Is Botox Essential to Your Grooming Routine?

Allure Daily Beauty Reporter

By Elizabeth Angell, Allure magazine

Anyone with a fear of needles might want to steer clear of the Logo network tomorrow night at 8. The network is airing a new show called Pretty Hurts, about "injector to the stars" Rand Rusher. Rusher is a nurse and, along with plastic surgeon Norman Leaf, runs a Beverly Hills-based clinic. Over the course of each episode, he treats a steady stream of people who come to him for fillers and Botox. A few patients have never submitted themselves to injectables before, while others have that slightly puffy, startled look of someone who's been in his chair a few too many times.

It's mesmerizing to watch him asses each face for its flaws and manage the expectations of people desperate for the faces they had a decade ago-or may never have had. Rusher's job is part knowledgeable expert-he's obviously deft with a needle-and part counselor. He knows as well as his audience that he's not treating disease, and he regularly talks clients out of going overboard. And when one requests a painkiller to take the edge off the injections, he tells him that the pain is the price he pays for vanity. "I'm not curing cancer," Rusher says. "My patients are going to have to suck it up a little bit."

Injectibles, Rusher claims, are just part of the landscape of beauty in a place like Los Angeles-they're as indispensible a part of an adult's grooming routine as regular haircuts or dentist visits. Watching him inject a bit of Botox here and a touch of hyaluronic acid there, I was almost convinced. Injections are fast, they don't require (much) anesthetic, and the changes can be dramatic-and usually not in a bad way. I had to remind myself that these are procedures that require a medical professional's oversight; they're expensive, and they come with risks and side effects. A hypodermic needle is not quite the same thing as a pair of sheers.

It all made me wonder: Should we think of injectable fillers and Botox the same way we think about covering our grays and using anti-aging skin-care products? Or are they still a bit more extreme than that?

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Photo Credit: David Cook