attendees if they'd had or considered having facial aesthetics treatments (i.e. Botox™ and fillers) I was alarmed about the response we got. Whereas many were excited and intrigued and wanted to learn a little more. Many were passive or even downright rude about our business. 

"Fillers? Oh no we are NOT interested."

"Botox™? I do not agree with that."

"No! This kind of thing should be carried out by medical professionals only' - Couldn't agree more with you, I'm sorry my 5-year Dental degree doesn't cut it with you.

It's understandable that aesthetics treatments still carry a stigma around them, because like with anything else in life there's always a small few that ruin it for everyone else. For many, fillers can only look one way - swollen and unnatural, and botox can only mean frozen expressionless faces. 

Celebrities undoubtedly have a little (a lot) of extra help which probably comes from both a surgical and non-surgical treatments. Let's face it, they look GREAT.  Amanda Holden does not look like your average 48-year-old.  Victoria Beckham doesn't look like your day to day 45 year old.  I get asked all the time, do you think they've had a little work done? Yes! Of course, I do.  Do you think she's had her lips done? Yes! Are her cheeks real? No! "But she doesn't look done?" Exactly! 

Look at celebrities on television, their faces don't move like 'normal' peoples do.  You can back watch Made in Chelsea and time stamp when the lead players have dabbled in a little anti-wrinkle treatment.  Could the untrained eye see this? Probably not, and that's the key to great aesthetics.  

I do feel it's a balance between the two, as the alternative is that if all celebrities were open about the work they'd had done, it could be considered as promoting treatment.  Though the results are non-permanent and still technically classed as a beauty not a medical treatment no treatment is without risk, and you wouldn't be wrong to say it could be considered unethical for celebrities to endorse non-surgical facial aesthetic procedures.  Take Kylie Jenner for example, I don't like to say she 'admitted' to having lip fillers as, again, this would suggest she was confessing to something terrible, but when she confirmed she'd had lip augmentation google search boomed.  The search results for lip fillers spiked and has never dropped to lower than it did before she opened up.   So is it because most celebrities would never speak of the tweekments they have had that's made Botox™ and Fillers a taboo topic? Whether it is a little bit of aesthetics treatments that can be detected or not, why is it still such a dirty word, especially amongst our parent's generation? Is it considered vain to not want to grow old gracefully? My dad made a good point that he felt his money was better invested in my education than in his face (fair point dad, well played). 
Amongst our generation is it considered cheating?  How many times have you heard "she's pretty, but she's had a lot done" do we use the detection or knowledge aesthetics treatment to score someones real attractiveness like we should only celebrate those who were naturally blessed with facial features which are conventionally considered to be attractive? 


 When I first entered into the world of aesthetics, I was quite hurt by the responses of some of my family and colleagues.  Those who didn't want to share the website I'd worked tirelessly on out of fear of looking 'unprofessional' to the other colleagues they had on their social media.  Those who downright told me they disagreed with the options I'd made for my career path.  Perhaps it's through lack of awareness about treatments and the subtle natural results that can be created or the belittling title of 'beauty treatment' that aesthetics procedure carry that undermines the training and skill required to perform them.  But by talking about the B word, I want to clear its name.  Through educating and increasing understanding about aesthetics treatments and how to get into the industry I want to banish the negative associations made with procedures, because by making facial aesthetics a subject we can talk about openly - we can make it safer and a less judged for the practitioner and consumer. 

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This is the B word, let's talk about it.