I tried ‘Brotox' for the first time before I turned 40

Telegraph

21-04-2025

Last month, just over a year before my 40th birthday, I had a conversation that forced me to take a long, hard, close-up look in the mirror. I was at an event, speaking to someone who was probably about a decade younger than myself, when I spotted a small sample of fabric displayed nearby – a shimmery, gold lamé-type material. I commented that, back in my early twenties as I was graduating from uni, I had a much-prized 'going out out' bomber jacket from French Connection which was cut from a very similar cloth. 'Oh, was that in the 1990s?', my interlocutor innocently responded. It was 2008.
As with any landmark birthday ending with a zero, certain questions arise in the build-up to the big day. On the approach to 40, most of mine had already been about what I want the impending decade to look like when it comes to my personal health. After my first twinges of back pain, I had already made a concerted effort to spend more time in the gym strength training. However, the realisation that, in someone's eyes, I was reading at least a decade older than I was added a whole new aesthetic dimension to my thoughts. If I was already trying to stave off certain physiological problems that I could predict before they got too serious, shouldn't I also be trying to do the same with the lines on my face?
It appears that many men are facing the future with the same thought. According to a recent survey by the British College of Aesthetic Medicine, there has been a 70 per cent increase in the number of men having aesthetic treatments since 2021. Now, in 2024, men make up a full 16 per cent of the market – and, at least according to our search histories, there's one of the procedures that's piquing male interest more than most: Botox. The Harley Street Skin Clinic in London has reported that searches for ' Botox for males ' surged by 3300 per cent from January to September 2024 and Google Trends reported a 130 per cent increase in searches for 'male Botox before and after' over the past year.
Much like Kleenex or Hoover, Botox is a brand name that has become a generic byword for Botulinum Toxin – a neuromodulating substance that, when injected into the body, results in temporary localised muscle relaxation by blocking the neurotransmitter release that cause muscle contraction. While it can be used across the body from preventing sweating in your armpits to assisting in the healing of anal fissures, its most widespread usage is in cosmetically treating wrinkles on the face.
Curiosity has also no doubt been driven by an ever-more open conversation about men's aesthetic treatments. Far from something done in secret, men in the public eye are now more willing to share what they've had done. Comedian Jimmy Carr was recently on the pages of this very paper talking about his penchant for Botox in his fifties. American singer Joe Jonas has not only been very open about his use of anti-ageing injectables, but also appeared in an ad for Xeomin (another brand of Botulinum Toxin) – making him, quite literally, the face of the brand.
And, frankly, what a face. 'I started Xeomin when I noticed I was starting to see more frown lines,' he told GQ in 2022 – then aged 33. 'We can be open and honest about it, be confident, and not really shy away from speaking our truth.'
With that in mind, I made an appointment with Dr Wassim Taktouk, one of the UK's most in-demand aesthetic practitioners and owner of the sleek Taktouk Clinic in London's Knightbridge, to give the procedure a go for myself.
On the day
'When I first started out, I'd have a husband or boyfriend of a woman having a procedure who might ask a question during their appointment, and many months later book in with me,' says Dr Taktouk. Previously an A&E GP, he switched to aesthetics around 14 years ago, during which time he's seen a marked increase in male patients. 'Now men are being far more proactive, researching treatments and booking themselves in. Today, I'd say about 30 per cent of our patients are men.'
With salt and pepper hair, blemish-less skin and a chiseled jawline, Dr Taktouk – dressed in own-branded burgundy scrubs and co-ordinating Nike Air Force Ones – has one of those intimidatingly handsome faces that fills you with assurance that he knows what makes a man look good. As we begin our consultation, he asks my current skincare routine (daily moisturiser and SPF with a splash of serum or exfoliating toner a couple of times a week) and what my current facial concerns might be. I tell him the horizontal frown lines on my forehead and the vertical lines between my eyebrows.
'It's not an SOS moment,' Dr Taktouk says warmly, after taking a closer look. He explains that I'm doing this at exactly the right time in my late 30s, before the wrinkles have become deep-set. 'You're very young. I think that within one or two treatments we can get rid of all those lines. What we need to do is reduce the ability to frown.'
He explains that, to do this, he will inject neuromodulators (in this case, Botulinum Toxin A) into the procerus and corrugator muscles between my eyebrows and at certain points along my frown lines in the frontalis muscle on my forehead. He asks what sort of effect I'd like to see on a scale of one to ten – ten being, in his words, 'a complete freeze-out' – and I say around a three. He asks me to perform a series of surprised, angry and joy-filled expressions, paying close attention to how my face moves and what wrinkles they cause.
'You're able to raise your right eyebrow independently from your left which I'm very jealous of – I've always wanted to be able to do that,' he smiles. 'I'm going to keep the dosage light on your forehead muscles so you can still do that.'
After getting me to frown while holding a hand mirror and marking up my face with his battle plan in white pencil, I feel nine delicate pinprick injections in my forehead and three between my eyebrows. The whole process takes around five minutes, but he informs me that the results could last anywhere from three to four months – and they should start to kick in anywhere from five days to two weeks after this session.
The results
The most immediate result were the bumps from the injections on my forehead, for which I'd wished I'd bought a baseball cap – but these disappeared in the 20 minutes between the end of my appointment and the walk to the Tube. Over the next few mornings, I woke up and immediately tried to pull every facial expression I had pulled in Dr Taktouk's hand mirror – which, duly, I became less and less able to do. By day three, I really had to concentrate to be able to scrunch my brow downwards. By day five, I could still raise my eyebrows in surprise or frown, but visibly these expressions barely activated the vertical lines between my eyebrows.
As I tipped over a week, the lines on my forehead and between my eyebrows, while still there, were beginning to fade – shadows of their former selves that I could only detect under intense scrutiny with a light source at the right angle.
Perhaps the most intriguing part of the experience is the sensation of not being able to make your brain connect with certain parts of your face – something I can only describe as a similar sensation to having a limb going to sleep after laying on it, but without the pins and needles sensation that usually goes with (rather ironically, considering the source of this newfound numbness). I could still feel the areas around the injections, of course, but there was a certain fuzziness to them. And, as I got more used to seeing a face free(er) from winkles, that fuzzy feeling felt shockingly comforting – a physical manifestation of feeling like I'd done something positive to safeguard my skin.
Looking in the mirror, I felt like the face looking back at me was more relaxed, more rested, with fewer of life's concerns etched into it. Did Dr Taktouk make me look like Joe Jonas? Of course not. Do I feel like a more confident, more future-proof version of myself? Absolutely. Will I be going back when I turn the big 4-0? That gets a gently knowing eyebrow raise from me.