Safe Botox isn’t only for Harley Street – it should be on the high street, too
Every couple of years, I’m invited on to some radio show on the implicit understanding that as a Guardian beauty columnist, I’ll sound suitably appalled and outraged by the latest opening of a high street aesthetic clinic chain. Well, I’m not.
I positively welcome the democratisation of Botox. Anyone thinking that these more affordable, more accessible aesthetic clinics are pushing hitherto unsullied damsels towards the needle are wrong. That particular ship has long since sailed.
Rightly or wrongly (and, certainly, the politics of injectables are a conversation worth having), toxin (“Botox”) injections are regarded by many – not all – younger people in much the same way older consumers once saw retinol and teeth whitening. They’re doing it regardless.
The high street experience felt more generic. But from £125 a site for toxin injections, the value at was outstanding
The reason I’m all for brands like Superdrug and Thérapie Clinic offering more affordable injectables is that I believe patients on the high street should be as safe as those on Harley Street. Without them, we continue with a two-tier system whereby women with cash and contacts visit prestigious doctors with sexy equipment, extensive training and flawless technique (Dr Wassim Taktouk of Taktouk Clinic, in my case), while those on a budget visit private residences, hair salons or “Botox parties”, to be jacked up with unlicensed chemicals by someone with a certificate from an internet college. Any objections to a highly insured middle ground in the form of quality nationwide chains are snobbish and downright dangerous.
I support accessible jabs in practice, as well as in theory. Last week I accompanied a female friend to a treatment at Thérapie, while a month before a male friend visited Superdrug for his own toxin injections. In each case, the practitioners were nurses who had performed hundreds of identical procedures. The facilities were sanitary. The nurse at Superdrug actually talked my friend out of extra injections he didn’t need. The nurse at Thérapie gave a vast amount of safety information and aftercare advice. The only thing noticeably lacking was time and an individual approach.
My own doctor spends a great deal of time analysing my face, listening to my thoughts about it and sharing suggestions as to how we might go about things. The high street experience felt more generic. But from £125 a site for toxin injections, the value was outstanding. More importantly, my friends were safe and delighted with their outcomes.
