One of the most common misconceptions about BOTOX and other injectable wrinkle relaxers is that using these products will make the patient appear frozen, plastic, or overly tight. In reality, the enhancements made with BOTOX injections can look exceptionally natural when performed by an experienced injector.
How Quickly Does Botox Show Results? You will see improvements in your fine lines and wrinkles less than one week after you get your injections. In most cases, they start to become visible within 3 days. After approximately two weeks, this treatment will have fully taken effect.
There's a common misconception that Botox makes you look older when it wears off. On the contrary, regular Botox treatments make you look younger even after the neurotoxin wears off.
Bad Botox can happen for a few reasons, from provider inexperience to a provider using an inauthentic product. In the best of cases, Bad Botox makes you look a little strange for a few months. In the worst cases, it can be life-threatening. Here's what to look for so you can avoid being a victim of Botox gone bad.
What makes Botox look unnatural? While Botox is generally considered safe and can look natural on most people when done correctly, there are a few ways it can go wrong: It can be injected in the wrong muscle, injected unevenly, or over-injected.
The first thing you'll notice immediately after Botox injections are little bumps and dots of blood that look just like mosquito bites. These go away in 20 minutes to half an hour. But you won't notice the skin-smoothing effects between three to five days (and up to two weeks).
At what age should you stop using Botox? There is no upper age limit for people who want to have Botox. In fact, many women enjoy the refreshed look they can get from Botox and complementary treatments when they are in their 60s or older.
Patients must be 18 years or older to be able to get Botox. However, most experts agree that in most cases, patients at a good age for preventative Botox treatment are those in their mid-late 20s and early 30s who are prone to wrinkles.
When people see lines forming after BOTOX wears off, they assume treatment made their wrinkles worse. Actually, your face simply returns back to its natural state. No new wrinkles or lines are ever caused by these injections.
Why Does Botox Make Your Forehead Shiny? Light naturally reflects off of smooth surfaces, so the smoother your skin, the more light will bounce. Botox injections smooth the skin, which can cause it to appear shinier, especially if it is overdone.
When anti-wrinkle injections are injected into the skin it relaxes the muscle (see our 'How anti-wrinkle injections work' article) and makes the surface of the skin smooth. When light shines onto skin without wrinkles it bounces off the skin in a uniform way. The skin appears to be shiny like the surface of a mirror.
When someone is receiving too much treatment with anti-wrinkle injections, the skin can become extremely smooth and the light bounces off in a uniform way. So, the skin appears shiny, which is why it can look 'frozen'.
Because our bodies constantly heal and adapt to any changes, cosmetic treatments like Botox will eventually wear off. But what happens when Botox wears off? Your body's natural regenerative properties will take over, causing wrinkles and lines to appear again after some time.
Botox Could Result in Mild Discoloration or Texture
Again, not typical, but Wexler says that with the skin thinning, some patients notice "a visible waviness of the skin overlying the muscles treated," as well as discoloration. "On expression, the forehead may even appear like hills and valleys," she says.
Using Botox® After Your 40s: Part Of A Wider Treatment
If you consider starting Botox® after the age of 40, you should be aware that Botox® works better with the fine lines due to repetitive movement of the face (smiling, frowning, etc). It works much less for muscles that become heavy or sag from age.
Can you still get BOTOX® even at a late age? Yep! BOTOX® works beautifully even for more advanced signs of aging.
Within First Hour after Botox
Botox takes between 3-7 days for the results of treatment to be fully noticeable. At times, results may look slightly uneven at first, because the Botox may “kick in” at different rates.
Many people worry that if they stop getting BOTOX injections, their wrinkles will come back faster and worse than before. However, this is not the case. If you stop BOTOX injections, your wrinkles will slowly start to come back, but slower than if you had never used BOTOX to begin with.
The first “true” results will be noticeable within 24 to 48 hours – when you'll see a softening of wrinkles. Why does Botox need a couple days to start working? Botox freezes your muscles by stopping the release of acetylcholine. It takes awhile for your body to “use up” the acetylcholine that's already circulating.
If you use Botox for ten or more years, your skin will appear brighter and smoother with fewer wrinkles. Even after stopping Botox injections after years of use, you'll still notice fewer wrinkles between your eyes or on your forehead, which means you'll continue to age gracefully.
When Botox is applied to problem areas around the eyebrows, the muscles relax and the skin on top of them becomes smoother. The muscles around the eyebrows are pulled upwards, elevating the eyebrows and making a patient's eyes appear more open.
Heavy brows and the feeling of drooping.
This feeling and look comes from treatment of the forehead muscles called the frontalis. These muscles move the brows up and in certain cases after Botox treatment, the relaxed muscle then makes the brows drop.