Demystifying Injectables

When it comes to BOTOX® and fillers (like JUVÉDERM® or Restylane®), people either know about them, or they don’t. And due to extreme cases, there’s even fear around dramatic results: no one wants the dreaded “frozen face” or a “surprised look” with Botox, nor do they want to join the “duck lip” trend with filler. This article is to clear up the misconceptions surrounding these services!

Preserve Your Youthful Appearance with BOTOX®:

Let’s start with something you may have heard of. BOTOX®, or other variations of the same type of product like XEOMIN®, are designed to reduce the movement in muscles to decrease the amount and depth of facial wrinkles. Most often, BOTOX® and XEOMIN® target the top third of the face, from the corner of the eyes (crow’s feet), up through the forehead. The results are softer or reduced fine lines and wrinkles caused from daily facial expressions. BOTOX® and XEOMIN® are best for areas such as: the furrows (between the eyebrows), horizontal forehead lines, and crow’s feet/other eye wrinkles.

When you see people with the dreaded frozen face, this is simply due to the dosage and amount that is injected into that person’s desired areas. There is control of how much gets injected, depending on and how much, or how little movement you’d like. The best news is, if you don’t like your results, it does wear off in a matter of a few months!

No matter what skin treatments you do, BOTOX® and/or XEOMIN® are going to be the best for reducing and preventing upper face lines and wrinkles. While you can choose to do collagen-building treatments like microneedling or BBL®, if you continue to make the facial expressions causing fine lines, you will continue to strengthen those muscles and deepen those wrinkles. To sustain your results, our experts recommend maintenance every 3-6 months, results and timeframe may vary per person.

Bridge the Gaps with Filler:

Now for fillers. Dermal fillers like JUVÉDERM® or Restylane® are used to either restore volume that is lost with age, or to plump up areas around lines and wrinkles or the lips themselves. Again, the end result and how you look with fillers really depends on your goal, the amount injected and the quality of the provider injecting. When you see “duck lips,” these are typically the desired results of an individual. If you would prefer not to have obvious visible fillers, you can ask! Ideally, a filler treatment is something that everyone will notice the improvement but no one will know what you had done.

As we age, we naturally lose volume in our face and our fat pads start to disconnect and slide (down as shown in Figure 1). In our younger years, this volume is tightly connected, but as we get older, it starts to separate and fall downward and outward, creating signs of aging: more pronounced eye bags, nasolabial folds, joweling, etc. Fillers play such an important role here, bridging those gaps to make that disconnect less noticeable. To sustain your results, our experts recommend maintenance every 6-12 months, results and timeframe may vary per person.

At Becker Cosmetic, our talented team of injectors, Merlie Sedan, PA-C, and Dr. Becker herself are highly experienced at offering desired results with injectables. Viewing it as an art form, Merlie and Dr. Becker use injectables as a tool to highlight your natural beauty and bring the confidence you need to shine! Schedule a consultation today to see if these services might be right for you.