“No, Judith.
Just…no.”
“Oh, c’mon.
I admit: I was having a Moment.
The day I visited the doctor, I was convinced that expressionlessness looked ethereal.
And I thought it might be interesting to give that otherworldly look a whirl.
The good thing about Botox?
On reflection, I’m glad Dr. Gibstein didn’t do what I wanted.
In a sense, plastic surgeons have become victims of their own success.
For years they’ve warned women about the risks of going overboard on face, forehead and eye lifts.
But now women are overdosing on those, too.
(It can also empty your wallet, though surgeons tend to downplay that risk.)
At the same time, women are getting 70 percent more nonsurgical treatments.
“It’s like that ad for Lay’s potato chips.
Same with the Restylane I wanted in my lips.”
Ard says she knows she’ll have the procedures eventually, but she’s heeding her doctor’s advice.
At least for now.
And I was sort of right.
Without cuteness or beauty in youth, I somehow didn’t fall off the cliff as I aged.
I was such a shapeless, bespectacled dork back then.
I had a few age spots on my facesplotches of brown pigment.
Not a big deal, but why not get rid of them?
But five days later, the scabs fell off and voil?!
Except that now I am fighting an urge to geteverythingzapped: arms, legs, chest, the works.
I could be smooth and creamy!
I know lasers are not a panacea.
“The only person who looks normal without nasolabial folds is a 3-year-old.
They’re a part of the human anatomy!”
(Why should strangers know she’s had any work at all?)
And, of course, there’s that miraculously line-free look I begged Dr. Gibstein for.
That’s despite witnessing disastrous trout-pouts on celebritiesmost notably, Meg Ryanthat have scared me away from the idea.
“you’re able to’t make a small lip big.
you’ve got the option to make a small lip look bigger,” Dr. Gibstein says.
“Nevertheless, there are lots of people for whom bigger lips are never big enough.”
A woman needs to listen to family and friends when they question her latest cosmetic adventure.
And when a physician tells someone to put on the brakes, she should by all means do so.
I no longer want to look like Ms.
Still, when it comes to self-improvement, I have vowed to tiptoe, not leap.
and, yes, with a little bit of Botox to smooth out the line between my eyes.
Although I know I could find a surgeon to erase my crow’s-feet, I won’t.
I kinda like that when I smile, my eyes smile, too.
Those crow’s-feet are getting more noticeable.
But then, I tell myself my classmates will see I’ve had a lot to smile about.
Photo Credit: Plamen Petkov
