With an increasing number of younger patients requesting Botox, registered Dental & Medical Aesthetics practitioner Ana Sakinyte talks us through the ideal age to start treatment.

“Botox treatment is widely known for smoothing away lines, wrinkles, and signs of facial ageing. Therefore, the treatment is often targeted at the over fifties as they’ll have the ageing signs that Botox is famous for temporarily smoothing. But left too late, some facial lines become too deep to smooth away; I can make deep lines look better, more relaxed, but not eradicate them completely.

My new generation of patients have discovered the trend for ‘Baby Botox,’ starting treatment in their twenties resulting in a face that never gets wrinkles. People think they don’t need Botox until they’re fifty, but by then it can be too late to get the results they want.

When Botox is injected into the superficial layer of the muscle it relaxes it. This stops the muscle contracting so it won’t create a line, but it doesn’t do anything to erase deep wrinkles you may already have. In short, although Botox will smooth small existing wrinkles, especially the type caused by muscle movement when you smile or squint, it can’t smooth away deeper lines.

I recommend people to start treatment around the age of twenty-five, when what you’re freezing is already smooth. It’s easy to think ‘that’s too young!’ however I advise starting with smaller doses to stop wrinkles ever appearing. I’m 38 and have been having Botox for 11 years every four to five months and I haven’t got lines. What you’re doing with Baby Botox is freezing time.”