To Bo or Not to Bo…

So, when I frown, or squint, or think too hard, I tend to scrunch my eyebrows together and this little line has formed there, right in my furrow, and it’s making me a little nuts lately.  I know it’s just one line, I know I’m only 30, and I know it’s probably only visible to me….but it’s there and I hate it! I have used Retin-A for almost 15 years now, I haven’t left the house without a gallon of sunscreen on in over a decade, and I just feel like I’ve done all I can to fight time hitting my face, and for the most part it’s worked…but that line is THERE.

Well, I brought this up to the woman who does my eyebrows, the amazing Lana Pinski of Leidan Mitchell Salon (seriously, I’ve gone to her for my eyebrows for 10 years and I think she actually somehow reshapes my whole head each time to make me prettier, she’s a miracle worker with wax) and I was looking at her flawless skin and she said, “Oh I love Botox, but only for that spot and around my eyes.”  I was floored!  She doesn’t look frozen-faced!  She doesn’t have a weird, plastic surgery look to her skin!  She just looks….pretty.  I then tentatively asked the next question I was afraid to hear answered, “So…do you think I should get Botox?” She, very matter-of-factedly, said, “Well, if you start now, once a year, before there’s really a groove, you’ll never have to get it filled with something like Restalin when it’s formed into a real, deep crease in ten or fifteen years.” Hm.

This sounds pretty logical, if I start paralyzing that stupid little muscle now, it won’t ever become a deep crease.  But….I’m scared of Botox!  I’m scared of all things plastic surgery related to be honest, and I’m scared of what that leads to…..like…if I paralyze this muscle now, what stops me from finding a hundred spots to Botox and then I have a fully frozen face one morning that I’ve just gone overboard on!  I’ve done this before–with tweezers.  In the days before Lana, I tweezed my eyebrows once and kept finding a stray hair..and another..and another..until I virtually had no eyebrows. It was hideous and I just couldn’t stop plucking!  What if Botox is the same way?

So I’ve decided to ask around about alternatives to Botox, but beyond the usual face creams/sunscreen/sleep more advice, and here’s what I’ve found out:

Frownies

The beautiful actress Rene Russo swears by a product called Frownies, so I looked up this product and it looks pretty good! Basically, they are sticky, tape like patches you place on your face to hold your skin apart while you sleep (or drive, or whatever you want to do with tape on your face), and eventually train those muscles you repetitively use in facial motions to relax and lie differently.  It sounds simple enough, they’re not expensive, so I’m ordering some!  Can’t hurt, right?

Non-Intravenous Procedures

Ok, I already use Retin-A so I looked up what else there is and talked to some people about what other procedures you can do, before going under the needle.

Chemical Peels:  a lot of what happens with wrinkles is old skin cells sitting into grooves, and an overall dulling of your skin with age and less cell turnover, causing wrinkles to be more prominent on the surface. A chemical peel is designed to remove that dull uppper-most layer, and reveal the younger skin underneath. It’s less expensive, non-invasive, and definitely worth a try!

Microdermabrasion:  going with the same philosophy, by removing that top layer of duller, older skin, you are making the overall health of your facial skin in it’s top shape, leaving less to settle in those creases forming.  I’ve had microderm….but I was like 23, so I’m thinking I might revisit this and see if it makes that area (and all areas) less noticeable to me!

Laser Resurfacing:  Ok, this one scares me a little bit, but it’s apparently still a non-invasive therapy that isn’t injecting poison into my face, so I guess it’s less scary than Botox! Laser resurfacing is pretty self-explanatory, it’s the use of lasers on your skin to “gently vaporize and/or ablate skin tissue to improve wrinkles, scars and blemishes, seal blood vessels or cut skin tissue.  The laser has the unique ability to produce one specific color (wavelength) of light, which can be varied in its intensity and pulse duration” (according to http://www.asds.net/LaserResurfacingInformation.aspx) and it can erase fine lines and improve everything in terms of your facial tissue.  It isn’t cheap though: laser resurfacing runs around $500-$1500 a treatment, and most times you’re recommended to have more than one treatment.

Tacit Acceptance

And of course, there’s always the fact that, eventually there will be lines on my face, and I’m going to need to accept and embrace that. I don’t want to be a woman over a certain age with a freakishly pulled and smooth face….but I also don’t want to be 30 with this stupid frown line.  I suppose I could also look at the culprit, and stop frowning in general, maybe smile lines are much more fun to deal with 🙂

We’ll see……time marching on, right across my face….I swear I was 19 last week! Sigh, I guess I’ve earned this furrow line, and I’m going to have to deal. I will console myself with the fact that it’s no longer acne concerns!

xoxoxo