Botoxed Brow Beauty

Botox brow lift is the latest entrant in the arena of quick-fix beauty treatments

Noted American composer and singer Frank Zappa once said, “The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows.”

How true! Flat or highly arched, the brow defines a zillion human expressions whether bold or subtle. The fact that our eyebrows not just define our eyes but our face too, and are essential to display emotions such as anger, surprise, happiness or tragedy and even more, cannot be ruled out.

No wonder why there is a lot of emphasis laid on the beauty of brows. In fact, the journey of girls, as soon as they hit their teens, in the vast world of beauty treatments generally initiates with a threading session, to shape their eyebrows, at the local beauty parlor.

Eyebrows can make or break the appeal of our face. If they are healthy, well-shaped and as per our face type they add a characteristic charm to our visage.  

With age, the natural beauty of our face starts to fade. Brows are no exception to that. They begun to sag and one may feel that the forehead appears to be sagging with them as well. 

Unlike our teens, basic treatments like threading and waxing don’t seem to help in this case and what one needs is a specialized management of the same. Until a few years back, one only had the option of a lifting surgery but now a single jab can take care of the issue and give you glamorous-looking eyebrows.  Known as the ‘Botox Brow Lift’, the treatment involves contouring the eyebrow via Botox, the famous wrinkle-removing drug.

Botox brows lift procedure is rapidly gaining popularity as a treatment to rejuvenate your face. It can effectively take 5-7 years off one’s aged looks and one doesn’t need to undergo the surgeon’s knife at all! A dermatologist injects a small amount of Botox underneath the skin around the eyebrows. Since this treatment involves giving injections, the down-time involved is a small one. Patients get free in 20-30 minutes and they can start seeing the effects within a week, whereas, in surgery they have to wait for the stitches to heal first and that takes a considerable amount of time.

Botox brow lift is an effective anti-ageing procedure for not just women but men too, who have a mild to moderate heaviness in the brow area and don’t want to undergo surgery. The procedure can be performed on all skin types. In fact those who have naturally-drooping eyelids and low-hanging eyebrows, for them this treatment is a godsend gift!

The brow lift procedure with Botulinum Toxin or Botox literally ‘lifts’ the skin tissues above and around the eyebrows so that the natural eyebrow arch is a few millimeters higher. Since the muscles are temporarily rendered inactive (i.e. frozen in place), there is little to no risk that the eyebrows will begin to droop again.

Botox is commonly used for ironing out the wrinkles and fine lines, particularly in areas such as forehead and around eyes. The Botox brow lift works by gently weakening the muscles above the delicate eye area. It smoothes away worry lines and deep grooves caused by frowning along the lower forehead. The muscles around the top of the eyebrows get relaxed and the patient’s skin appears smoother, more toned and tightened.

Thus the resulting ‘arched’ eyebrows lend a youthful and fresher appearance to the face. This injectable treatment sure comes for a cost but is considered to be cost-effective by most experts. Touchup treatments are not required until 6 to 8 months after the initial treatment. Some clinics offer packages of injections so that patients can save on the costs. Usually, the lift will cost anywhere between Rs 10,000 -16,000 depending upon the units of the drug consumed and the individual doctor’s fees.

She also stresses, that since the brow lift involves injecting Botox into muscles around the eyebrows on the forehead, it is very important that only specific muscles are targeted. Opting for a quack can do more harm than good. After all, who would like to carry an ‘angry’ or a ‘surprised’ look all the time for months till the effects of the injection wears off?  Only a trained injector knows where to and how much to inject. Hence, always opt for a reputed clinic and a well-experienced doctor.

(The Author is Dermatologist in Mumbai.)