Aesthetic Artistry or How to Lift your Face without a Facelift

If it’s a well-known truth that we are the last to know ourselves, then it’s also likely that we are the last to know our faces. Or how they work.

I went in to see rtwskin about a nuisance. I had a sebaceous gland on my chin line that was looking suspiciously old-lady-like. But Natasha, one of the nurses there, had other ideas for me when she took a look at my face.

I thought that my most striking feature was my eyes, now heavily accessorised with bags underneath and mascara above, age versus make-up engaged in a duel to the death for that last territory of youth.

I’d had a little fortification the week before with a tear trough filler at a clinic in Harley Street and despite being quite nervous before the treatment came away feeling quite pleased with myself. That particular treatment isn’t ‘in your face’ noticeable but helps you look a bit more lively. So far so good. I was thinking – next I’ll have to deal with the little wrinkles up around my eyes. I was not thinking, and have never thought, I need to do something about my chin. Who does? Natasha did.

I chose rtwskin on the basis of their expertise and ethos. They follow a ‘whole face approach’ and their team will look at you with a really unflinching direct gaze as they assess your face, and point out its divine flaws…how one side is quite different to the other. They take a craftsman’s approach to your face and its features and how they interact. They engage with the way your smile works, where you’re showing signs of despair and how to get you as bonny as a girl again.

It doesn’t feel remotely vain or self-indulgent to sit there and be assessed that way. You think of it, ensconced in the comfortingly clinical chair, as necessary maintenance being performed by not just professionals, but artists. They love what they do and sometimes one or two others will join to take a peer at your face and give a view. It’s rather fun. They look at you, as if they can see right through you, into you and out the other side. And for some reason within minutes you’re all joking and smiling. There’s something intimate and warm about the experience. Almost girlish. There’s a sense of common unashamed purpose which is such a relief. That sense is there the moment you walk in. No sipping water prudishly in reception, knees crossed, wondering what she’s having done….’I ’m just here for my mole’ etc. It feels completely modern to be there because you want to look good. It feels smart. After all, how many years do we pore over magazines looking at perfect images of beauty getting a little more defeatedly down in the dumps every time we go to the mirror. If we’re told – as we are – that beauty matters then why not treat it seriously? Why not? Vanity is overestimating ones charms, to the point of being laughable. This is about natural restoration, and staving off the collapse of the system!

I wondered on the way home about the way we rather meanly snicker at women with obvious work. The ‘morality’ of the matter seems to be that when it doesn’t work, when it’s botched, we think ‘silly vain woman.’ But when it works, when we don’t notice it, as with certain ladies either side of Simon Cowell on a Saturday, we think of them as somehow different to the rest of us, bestowed with the grace and favour, the glow of those in the know. But that know-how is available by needle to all of us now. Just so long as you follow a few golden rules (see below.)

So, Natasha showed me that the weakness around my lower face, the thin skin and the would-be jowls were really bringing me down. The naso-labial lines, the slightly old girl turning in of the chin in an attitude of contempt for the world and all its men and the slack weariness of the whole lower face were detracting from my perfect forehead (aka Botox) and hopeful eyes. But it was more than that. My whole face was sad. It was a recent thing I suddenly saw. Like someone had cried ‘avalanche!’ With a degree of passion, she told me it could be halted, now, if I wanted to, and it would get now worse with care.

She explained her proposed approach to me, showed me with a little soft pinch here and there, how this certain filler there and that here could redress the problem and I booked in for her treatment.

Frankly, it ought to be called artistry. She used that needle like a quill, she worked as if she were restoring an old master, deftly and with joy. She was smiling the whole time, had me hold the mirror and check on the instant magic she was making, and she seemed as thrilled as I was at how we were bringing my face back to life. She made sure I was comfortable, checked with me all along, and frankly I kept thinking – go for it, more, more more! Because the results were so visible and so fast.

I had no idea that my lower face was such a let down. I keep glancing at myself in the mirror and I see a woman from the other side of forty, not this one, the other. But there’s a plumpness and a joy about the entire face, that’s not obvious to pinpoint despite being the product of needlepoint.

‘Can you please stop smiling?’ She asked me once or twice, as I held the mirror and she went in for another tiny dose. ‘Sorry,’ I said, smiling.

Ten Top Tips from the Other Side of Forty

1. Start Botox in your thirties to stop the mega frown from coming. If you haven’t done it yet, do it now.
2. Get fresh with fillers in your forties. After forty it’s all about volume.
3. Don’t guess what’s going to work for you, get a professional view.
4. See their Before and After photos. Theirs, not those available anywhere online.
5. Invest in the best, don’t go back street or cheap or you’ll have egg on your face (or worse)
6. Check that brand names are being used, ask to see the vial (rtwskin will show you that they only use Allergan, the industry leader, products and will even show you the sell-by date. If you check the sell by date on what goes in your mouth, why not what goes in your face?
7. Check Facebook and reviews and look for the responsiveness of the clinic.
8. Make sure you feel safe and reassured from the get-go and that you’re being included in the process all the way
9. Don’t do knife, do needle.
10. Fifty’s not too late, but it’s a lot harder to correct what you might have prevented using a good provider….