Stupid Things I've Bought Lately: Facial Injectables
I thought I was going to make a series out of this, back when I posted one in November 2016 for NaBloPoMo, but as with many things, I did not follow through. I do, however, buy stupid things on not-so-rare occasion, so maybe it will still be a thing! Who knows?
Easter was nice, with obvious caveats. My mom cooked the turkey and stuffing. I cooked mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts. I feel like I got the better end of this deal, except that her house ended up smelling like turkey and mine ended up smelling like Brussels sprouts. I sent the boys over to do the food trade - we put our food down, ring the doorbell, back up two metres, they open the door, put down their food, we have a brief chat from the driveway, they pick up food and go inside, we pick up food and go home.
Easter was nice, with obvious caveats. My mom cooked the turkey and stuffing. I cooked mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts. I feel like I got the better end of this deal, except that her house ended up smelling like turkey and mine ended up smelling like Brussels sprouts. I sent the boys over to do the food trade - we put our food down, ring the doorbell, back up two metres, they open the door, put down their food, we have a brief chat from the driveway, they pick up food and go inside, we pick up food and go home.
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We also talk on the phone every day, but I hate that I can't squish them.
We had a nice family dinner, and then I bottomed out really badly. I don't know if I was coming down with something (weird since I go basically nowhere, but there's the grocery store, I guess), or my brain hijacked my body, but I felt achy and flu-ridden and horrible. I went to bed to read and fell asleep before eleven, which is approximately four hours before my usual bedtime right now. Yesterday I still felt weirdly exhausted - like, needed to sit down and take a rest after finally dragging myself out of bed to shower - and today I feel much better. Also, yesterday I was sobbing because I felt like such a useless waste of skin and today I'm feeling like I should maybe have just trusted my body to know what it needed instead of always fighting against it. Sometimes I am dumb.
So. The face thing. I don't look down on people who do cosmetic surgery or botox, but I've never really considered it seriously, partly because I'm too cheap, partly because I couldn't see an easy path to getting it done, and partly because nothing I don't like about my face seems easily fixable. But a friend that I have because she's Eve's friend's mom (and YAY for Eve making that friend, because the friend AND the mom are AWESOME) does some stuff and is loud and proud and open about it (and looks great), so a couple of months ago I went on a ridealong, thinking that I might try something tiny if it sounded reasonable.
We went for lunch first. At the end of lunch, our cute young waitress asked if we had plans for the rest of the day and we happily announced that we were getting stuff shot into our face, and joked about how we would be careful not to do the lip thing that makes you look like you stuck your lips in a bottle trying to look like Kylie Jenner. Ha ha.
Sooo, we rolled up to the office and went in and I showed her the line above my lip that I don't like. She said I could either do a little Botox, which would make it hard to drink from a glass, or do half a syringe of lip filler.
Like, WHAT? The thing that I JUST SAID I DEFINITELY WOULDN'T DO?? She explained why it would be the more obvious solution. I nearly walked, but then I thought, what the hell, I'll try it once just so I know, it'll be an experience.
Jody held my hand because eeeeeuuuuaghhhhhh needles going into your lips is gross and painful. You know what else it does? Makes your lips swell up, EVEN MORE THAN THE EVENTUAL GOAL. By the next morning I looked like this:
Want to know the even funnier part? NO ONE NOTICED. I went out to dinner with friends the next day. I hung out with Eve and Matt all week-end. When I finally confessed to Eve she was livid that I hadn't told her, and I was like YOU'RE upset? None of my friends and family know what I LOOK LIKE!! (Is it possible other people are not as obsessed with the minutiae of my facial topography as I am? Barely). I feel like if someone I know had done this I would have noticed. I remember way back before I even knew that collagen injections were a thing, watching Star Trek TNG and thinking, 'the fuck's going on with Troi's LIPS?'
Anyway, I won't do it again. It pretty much solidified the suspicion I already held that it's just not possible to fix your face just so it looks better or younger - if you mess with one part, it changes the other parts. It's very subtle, especially by this point, and the tiny line is gone, but I just don't quite look like me in the mirror, and I don't like it. I also hate how I can feel the little pockets of filler when I put on lipstick, *shudder*. It's cool, at least now I know. Back to Dove soap and a dab of moisturizer and fretting over the tiny line when it comes back - fretting less now, because clearly nobody I see regularly looks at me ANYWAY, I mean GOD.
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Comments
I have long thought I'd be very open to Having Work Done, and in fact was loosely planning on it. Partly I felt this way because my mom complains SO MUCH about her aging face but then refuses to even CONSIDER having anything done about it, with slippery-slope/mutton-dressed-as-lamb/vanity arguments I find teeth-clenchingly annoying, so of course I had to take a different stance. But I have recently been very disappointed in my plans, because one of my mom's friends has had quite a few things done, and...none of them seem to me like improvements. She doesn't look younger/better as I'd expected she/I would (I'd thought it was the PRICE that was the issue, not the RESULT), she looks instead Like Someone Who Has Had Work Done. And her face looks Less Like Her, in a way I was not expecting: I'd thought a person would look like themselves, but like their slightly-younger/firmer selves. She instead has A Differently-Formed Face.
I just love how you are ticked that no one ever looks at you. I do not wear much makeup but I usually do a little mascara and lipstick. In pandemic times, no makeup at all. I mentioned something about no mascara and Mini was like: I can't tell the difference. WHAT? Are you blind?
I am so incredibly grossed out by needles and I pass out so easily that this would never and I mean NEVER cross my mind. I do hate my face all winter long. I am a sun worshiper all summer and I am OK with the supposed wrinkles this might cause. I was young once and there are photos to prove it.
I TOTALLY shuttered right along with you as you described still feeling pockets or something while doing lipstick. Yowza. I would be passed out on the bathroom floor each morning. You are a brave soul and love that you tried something that you had been thinking about.
Funny that people do not look at us the way we look at ourselves; we are harsh critics. I applaud you for trying this and knowing you don't want to do it again.
I have done minimal botox around my eyes for the past few years; maybe twice a year and only the very minimum amount. My Dr. thinks I should do more. Bastard. BUT, it did get rid of that 'furrowed' brow look that I had from squinting my eyes before I had the vision surgery.
Also, it makes eye make-up go on a bit better. That being said; it's been 7 months now, and I don't miss it. Maybe when I actually look at myself again it will spur the thought.
I also used to say I'd never have work done, just because I am too lazy to care about my appearance (hear my poor husband sighing mightily in the background). I don't even bother with makeup. But lately I have noticed I am starting to Jowl, and that is very unappealing, and my fingers seem to imply that the smallest of tucks by my ears would fix that right up, so it's tempting. But I agree - people who have "had work done" do look younger, I guess, but not really like themselves anymore. And I don't think I would want that.
So perhaps a nice first step would be to just buy some lipstick :).