You aren’t the first guy to search for “Botox,” and you definitely won’t be the last. The possibility of getting rid of crow’s feet, frown lines, and forehead wrinkles seemingly overnight is enough to make anyone think twice.
If you’ve been considering facial injections to treat fine lines and wrinkles, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve got the tea on what Botox is, what it does, and the risk involved with having facial injections.
We’ll also tip you off to some less invasive ways to handle the signs of aging on your skin and explain how using great skin care can save you a lot of time, money, and needles to the face.
What is Botox?
Botox is the name brand for a cosmetic drug that contains the toxin “botulinum toxin A.” Botulinum toxin A is the same toxin that causes botulism, a deadly disease that causes paralysis to the body, breathing issues, and eventually death. However, in small doses, it is safe and generally harmless.
A few different brands of facial injections contain this toxin, and they work essentially the same.
What Does Botox Do?
Despite what you think, Botox doesn’t fix your wrinkles and lines overnight. The effects from facial injections can take from a few days to two weeks to set in. It can take several months before the appearance of wrinkles to lessen.
Facial injections like Botox work by paralyzing the muscles in your face from contracting. This helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles that form from repetitive facial movements, like squinting, smiling, frowning, and raising your eyebrows.
A medical professional will inject Botox into the muscles of your face that cause these movements. It usually takes numerous injections to paralyze or “freeze” one particular area of your skin since numerous facial muscles are involved with every expression you make.
Injections can take up to two weeks to have full effect. Once the toxin has become fully effective, you won’t be able to make certain expressions. For instance, if you had injections to treat wrinkles on your forehead, your forehead won’t move up when you attempt to raise your eyebrows.
After several months of inactivity of these muscles, the wrinkles which they formed begin to slowly fade away. It can take numerous Botox treatments before your lines and wrinkles completely disappear. The longer your muscle is frozen, the better chance of the wrinkle vanishing.
In some cases, the wrinkle may be deeper than surface level. If this is the case, freezing the muscle may not cause the wrinkle to disappear. To fully eliminate the wrinkle, you need to consider a filler injection (an injection that pushes volume into your wrinkle to plump it out) or even an invasive laser treatment or peel.
What Are the Risks?
There’s a price for everything, and Botox not only comes with a hefty cost price tag, it comes with some risks, too. Here are the risks associated with facial injections.
- Pain and swelling at the injection sites. You’ll receive numerous injections for one area. You may have pain and/or swelling at these injection sites and even bruising depending on the location and amount of toxin that was injected.
- Headache. It isn’t uncommon to experience a headache after you receive facial injections, especially if you receive a lot of injections on your forehead. You can experience a headache and even flu-like symptoms up to 48 hours after injections.
- Droopy eyelids or crooked smile. If your practitioner does not inject the toxin properly, you could end up with a partially droopy eyelid or even a crooked smile. If this happens, you’ll need to contact your practitioner to have it corrected.
- Skin irritation. Injections could irritate your skin and make it dry and/or itchy. While this usually goes away, it can sometimes last for days after you’ve had injections.
Benefits
The benefit of using a facial injection product like Botox is that it usually does a great job of targeting fine lines and wrinkles and making them magically vanish. There’s a definite benefit to having injections, if they’re right for you.
- Injections can last three months or longer, depending on your own personal body chemistry.
- Injections are not considered incredibly invasive. You can have injections done on your lunch break and go back to work when you’re done.
- Injections keep your skin looking youthful while the muscle is frozen.
The bottom line? If injections are something you’re dying to try, do you. You should know, however, that you do have options.
Other Options
Botox, and facial injections like it, do a great job of keeping wrinkles away, but the problem is they’re only effective as long as you continue to use them. When you consider the average cost of a facial injection treatment ($500 and higher depending on the area you want to treat and the number of injections needed), it really adds up.
Injections need to be repeated every 3-6 months, depending on your own body chemistry and how deep your lines and wrinkles are. If you stop getting facial injections, your wrinkles return almost immediately.
There's also the issue of placing a known toxin inside your face. If that doesn’t work for you, or if you’d rather try a more natural method of wrinkle reduction, we can help.
Better Skin Care
If you’re on the fence about facial injections, we suggest leveling up your skin care first. You can get great results from using proper skin care, and you may decide injections aren’t for you.
Better skin care starts with Disco. Our entire product line is formulated to work specifically with the pH balance of a man’s skin. Our products contain ingredients with clean track records (toxin and carcinogen-free) and proven results.
Disco’s entire skin care line also focuses on reducing the visible signs of aging. That’s why you’ll find every product packed with wrinkle wrestling ingredients and high doses of antioxidants.
It takes three easy steps to get better skin care that can help fade the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles and help prevent them before they start.
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Cleanse. Using soap and water can make your skin dry and can strip your skin of all-natural oil. Dehydrated skin looks pruny, wrinkly, and older than it should. You have to clean your face, but your cleanser should contain moisturizing and emollient agents to help your skin stay hydrated.
Our face cleanser stick cleans and hydrates while accelerating the natural skin cell rejuvenation cycle with powerful, natural phytic acid.
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Exfoliate. Your skin is covered in a layer of dead skin cells, dirt, and oil. It’s hard to see new, youthful-looking skin with that layer on top, so exfoliating is essential. Exfoliating also helps your skin renew at a more rapid rate, which can help tackle the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
We pack aloe and apricot oil into our facial exfoliant to help deeply penetrate pores and work to repair free radical damage (age spots, fine lines, and sagging skin) so skin looks youthful and refreshed.
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Moisturize. Every skin needs moisture. In fact, dehydrated, dry skin can look considerably older than skin that is well hydrated. It’s important your moisturizer contains anti-aging ingredients, so you can hydrate and fight back against wrinkles at the same time.
Disco’s hydrating face moisturizer is packed with super hydrating macadamia nut oil, which also provides anti-aging benefits and protects against free radical damage.
In just three easy steps, you can fight wrinkles and fine lines at home, sans needles, paralyzing toxins, and half your paycheck.
The Eyes Have It
One of the most common things we hear from guys is that they don’t like the lines and wrinkles around their eyes. Crow’s feet form on the outer edges of your eyes as a result of smiling and laughing, but they’re a dead giveaway you’re no longer twenty.
Thankfully, Disco has your back. We’ve created The Holy Grail of eye products for men that help erase the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, brighten dark circles, and even reduce puffiness if you’ve got bags under your eyes.
Our Repairing Eye Stick is like a facial injection in a tube. With caffeine to deflate undereye bags, pycnogenol to eliminate dark circles, and vitamin B3 to reduce the appearance of wrinkles, our eye stick can keep you out of the cosmetic surgeon’s office and keep your money in your pocket.
Bottom Line
Botox is an effective way to handle fine lines and wrinkles, but it isn’t permanent, there are risks involved, and it’s going to require a lot of time and money in upkeep. If you aren’t ready for facial injections, you can still go HAM on your wrinkles and fine lines by using high-quality skin care with ingredients to stop the signs of aging before they start.
Disco’s skin care keeps your skin healthy, hydrated, and will definitely have people questioning whether you’re Gen Z or a Millennial.
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