Cosmopolitan said I 'ruined' my face

And I kind of deserved it.

The first time I got Botox I was just 27.

I decided to give it a go after I noticed there was a clear line forming between my eyebrows. This was an unfortunate by-product of a rather chronic case of resting bitch face. It didn’t matter whether I was neutral, sad or contemplative, my eyebrows naturally pulled together.

My permanent scowl didn’t bother me too much. I thought it went hand-in-hand with being ‘intimidating’ – a common accusation I take as a compliment. Unfortunately, the thing about constantly glaring is that it causes wrinkles. I wasn’t even 30, but that vertical line etched between my eyebrows was becoming quite pronounced.

I learnt nice and early that one of the many joys of being a writer is that it gives a person licence to take part in all kinds of self-indulgent activities under the guise of them being ‘for a story’. So I got the injections and pitched an article to Cosmopolitan titled: ‘Botox Ruined My Resting Bitch Face’.

I think the article was in this issue? I was told I didn’t make the cover because ‘Botox’ is a brand name or something.

They accepted the pitch and offered me $600 for 800 words. I excitedly started writing.

I would broadly describe the tone of the subsequent piece I wrote as: ‘ageing is abstract and I’m going to be young FOREVER’.

“The wrinkle between my eyebrows is, at the moment, faint. I’m only 27 after all,” I said. “But when I peer into my crystal ball, I see a face that looks like elbow skin and makeup that’s applied like spackle.”

Hey – young Stephanie – you insufferably smug prick. How about you give your future self a helping hand and wear some fucking sunscreen for once? No? Okay. Keep making jokes about wrinkles and I’ll see you in 9 years.

I continued with two lies in one short sentence.

“I’m not particularly vain, but I am pragmatic.

“I have a problem, Botox is a relatively safe solution. As an added bonus, if you get it early enough, it can prevent more wrinkles from popping up. After all, you can’t crease what you can’t move. So why should I wait for mother nature to ravish my face when I can preemptively spit in hers? Sure, my body’s a temple, but if there are cracks in the walls aren’t I allowed to fix them?”

Ravish. My. Face. Jesus Christ.

I went on to write about how, after the effects of the Botox had settled, I felt as though I’d lost the ability to use make facial expressions. Like the entire emotional range from ‘irked’ to ‘very fucked off’ had suddenly been lost to me. The funniest line in the entire piece couldn’t even be attributed to me.

“I complained about not being able to show my emotions to my mother, who was against the Botox from the outset. She shrugged unsympathetically. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to get you a tail so we know what you’re feeling.”

I proudly sent the article in, along with some before and after photos I’d taken on my iPhone.

I thought very little of the piece until a couple of months later I was tagged in a Facebook post. A friend had picked up the latest issue of Cosmopolitan at an airport and seen my article.

It turns out the sub editors had decided not to run with my proposed title ‘Botox Ruined My Resting Bitch Face’. Oh no.

They’d chosen something a bit stronger.

This is objectively very funny.

‘BOTOX RUINED MY FACE’, it said. The pictures I’d quickly snapped in my bedroom dominated a two-page spread.

I remember seeing the article and being hit with a wave of shock. Was my face RUINED? Did it LOOK ruined? I thought it was okay??

Looking back, I hope this was a deliberate attack by a sub editor in her mid-30s who (like me today) didn’t care much for my tone.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to find the whole thing to be very funny. And hey, $600 is $600. I would have accepted more slanderous things written about me for less.

I finished the article with this:

“Thankfully, Botox does wear off. In a couple of months I’ll be back to scowling with the best of them. But have I learnt my lesson? Absolutely not. I know Botox works. It’s just that right now, the payoff isn’t worth it.”

This at least was honest. Wisely I decided to lay off the fish poison for a few years.

But since my early 30s I’ve been getting Botox injections a couple of times a year. As a result of these visits, I’ve lost that line between my eyebrows – and the ability to glare at all really. If you paralyse the muscle enough, it atrophies entirely.

It’s probably for the best. Through much of my youth, my glare could strip paint off a wall. But these days I look much more mellow. This, I think, is a good thing. After all, the surface of a river is perfectly calm moments before a crocodile launches itself out of the water and tears its prey limb from limb.

Life is full of fun little surprises. I’m happy for my rage to be one of them.