Everyday Botox and Fillers: The normalisation of botox and dermal fillers

Botox and dermal fillers have become a normalised part of the Millennial beauty regimes. The question is “Are these medical treatments to be done by doctors or nurses?” or can these beauty treatments to be done by a beauty therapist/aesthetics consultants. The second question is “Should these treatments be done in medical clinics or beauty or medical spas”. The third question is “What age should people start doing Botox and dermal fillers, 25, 27, 30, 35 years old?”
It is becoming a lot more common to see young people in their mid to late 20s wanting to maintain their youthful look and prevent wrinkles developing. With dermal fillers, young ladies and a few men in their 20s are having dermal fillers to their lips, whereas with Botox and rejuvenation around the eyes we are seeing many more patients in their late 20s and early 30s as the first juvenile lines appear. When lines appear on our face, we lose our young adolescent and early 20s fat and the dynamic action of the muscles around the eyes and face create small lines in the skin which are no longer cushioned by the fat, and the skin is remodelled.
There has been enormous growth both in the medical and the spa business for Botox and fillers in the younger age group. The demand by the millennials, those growing up at the beginning of the 21st century, is booming. Our treatments are becoming more sophisticated, the prices have fallen, and regimes are becoming more complex. Cosmetic and anaesthetic procedures are regarded as normal driven by celebrity culture and social media. We now have a young generation of consumers who want Botox for wrinkles and lines and dermal fillers for lips and cheek plumping, as well as dermal fillers for non-surgical rhinoplasty, which has a very good role.
The growth of non-surgical cosmetic procedures is fast and outpacing the growth of surgical ones. Indeed in my practice, I am seeing more younger patients both male and female for fillers for tear troughs. In particular, TearFill using Restylane and Lidocaine by cannula into the periorbital area to correct the tired looking hollows and darkness below the eyes. The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) showed that in the US, injectable treatments rose by 10% last year, with the main age grouping 35 to 50-years old. However, the use in the 19 to 35 years old group has risen by 30%, and we believe this will continue to grow significantly between 2017 and 2023.
Although as an oculoplastic surgeon I do many upper eyelid blepharoplasties for hooding in the age group of 50+, even in that age group the lower lid blepharoplasty rate is falling because of several factors:

• Fewer people are smoking
• Better lifestyle and diet
• The use of dermal fillers to help the cheek and lower lid area has replaced the need to go under the knife in many cases

With non-surgical treatments such as Botox and dermal fillers, I aim to give a very natural look around the eyes with Botox to the lips, nasolabial folds, cheeks and tear troughs with filler. It is not that scary to be injected, and the results can look very good and natural. However there are risks, and I go back to my original questions of who should be doing these treatments, where should they be done and what age they should be done on.
More certification and control of the cosmetic industry is required to the strict information given to the patient, time for reflection, consent forms and a very clean sterile injecting environment by a certified injector. I will let you try and answer the questions above based on these last few comments.