To hate the pressure for facial injections

[TrickNotTreats]

Virtually all of my friends and family members (youngest are my nieces in mid twenties!) have Botox/fillers etc .

Everyone is asking me (or trying to give me friendly advice/recommendations) why I don’t. Being nice about it telling me I’d look better and that they just want to help me .

Am I really that odd to not be getting this done? I’m 43 and yes I have a few little lines (and apparently loss of volume round eyes thanks SIL for pointing that out !) but they aren’t that bad and also if relevant I’m autistic and I really hate change I think if I made even slight tweaks to my face I’d hate it and feel panicky! I also have sensory issues and if it feels weird I’d hate it!

Still it’s constant they keep saying to get it done. At family gatherings it’s now the number one topic of conversation who has had what done, the latest things they are into. They all look amazing but I feel a bit ‘odd one out’ and struggle to join in conversations!

Each to their own I know but it’s become like a cult and they want to recruit me. Sometimes it knocks my confidence a little but not enough for me to do it.

Dreading over Xmas the conversations and comparisons and inevitable ‘you should get Botox/tear trough filler/lip filler etc’

I don’t know anyone who would think it is ok to pressure someone else into beauty treatments. This is a them problem, not a you problem.

I’m with you, I wouldn’t let anyone put in a needle in my face unless medically necessary. Fillers in particular carry a not insubstantial risk. I like the way I look as it is.

Not a thing in my social circle. I got Botox a few times and never discussed it with anyone. It helped with a slightly furrowed brow I had. My autistic son isn’t great at reading facial expressions and kept asking me if I was angry or sad when I thought I had a completely neutral expression. I gave it up as I started to resent the cost, and worried about long term effects. It didn’t make me look younger, maybe a bit less tired.

Though I’ve noticed a weird thing recently where virtually all the women I work with under 35 have massive eyelash extensions.

They sound dull as fuck and incredibly shallow.

I have no idea if any of my friends are having Botox. I expect they realise I'm not! Yes I occasionally look at my face on Teams and think "Blimey look at my number 11s" but I know that if you go down that path you'll never be off it.

I'd echo that you really don't need to be autistic not to want facial injections. The cost for one thing.

Exactly this.

I have hearing loss and rely a lot upon lipreading.

Even the 'tiniest little refresh' they believe that nobody can tell makes it impossible to work out what they are saying because lipreading is dependent upon being able to see the shape of both lips, the movement of the facial muscles, the movement of the eyebrows, forehead and eyes.

Add in background noise or more than one person talking at once and I'd have more success lipreading a ventriloquist's dummy.

It's hard for more than just people who are D/deaf or Hard of Hearing as well - how does somebody who uses facial expression and movement to determine intent or mood decipher intentions if these are deliberately reduced? How does a baby, small child or animal work out what's meant when there aren't the same cues? How does a baby learn to make the right shapes to get the sounds out if they aren't seeing them replicated by adults around them?

So were I in a situation where somebody was suggesting such a thing, I'd likely be asking them to repeat what they said several times before giving up because not even lipreading is working anymore.

Whether or not they care isn't my problem, I'd just not be bothering with them because there is no point spending time and energy attempting to decipher what it is they're saying when they've spent money reducing their effectiveness at both verbal and non verbal communication.

I immediately assumed Essex as well!

Noone in my friends /family is like this. If we talk about them at all it's to say what a shame it is that people feel the need to have them. I don't know if it's a social circle thing?

(We are all wealthy but don't tend to go for conspicuous consumption)

Not normal at all.

Your friends and family group are weird. I have friends that get these things done and it’s never come up in conversation beyond them maybe mentioning they have an appointment for something so can’t meet a certain day.

😂😂😂

Not sure that makes your family any better than OPS to be honest. A woman being pressured to change her appearance versus a women being mocked behind her back for her appearance. Wouldn't fancy either myself.

Say you don't want purified poison injected into your body. Life's risky enough😂

None of my friends or family are into this utter nonsense.

I think there must be some social circles where it becomes the norm and therefore a bit of a bubble that it’s normal. My work doesn’t seem to have this nor does my social circle. Honestly, I’ve got better things to spend my money on and my husband would think I’d had a personality transplant if I started doing Botox.

@TrickNotTreats how many people have you got saying this to you?

I am in Essex. The first time somebody said it to me - work contact - I was quite upset. It stayed with me for a few days. She saw me after not having seen me for awhile and went straight into a conversation of “ what have you had done?” and I said nothing and she acted all horrified asked me how old I am these days or whatever…. And then proceeded to tell me where she has all of her work done. She is essentially like a brand ambassador for them.

Even knowing all of that, I did find it quite unsettling and upsetting. Being told off for not doing anything to your face is quite extraordinary.

So if anyone is saying stuff like that to you on a regular basis, I’m actually quite concerned

The reason I asked how many people it is is because I found it really overwhelming when it was just one work contact. Thing is she is older than me and was really someone to look up to. So the fact that she does that now, presumably just because she feels it’s what she has to do to stay in business, is quite sad…. But the fact that she would talk to me like that was genuinely shocking to me. So if you’re getting this from family and friends, that must be incredibly upsetting and I think you should point that out to them.

I mean, what is the actual goal? Handover a shitload of money to someone else to avoid looking natural? That is mad.

Society as a whole has a tendency to double down though…. Some people will go into total defensive mode so you have to be careful what you say.

It’s probably easier to draw that boundary and say “ this upsets me, please never mention it again”.

The only saving grace for me has been that I really needed Botox for teeth grinding - broken two teeth now - and I had plenty of people to discuss it with because I was so scared of doing it, it was helpful to talk to people. I call that a medical need though. One of the teeth has been saved, but the other one actually had to be extracted because it was broken all the way down. The saved one is probably temporary. I really don’t want to keep going through that.

I'm similar age as you and haven't done anything or planning to do anything. Most of my friends and family haven't either, and even if they have, they are not so rude as to encourage me to do it as well! Your family is very rude. Ignore them.

my sister gets botox and it’s made her eyebrows droop and imo she looks older as a result of the botox, but I’d never tell her because I’m not rude.

Hmm, there is something in that, I’m just outside London , I’d say bad Botox is more signifier of Lower socio economic demographics, but seldom filler, which isn’t really noticeable unless over done and is much more expensive, good Botox and good filler costs an awful lot of money. You’re looking it likely 1500 done well.

in my social circle which covers everything from working class to upper middle, I’d say the wealthier women have had it done very well , the women with less money have the shiny forehead rigid look and neglected their lower faces ie no filler.

the lady who works in our local shop has a shocking amount of Botox, her face from her eyes uo is totally rigid, and I think what happens is they forget about movement, they look in the mirror , straight faced and see no wrinkles, but they forget it looks very different when you’re smiling, talking, moving etc, then you see the shiny rigidity,

I personally don’t think it makes anyone look younger, I think done well it makes you look better, but so many hairdressers etc now offering Botox at low prices that people are getting it done and not well.

That can happen, it’s a poor oractioner who has injected too close to the eyebrow,

It's your body & your life. Tell them once & for all no & you don't want to hear another word on the subject. Some of the lip fillers look so false & ridiculous, like pumped up cartoon caricatures. Age catches up with us all one day

You could just tell them your appearance is your business and you won't be discussing it with them. I've had nothing done and don't intend to, and know no one who has.

Gosh that’s rather sad.
Thankfully I don’t have any close associates or friends who would cheerfully announce having features unnaturally altered. Let alone try to talk me into doing the same.

I’d struggle to be polite if I knew anyone like that and they tried relentlessly to convince me to do the same, I fear!

Good on you for daring to age naturally.

They are probably going to end up looking like chipmunks with all the filler. I gave up on botox as it seemed to make my eyebrows asymmetrical with one drooping side. I just let them settle back in an approximation of their original position. Sometimes people don't just have a good hard look at their faces and ask themselves whether they really look better. A plastic surgeon discussing a well known actress once told me that the actresss could have been a beautiful older woman but instead overdid things to the stage that she just looked rather odd. I'm also assuming that she was starting with much better raw material than your filler mad family.

I don’t know, women have tried to eliminate wrinkles since time began, Christ, neros wife bathed in donkeys milk to stave off the signs of ageing, few think it’s a good look, everyone wants to age, few welcome the visible signs of it. I’ve yet to meet a woman who exclaims look at my jowls and crows feet, I love them,

the issue with Botox is simply so many practioners offering it at a low cost and it being done badly, and too much, as people don’t want to go back so often, to they get a lot at once, and as said the face not being treated holistically. Again likely due to cost.

and Because that light holistic treatment costs a lot of money, so we have a proliferation of women with shiny taught rigid foreheads,