Sixty is the new 40, or so they say, which means by my calculation, that if you are 56, your actually only 36. The ageing process is as inevitable as death and taxes, but as we have recently discovered, it’s not unstoppable.
We know just how hard it is to hold back the passage of time when you arrive at a certain age. It’s not that you should be in denial about your age, just that you want to look as good as you can, and heaven knows there is huge pressure on women in all walks of life to do the same now.
The effort it takes to look good in mid-life should not be part of some secret or a silent conspiracy. Regular readers will know that women have always been incredibly candid about what they’ve had done to hold back the hands of time.
We’ve regaled readers with our tales of everything from chemical peels to Vampire facelifts where your own blood is injected into your skin, and we like to think that on the whole the results have been good.
But despite the readiness to try the weird and the wonderful in the search for timeless beauty, there’s always been one thing some women have refused to do, inject their face with poison. Botox may have been all the rage for many years. So what’s the big deal, you may ask? A woman in her 50’s who has Botox, so what? Despite British beauty clinics claiming to treat 500,000 women every year, we can count the number of women who would happily stand up to be counted among them on one hand.
Think about it. How many of your friends suddenly look fresher but insist they’ve just got back from a holiday they never told you about or had an amazing night’s sleep?
Just think of all those 50-something Hollywood stars who don’t look a day over 35? Surely you don’t believe they hold back the years by doing Pilates and drinking seaweed juice as they claim? I suspect part of the reason that no one admits to having had a helping hand from Botox is that they are obsessed with the cult of ageing gracefully. But why, in this world where parading our innermost secrets is de rigueur, is Botox the treatment that dare not speak its name?
So is it the cost that women are trying to keep secret? We don’t think so. Most people pay around £250 per session, two or three times a year, which is a drop in the ocean to many middle-class women. Their annual stash of anti-ageing creams and serums would cost more than four Botox treatments a year. It’s not the money or the shame. There is no guilt in using creams, but there is in using needles.
Botox, after all, is a poison that contains tiny amounts of highly purified botulinum toxin, produced by the bacterium clostridium botulinum, one of the most lethal toxins there is. However, as it has been used by doctors and practitioners for decades to treat a range of conditions, from migraines to muscle spasms, and is available on the NHS for some ailments, so it can hardly be regarded as dangerous.
When applied with skill and in the right hands avoiding the cut-price high-street cowboys, Botox takes years off you.
So is it guilty secret no more? Can you say your name out loud and say I’m a Botox user? Does it feel like big a relief to say it???
Let’s hope that other women start doing the same!!!