Braving Botox

If you read any magazine/newspaper/website or watch Desperate Housewives on even an occasional basis, it seems like Botox is everywhere and on a par with brushing your teeth as part of a grooming routine.  We've all heard of Botox parties and even some scary stories of people buying it from Ebay-one of whom was injecting her teenage daughter: scary!  There are also many many examples of bad Botox-like most of the cast of Desperate Housewives, Lisa Rinna, Nicole Kidman...and that cat woman, Jocelyn Wildenstein:

OK, granted, she had a LOT of surgery to look that way...but she's definitely a cautionary tale.

Maybe I think of things a little differently being Irish.  I know many people at home do get Botox but it's definitely not as open as it is here and most wouldn't admit to it.  It is kind of seen as vanity.  And an expensive vanity!

I've been considering it for years though-initially for a deep crease in my forehead, but that seems pretty static.  What has bothered me more over the past year though are my frown lines.  They're also known as glabellar lines or 11s.  I feel like they appeared overnight!   One morning I looked in the mirror and there they were.  I tried various lotions/potions/scrubs.  I must have been frowning a lot because they got worse if anything and sometimes I even woke with a frown on my face.  The lines gave me a frowny and perpetually perplexed expression.  It went beyond looking my age (or older) and made me look grumpy and unapproachable!

I read and I pondered.  I gave it a year of watching them get worse before deciding to go ahead and try it all at least once.

Before pics (frowning):

Cringe-worthy.  Particularly my pores.  Yikes!  They may have to be addressed.  Gives some idea of my frown though.