Thinking of a Tweak?
5 minute read
Tweakments are big business, particularly for the over 40s. If you read anything about the beauty industry, it would seem that if you’re not getting regular Botox, fillers or having your face lasered off you’re an outlier and completely neglecting your appearance. For many, a regular appointment to have your lines and wrinkles seen to is about as big a deal as getting a manicure. For others the thoughts of lying on a bed with needles coming towards them fills them with absolute dread. But should it?
Are tweakments just the 2022 version of a really expensive cream, albeit one that actually does what it says it will do?
Aisling Cleary is the CEO of River Medical and a fascinating woman to speak to. She speaks to women every day who have seen how their skin has changed in perimenopause and menopause. That difference can be soul destroying and can often make women feel very low about themselves. That physical manifestation of those tumultuous hormonal changes can be the final straw for many.
“Our demographic would be 35 to 65,” Aisling tells me, “And they are more focussed on investing in their appearance. They don’t want to look different or ‘young’, they want to look well for their age and refreshed.
“Menopause absolutely affects your skin and appearance, and it can age you overnight. What kills me is when women come to us and say that they’re probably too old now and have totally lost their confidence. We always speak to women about their hormones and how they impact skin and hair. It’s why I really think treatment should be 360, it shouldn’t be a case of internal or external, it all connects together.”
While many think that Botox is the be all and end all, when it comes to slowing down the passage of time there are other things that may work better. As we age our face loses volume and lots of women see that slackening of the jaw and drooping of the jowls and believe that only something invasive is going to work to change that. But a small amount of filler in the upper cheeks will lift the lower half of the face and really improve that sagging look. Women can also lose volume in their temples which can change the shape of their face and filler can work wonders there too.
But while Botox has become part of the vernacular, filler still seems a little taboo and something that should be feared.
I recently spoke to Dr Paul Reddy, the medical director of Therapie clinics who said “Filler should be subtle, only you and the person who administered it should know you’ve had it done. People are more afraid of filler than they are of Botox because they only see the horror stories, the faces of the women who have taken it too far. It should never be like that at all; the only thing that people should say to you is that you look well.”
And that’s what we’re after really isn’t it? You don’t really want people to know that you’ve had anything done at all, just that you look well rested, fresher somehow.
Some of the fear around fillers is compounded by the fact that that in this country anyone can administer filler, while your Botox treatment must be performed by a doctor or dentist. Ironically, only a medical professional can administer the reversal agent needed if something goes wrong with your badly given filler. So be very careful about where you book in for your tweakments. You wouldn’t go looking for the cheapest voucher deal to get your hair done so certainly don’t do that for your face. Sure, a great clinic might be more expensive but you’re paying for their expertise and it’s literally your face!!
Aisling agrees with what Paul says about subtlety and in the slightly more mature age demographic that’s what her clients are really looking for.
“The big trend for us is using treatments and machines that get the body to work harder and better. Things like Ultherapy, which uses micro-focused ultrasound and causes lifting and tightening. Of course, Botox and filler are still popular, but they’re approached differently in that age group. It’s very subtle. We ease the lines; we don’t eradicate them. It’s the same with filler.”
There’s a weird hierarchy of tweakments too. Profhilo is good, while Botox is bad. Is that in the marketing? The perception? Is it because Profhilo is for hydration while Botox is for delaying age? At the end of the day, you’re lying down for both treatments, asking someone to inject something into your face. What’s the real difference if you spend more than €100 on a face cream that promises to diminish your lines and wrinkles or €300 on getting Botox that actually does do that? If you’re prepared to dye your hair, use a myriad of acids, actives, creams, and peels, is there a reason you’re stopping before going any further?
Zoom calls, celebrities that don’t age, social media filters and photos of every single event you go to are changing the way we see our faces.
As technology moves on, it’s only natural that beauty does too but as the only generation who both grew up with the internet and remembers life before it, we are also the generation that remembers women who aged without intervention.
A jar of Ponds might immediately bring us back to sitting on our mum’s bed watching her get ready and it’s still a great moisturiser, just one that may work better hand in hand with a tweakment or two!
The beauty industry may also want to remarket the anti-ageing in general. Those two words have such a negative connotation. As we have known for some time, ageing is most definitely a privilege. Aging at our own pace might be a better way to describe it.
Jennifer Stevens, July 2022
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