Wait a minute, a preventive facelift?

If you ask the experienced Botox users, I am already about ten years late with the first injections in my nose. You should paralyze the muscle mass long before the first wrinkles appear. All the cracks that are already etched in the face can only be erased with fillers. It should be clear, I am a dried-up desert landscape that can no longer be saved. Or in about ten years, still the only one with any facial expression at all. That seems to be increasingly becoming a serious option.

Notorious chicken neck

While my eyes are disappearing more and more when I laugh, there is a new development in the cosmetic and plastic world. A preventive facelift. This is indeed what you think it is. Even before there is anything to sculpt, let everything be ultra-smooth. It makes me think. Are wrinkles the enemy? Is it really that terrible to become (a little bit) visibly older? I think of my grandmother, who has stored all her love for our family in all the laugh lines around her eyes. Of my friend, where I know exactly what it means when the frown line goes left or right. Is neutral the new normal?

On Elle I read that it is a hot topic. A preventive facelift works the same as a regular procedure, but then there needs to be much less tinkering and tightening. With the youngest, not much is sagging yet. It is mainly the jawline where the skin is tightened as a precaution. Less chance of sagging if things unexpectedly start to droop and head towards the notorious chicken neck. The final result is hardly noticeable, you just look a bit more well-rested. It is mainly about warding off possible signs of aging.

A little sad

It doesn't even worry me that I might be the only one getting older, but mainly that no one has any empathy left. Research shows that the use of Botox affects your emotions. Soon everyone will look at you preventively neutral and there will be hardly any empathy to recognize. Which then fits with the expressionless face. It would be unfair if everything is going on behind that and you don't know it.

No, seriously. Fine if you feel a bit better in your tight skin when something is hanging here and something is doubling there. I will go with you and hold your hand. Maybe I will even be tempted. But tinkering with a beautiful and untouched little face to postpone the inevitable aging? It makes me a little sad. What I especially need to avoid, of course, because you also get wrinkles from that.