Does Our Culture Need Botox?

Fayne Frey, MD, thinks her patients should look their age. The New York-based dermatologist has been listening to her patients’ woes of aging skin for the last 25 years, and wants them to know it’s ok to have wrinkles. In an impassioned op-ed for NBC News, Frey urges her readers to “embrace age.” To her, most cosmetic procedures for erasing wrinkles, plumping lips, and curving cheeks don’t make people look younger, instead these injections just cause the face to lose its natural qualities, and as Frey says, these transformations make us look “just different.”

Botox’s popularity continues to soar, and in 2016, plastic surgery practices gave 4.5 million treatments. Botox injections temporarily minimize wrinkles by paralyzing the muscles in the face. Yet, despite the drug’s ability to smooth out crow’s feet, lines, and wrinkles, it can also impair your face’s mobility and give your facial expressions a frozen look.

For women, our culture places value on big eyes and lips, high cheekbones, a short nose, and perfectly smooth skin. Women who don’t have these features are subliminally told that they’re “inadequate.” “Perhaps, if not for ourselves, for our daughters and granddaughters, we should stop reinforcing these norms,” wrote Dr. Frey. “Besides, shouldn’t the question be, how could I become the healthiest version of myself?”

Dr. Frey adds that there are substantiated reasons for getting cosmetic injections. However, prospective patients should be wary of Botox’s potential risks, including eyelid drooping, bruising, and headache.