God, it is such a thing to turn 30. I wanted to believe that my friends and I wouldn’t be defined by the stereotypes of this particular age, yet I’m constantly affronted with all the clichés that come with it. These days, we’re all talking less about our adventures in dating over endless beers at the dive bar and instead detailing the minutia of our annual tax filings over an early dinner and single glass of wine (it’s so easy to get hungover now).
One thing we’re discussing more than ever: aesthetic treatments. As a beauty editor, I’ve always been the person my friends come to for skin care recommendations or makeup tips. But in the past couple of years, those questions have started to revolve around age-related concerns and procedures: Do you know a good plastic surgeon? What’s the difference between the different types of liposuction? Should I get Botox or filler?
It’s the latter I get asked the most, and it’s an increasingly hard question for me to answer. I got neuromodulators (Botox, Daxxify, etc.) and filler somewhat consistently throughout my mid-to-late 20s but I stopped a couple of years ago and have since decided to avoid them indefinitely. It’s forced me to reexamine my relationship with injectables, which, despite being somewhat casual, had the potential to snowball into something toxic.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t all that aware or interested in injectables before entering the beauty industry—but after getting hired at Allure at 25, I was suddenly surrounded by them. In staff meetings and at industry events, people would casually exchange the details of their treatments, something I’d never witnessed before. For the first time, I was writing content about those treatments, inadvertently educating myself on how they work. Publicists for dermatologists would email me every now and then to offer an appointment free of charge, which I quickly learned is pretty standard in this line of work.
Nicola Dall’Asen
Nicola Dall’Asen
Some memories from my filler/Botox era, circa 2021.
I figured if I had free access to these procedures that plenty of people would happily drop thousands of dollars for, why not take advantage? If I’m going to be writing about them, I thought, shouldn’t I have at least a little firsthand experience? I was younger than the target demographic for injectables, but I’d heard so much talk of “preventative Botox” that I thought it couldn’t hurt to try them anyway. One curious visit to a dermatologist became a routine visit every six months wherein I’d usually just tell the doctor, “Do whatever you think I need.” That often resulted in me getting neuromodulator injected into my forehead, around my eyes, and in my jaw muscles plus filler in my lips, cheeks, and jaw.