It's botox. I paid for it.

I recently found myself in a conversation at a party where all of the women were talking about how sad it was that women are freezing their faces with Botox. How absolutely crazy it is that so many women are using harmful toxins in a desperate attempt to cling to their youth.

‘Brainwashed’ and ‘tragic’ were the words being used. I stayed silent, not adding anything to the conversation, knowing full well that I have been injecting myself for the better part of a decade.

I composed my best sympathetic face, knowing that I had more movement in my forehead than normal. I didn’t have botox in my face so it was more expressive than normal, however it wasn’t a decision made from a moral highground, or a radical act of feminism. It was in fact, a decision dictated by my bank account.

In London, Botox costs around £300 for two areas, and while it’s meant to last an average of 3 months, some of us lucky ones with very active faces and fast metabolisms, it only lasts two.

I was 27 when I got my first injections. I was living in Sydney (Bondi specifically), which for anyone who hasn’t visited, is the Southern Hemisphere equivalent of LA. Everyone who lives there is a 10/10 - walking along the beach looks like Instagram in real life. I spent five years living what some would have called the dream life. Spending my weekends wandering from yoga, to the beach, to brunch, and then back to the beach for cocktails.

I worked for one of the biggest breakfast shows in the world, my dream producing job - meeting famous people every other week. Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber (who I will say kissed me on the cheek), and a personal favourite - Donna from Suits. Every time I would meet someone that I’d only ever seen on screens, I was fascinated by how they looked. There was something about them I couldn’t quite explain, they looked airbrushed. It wasn’t just that they were beautiful, they had a certain look, an aura that screamed ‘I’m famous’.

I remember thinking must have been created by their glam squad. It’s only in recent years that I’ve realised it was actually because of all the money being spent on things like botox and plastic surgery. I’m sure not all - but certainly most. And how could you not when you’re competing for jobs against so many other flawless faces.

My go-to comfort show when I want to completely switch my brain off, is Gossip Girl. I’ve watched all 6x seasons at least 8 times and it wasn’t until a recent marathon that I realised Blake Lively 100% had her lips done. I was doing the maths and realised that this would have been in 2007 or 2008, nearly 20 years ago.

Getting filler in your lips has only really been somewhat mainstream for the past 5 years, so it made me wonder what celebrities are doing to their faces and their bodies now, that won’t trickle down to the somewhat mainstream, for another decade. My guess is on whatever the face lift Kris Jenner and Margot Robbie are rumoured to have gotten.

When I left Sydney after 5 golden years, I realised how bad it had been for my self esteem. I went from feeling somewhat proud of how I looked, to the complete opposite. One day en route to an afternoon drinks session, I gushed at a good friend of mine asking how and why her skin looked so flawless, expecting her to say it was a new serum or facial she’d had - she admitted to having had botox. Something she had been doing unbeknownst to me for three years.

I was shocked, but if I’m being totally honest, I also felt annoyed. I couldn’t believe she had found this beauty secret and hadn’t shared it with me. It wasn’t long after that I booked my first appointment. I was 27 and at the time, it was called ‘baby botox’ or ‘preventative botox, which made it feel like a proactive, smart investment in the future of my face.

I justified it to myself because someone had told me years earlier that it would help with headaches (which strangely it did), but who am I kidding - that spend, that decision had nothing to do with getting rid of my hormonal migraines. Once you’ve had it done, it becomes weirdly easy to spot who else is in the botox brigade, so you know when it’s safe to talk about without judgement.

Since then, I’ve consistently topped up my botox approximately every 3-months for nearly 8 years. I like how it makes my skin feel, I like that it calms down my otherwise almost distractingly active facial expressions. When I was at school I was often teased for my forehead, even when I wasn’t stressed or worried - my forehead made it look like I was. My grandma spent countless years trying to tell me to relax it. I never figured out how, until botox.

Over the past 8 years, of quietly freezing my face, I have spent close to £8,000. A number I was too afraid to figure out until I sat down to write this article. What I could have done with that money had I not been terrified to get older. To wipe away any of the lines of my life - the physical manifestation of my experiences.

Listening into this conversation, pretending to agree with the women discussing the vulgar decision to get botox, I knew I am one of the brainwashed, tragic women they were talking about. And I have been for a long time. It doesn’t matter how many things I try to achieve in the desperate pursuit to be valued for more than my appearance. I struggle to believe it.

For a long time I really struggled to admit that. I’m so proud of my achievements in my career, as a professional sports person, in all the many other more interesting ways I have contributed to society, and to the lives of the people I love. I know theoretically I am so much greater than my looks, but I’m still terrified of losing them.

I didn’t want to give the conversation about botox, and anti aging any attention because the whole thing makes me feel like a fake feminist. An incredibly unhelpful influence on younger women growing up in a world where they too, are at war with the idea that they need to be constantly shrinking and tweaking themselves to look a certain way.

I don’t want anyone to think they should spend as much money as I do on my appearance, so for a long time I’ve kept this conversation private. It’s one I’ve had in my own head, and with my friends, a lot.

I know if I was 25 and heard someone older than me paid for botox, I would probably assume that’s something I should do too. And that’s the last thing I want to be known for, or telling people to spend their money on. It’s something I hate about myself and genuinely feel quite ashamed of.

Last week I went through my accounts and realised that I spend more on beauty than I do on gifts for other people. My Mum has recently had her birthday and a huge surgery and I felt like I couldn’t afford to send her flowers. I could afford to send her pre-made food to make the transition from surgery easier. But that’s total bullsh*t and I need to hold myself accountable.

I spend £200 a month on beauty. The same amount I put aside monthly for travel. Both of those buckets are only fractionally less than what I spend on my investments. I’m only putting 11% of my pay right now towards investments, and I know it should be closer to 20%. I’ve been saying the reason I can’t invest more is because I’m living in a really expensive part of the world, but that’s not the whole truth.

If I look at how much I spend on beauty, levelled out averagely each month, I spend:

1. £45 on getting my eyebrows tinted and waxed

2. £100 on botox

3. £100 on dying my hair

4. £60 on makeup

I’ve stopped buying expensive face wash and moisturisers because I just can’t afford it. I want to spend more on clothes, shoes, bags - but again, I just cannot justify the spend. Yet here I am justifying the most expensive of them all - botox. Something that quite literally disappears every three months. If I had put that £8,000 in the stock market, rather than being £8k down, I would have around £9,000 more than I do right now.

The only reason I was able to make a sympathetic face during the tear down of botox conversation with my *very new* friends at this party, because I had to extend the payment - I was really behind financially and it was feeling irresponsible, but as soon as I got paid this month I booked in.

I went to a new nurse, someone I hadn’t tried before. A recommendation from someone I met recently - he said it was the cheapest, best person he had found in London. And yes - I did say he, the recommendation was not from a woman.

I trotted into the room, on the hottest day of the year. Had my face injected, and for the first time it felt like my body was rejecting it. It hurt more than normal, it bled and I never normally bleed. I left the office in the middle of London’s heatwave and made my trek home with a cold can of diet coke pressed to my head.

I had spent not only £300, but also three hours of my life getting to and from this appointment. Although I don’t pay myself very much, I know how much I am worth - so I’m rounding the whole thing up to around £500. That’s time I could have been spending on growing my business. Money I could have spent sending my Mum flowers.

Every time I look at a screen, I am seeing famous people and comparing myself to them. People who are no doubt getting treatments and surgeries that I’ve never even heard of. And do you know what I find incredibly unhelpful? Not knowing that they’ve had a face lift. Hearing Anne Hathaway talk about her braid trick that scrapes away her 20 years of life that would otherwise be visible.

I got a DM from someone the other day who said they listen to the podcast and what am I doing at the moment because my skin looks so young and youthful. I replied the below…

So rather than sitting in my own shame, I thought it might be useful for others to share my dirty little financial secret. To talk about the appalling amount of money I am spending every month, because I don’t yet feel comfortable with the idea of ‘aging gracefully’.

The last thing I want is for someone to read this and think they need botox. But the second to last thing I don’t want is for someone to see my face and think I’m eating extra kale. Or exercising so much that my skin is glowing.

It’s botox. I paid for it.

In this week’s Curve Weekly episode, we dove into this complex topic with Emma-Louise Boynton, writer, speaker, and author of Pleasure: The Reclamation of My Body. We’ve linked the episode below, ICYMI.

Listen on Apple

Soph xx