The real reason more men are getting Botox treatments

Standing in front of the mirror, Stephen Taylor-Brown barely recognised his reflection. His face was starting to sag and he’d developed a slight paunch. He realised he looked a lot older than he felt.

At the age of 51 he was suffering, he says, from Middle-Aged Man Syndrome. “You can feel your face dragging down a bit – and that can lead to depression, melancholy, a loss of libido, a sense that life is over and has passed you by; that you’re no longer attractive. This is something men will probably encounter in their 40s or 50s and women will encounter in their late 30s or 40s.”

So Taylor-Brown decided to take action. “The fact is, you can manage everything – you don’t have to have a belly and a bad posture and a haggard face,” he says.

Two years ago, Taylor-Brown became one of the 160,000 men in the UK who has had non-surgical cosmetic treatments – in his case, Botox and dermal fillers. He’s not alone; last week, comedian Jimmy Carr admitted he had had “a bit of Botox here and there, nothing too alarming” as part of a self-improvement package that has also included cosmetic dental treatment and a hair transplant during lockdown.

Nine out of 10 of the clinics I spoke to for this article reported seeing an increase in men seeking non-surgical cosmetic treatments in the past five years, by a factor of 20 to 200 per cent.

Dr Tapan Patel, founder of PHI Clinic, has been in cosmetics for almost 20 years and has noticed a sudden rise in demand for Botox from male clients. “When I started injecting Botox in 2001, it was so unusual to see male patients. I could probably remember their names – that’s how few I had,” he says. Back in the day, only 5 per cent of his clients were men, whereas over the past three years he estimates this has risen to between 15 and 17 per cent. “During chats I have with colleagues who are in similar clinics to mine, people are seeing similar uptrends,” he says.

The men Patel typically sees are in their late 30s or early 40s – which is similar to the clientele of Dr Emily MacGregor, founder of Harley Academy, who has seen her proportion of male clients go from 5 per cent to 10 per cent. As her practice is located in Moorgate, London, MacGregor typically sees professional men who work in the City – something she believes is significant in explaining their appetite for treatment.

“Primarily the reason stated by men for getting Botox is to remain competitive in the workplace,” says MacGregor, whose clients are often bankers or lawyers. “It’s just a really competitive environment, hence the long hours, excessive travel – it does impact your appearance. But in that environment they can’t look tired or run down; they always have to be looking at their peak. A lot of them do say they [seek treatments] because of their job.”

Botox is a quick fix; it can be done in a couple of hours, allowing  you to go back to work the next day – as Taylor-Brown did after his first treatment in July 2018.

Wanting to look on top of his game at work was a key motivator for Taylor-Brown, who is managing director at Abacus Integrated Marketing. “I run a marketing consultancy and a big part of marketing these days is digital. There is probably an implicit belief or assumption that if you look as if you’re in your 40s, that’s pretty good – you’re on top of the game and you’re the next big thing and all the rest of it. Getting into your 50s and 60s maybe there’s a sense that you might be a little bit behind the times.”

Botox, then, is just a way of “using a few tools to enhance the way you look so you do give a better impression,” Taylor-Brown says.

It’s not just clients that businessmen need to impress. As workplaces get increasingly younger, older men can find themselves fighting for their jobs. “Everyone’s working longer nowadays and retiring later,” MacGregor says. “I don’t think people feel as comfortable and safe in their jobs in their late 50s as they used to, and they’re always aware that there are newer people coming through.”

Patel agrees. “When people are applying for new employment, there is this idea that connotations of youth give you a little bit of an advantage against other people that you’re competing against”, he says. Many of his male clients seek treatment because of a restructuring at their firm, where they worry about competing with younger people for the same job.

That’s not to say, however, that men are looking to turn back the clock 20 years. MacGregor sees a distinction between men and women here: the women who visit her clinic often ask to look in their early 30s, whereas for men there is a “golden window” of the age they want to look – between 35 and 45 – to help them stay ahead in the workplace. “Men very rarely ask to look young,” Dr MacGregor says, “because most men in their late 30s or 40s just want to look healthy and awake and vigorous.”

Patel has seen this in his clinic, too, where men ask to “look refreshed and the best version of me but without looking done”.

Taylor-Brown admits he is something of an outlier. The first time he got Botox and dermal fillers, in 2018, “I probably was hoping to look 10 years younger,” he says. But the results were more subtle: “It’s not like you suddenly end up with things I dislike intensely, like duck lips,” he says. “People know that something is different without ever realising.”

When Taylor-Brown returned for a follow-up treatment in 2019, his mindset was different. “The second time I just wanted to look the best version of myself. So I do understand that it isn’t about looking younger; it’s about looking great at your age.”

He says he’s noticed a change in how people respond to him. “I couldn’t really name it – it just felt like I was getting a positive reaction. People would generally go, ‘Hey! You’re looking good’. It made me feel really good.”

And it wasn’t just at work that he noticed the attention. “I was getting women smiling at me in the street or in the supermarket for no reason when I was walking along – and I was thinking, ‘That hasn’t happened for a little while!’”

Taylor-Brown is hoping to get treatment once a year (although his 2020 treatment has been put on hold due to Covid-19). Even though he hasn’t had it done in a year, he has noticed his face hasn’t gone back to how it was before; indeed, on our call, I would have guessed he was in his early 40s, given his smooth forehead and coiffed hair, as opposed to 53.

Men now feel they are able to look after their appearances – thanks, in part, to social media influencers who are, according to MacGregor, normalising treatment for men. “It’s just a mass effect,” she says. “As soon as there’s enough people, it becomes acceptable.”

Patel, too, believes Botox is starting to lose its taboo for men. “In the old days, we’d often see men almost being dragged in and the partner saying ‘what can you do with him?’” he laughs. “But nowadays we’re seeing more [men] taking charge.” Men are more “active” in the consultation, he finds, and seem more comfortable doing their homework and seeking advice.

This boom in male grooming has been liberating, Taylor-Brown says. “It’s always been the domain of the woman to look as good as possible, and that’s fine, but for men it was never considered to be a thing you should even think about – you just looked how you looked. I don’t think that has made many men feel happy.” Now, with men increasingly investing in skincare, hair treatments and non-surgical procedures, Taylor-Brown feels they are more empowered.