What is baby Botox and why are so many young men turning to the micro-dose post COVID? Stepping into first time territory, especially when a needle is involved, is a daunting prospect, but that hasn’t stopped a surge of young men booking in a touch-up coming out of the pandemic. And it seems a certain popular doctor has everyone lining up.
It’s a rainy London day and I’m darting from my taxi late to a meeting with one of the most followed aesthetics doctors in the UK. I reach the Mayfair aesthetics clinic of Dr Ahmed El Muntasar (better known as Dr Ahmed) who gives me a warm welcome and swiftly directs me to his doctor’s chair and passes me a hand mirror. “So, tell me any areas of concern,” says Dr Ahmed. Suddenly, I am confronted to take a real good look at my face, and I suppose rather naively I respond with a “oh, well I think what I am looking for is just something preventative.”
“You look after your skin, and it is quite tight,” says the doctor. I’m flattered. But as he tells me to smile, frown, then look surprised, it becomes apparent the areas that might need a little… help. Animating the face helps Dr Ahmed see where future lines and wrinkles will occur. “Have you heard of baby Botox?” Dr Ahmed asks, and after a moment of me pretending like I do he explains it is a lower volume dose of Botox that is often used for people looking to ease themselves into the ‘tweakments’ world, whilst avoiding the frozen forehead look. Dr Ahmed has a dedicated client base from VIPs, influencers and models alike, but following COVID he has seen an increase of young men asking for baby Botox by around 400%.
Using a needle designed for infant injections, Dr Ahmed starts his work and a few sharp pinches later he is done. It was over so quickly I didn’t even take my suit jacket off. “A lot of my clients pop over on their lunch break, they are so busy it’s the best time to do it,” Dr Ahmed tells me. Other than a couple of red blotches around my forehead, you couldn’t tell I had anything done and the next day I had a very tiny bruise which Dr Ahmed warned me might be there. Overall, rather painless, and very quick.
So why are so many men seeking a baby Botox tweak post COVID? Perhaps more of us had the time to look at themselves locked up indoors on Zoom calls? Or maybe not being able to live life for a year has encouraged us to actually do the things we just thought about in the past? When a visit to Dr Ahmed’s chair is as simple (and less daunting) as a visit to the dentist’s chair, it is easy to see why. And after a couple of weeks, seeing the subtle results of the micro-dose it’s a very attractive prospect. Said result is not a feeling of a frozen forehead, but more that it is tighter and less likely to move; and the sensation of ‘having something done’ has made me ever so slightly more confident.
It seems the real benefit of baby Botox is the ability to be more specific in what you want and its subtle nature lends itself to prevention rather than a drastic change, which makes sense that men are starting at a younger age. The idea is to do a little earlier to save more work later, and we know the age old saying ‘men get better with age’ isn’t saying much if you personally want to make changes to grow your self-esteem and confidence.
Dr Ahmed tells me that Botox and fillers are two of the most common treatments he performs, and before I came into his office he arranged time to speak to me on the phone, which was essentially a ‘you are in safe hands’ chat and he wasn’t wrong. He made me feel very comfortable and actually rather at ease. It may take a couple more visits to get the most of the baby Botox boom, but for a beginner I’m engaged (not hooked) and interested to know more.
One thing is for sure is that Dr Ahmed is very popular, with a talent for precision to detail that goes beyond just having a big audience on Instagram. And what’s more, alongside running his successful aesthetics businesses, Dr Ahmed is also a NHS doctor and returned to working on the frontline during the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m not sure if he sleeps, but he is very good at what he does and well worth a visit, even if it is just a baby step to your very first tweakment.
To discover more, visit: theaestheticsdoctor.com
Imagery courtesy of The Aesthetics Doctor.
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