Today I’m gonna talk all about Botox, specifically where to get Botox injections on your face.
It is the number one cosmetic treatment in the history of the world. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, upwards of five million people undergo Botox injections every year just in the United States.
Today I’m going to cover for you what are the common areas that we inject Botox into the face. What wrinkles do we treat with it?
To put it simply, Botox is a neurotoxin. It is one of the most dangerous toxins in the entire universe as far as we know.
What it does is it causes muscles to become paralyzed and if you inject a lot of Botox it can kill somebody. If you inject Botox in the tiniest amounts into certain parts of the face and to certain muscles of the face, it can cause those muscles to weaken temporarily and for wrinkles to become smooth.
It has become so popular because it works so well to do that.
What I’m going to go over are the different wrinkles of the face that you can use Botox for and I’ll also talk about some of the units that are typically used.
Table of Contents
Where to Get Botox Injections on Your Face?
Frown Lines Between Eyebrows
The most common location where Botox is injected are the glabella or the frown lines between the eyebrows. This is also called the eleven sign because quite often there’s just two of them making it look like the number 11.
That was the first area that had a cosmetic FDA approval for. In this area we typically inject anywhere from about 10 to 20 units to weaken that muscle. Within about a week, the muscles become so weak that those wrinkles start to smooth out and it does last usually about three to four months.
Crow’s Feet
The second most common area are the crow’s feet. These wrinkles radiate out from the sides of the eyes.These wrinkles are caused by the orbicularis muscle, which is a circular muscle that extends around the eyes and it allows you to squint and it creates these wrinkles that radiate out as you squint.
By injecting Botox into those wrinkles, into those muscles that create those wrinkles, we can smooth them out. Typically we use anywhere from 10 to 12 units in each side for the crow’s feet.
Forehead Wrinkles
The third area are the forehead wrinkles. We have forehead wrinkles which are typically horizontal in the forehead and these are caused by the frontalis muscles.
These muscles are two paired muscles on the forehead that work to basically lift up your eyebrows. If we inject Botox into those frontalis muscles, quite often we inject it into a v-shape, it then causes these wrinkles in the forehead to smooth out.
The forehead is the area that you have to be very cautious with. If you’ve never had Botox before and you’re kind of nervous to have it done, I don’t usually recommend that you start with the forehead.
Because when Botox is done poorly in the forehead, it is when people get the weird appearances that you may have seen out in Hollywood.
If you’ve got a forehead where your eyebrows are fairly low and if a person injects Botox across the forehead causing those frontalis muscles to be completely weakened, what can happen is that the brow can drop. And you’ve got three months before you’ll be able to lift them up again.
The other thing that you can get is the opposite. You can get the Botox eyebrow. In those people who have, let’s say, a fairly good arch of their brow, if you inject Botox too aggressively in the center of the brow, and not out to the side, you can get weird lifting effect, where the person looks kind of angry.
You may have seen that in certain celebrities in Hollywood where they get this weird look.
So when it comes down to Botox in the forehead, you really want to make sure that an injector is really looking at your eyebrow and the anatomy very carefully, because you can really cause major changes in how you look that you can’t get if you’re just doing the glabella or the crow’s feet.
So buyer beware. Botox on the forehead can work really well, but you have to have it tailored to your face. If your injector does the same thing on all of his or her patients when they inject the forehead, it’s not a good idea because you can look quite odd afterwards.
These are the three most common areas that we inject Botox into.
What about the rest of the face? Where else can you get Botox injections?
Eyelid
There are some doctors that will inject a tiny bit of Botox in the eyelid. I don’t do that. The idea is if you inject the smallest amount in the eyelid, you can cause the eyes to open up a little bit.
Nose
If you inject Botox into the area of the nose, you can treat what are called bunny lines. You can even go off to the side of the nose to treat wrinkles that happen in this area that we call the bunny lines as well as those horizontal wrinkles that you can get across the nose.
If you inject Botox there, you usually need a few units, you don’t need a lot to help to smooth those wrinkles out.
As we go down the face, where else can you inject it?
Around Lips
There are people who have wrinkles around the lips that they don’t like and so some injectors will inject a bit of Botox around the mouth.
Not my favorite treatment.
Botox weakens muscles and the reason why you develop those wrinkles is because of the pursing action of your lips. It’s when you kiss, when you drink out of a straw, that type of thing.
You’re really trying to thread the needle when you’re injecting Botox around the mouth because if you inject too much, then the person might drool when they drink out of a cup. If you inject too much, they may not be able to smile or kiss or drink out of a straw. If you don’t inject enough, then you just don’t see much of a change.
Below The Corners of The Mouth
A great place to inject Botox is below the corners of the mouth. For people who have a permanent frown, where the corners of the mouth droop down, if we inject just a tiniest bit of Botox, about two units or so, under each corner of the mouth, you can lift the corners of the mouth and turn that permanent frown upside down and it can actually lift the corners of the mouth.
Chin
Another area that people inject Botox is the chin. I haven’t done that before. Honestly it sounds kind of dumb to me. So I don’t do that.
The Sides of The Nose
Also a gummy smile. If you inject Botox just to the sides of the nose, for those people who have a gummy smile where the upper lip lifts up too high, it can drop the lip a bit and reduce the gummy smile. Typically you only need a few units on each side to do that injection.
Those are the main wrinkles of the face that we typically treat with Botox.
Jaw Muscles
One final area that we do all the time is we inject Botox into the masseter muscles. These are the muscles that are on the side of your jaw. When you clench your teeth you can feel that muscle on the side of your jaw.
In those people who chew a lot of gum, people who grind their teeth a lot at night, a lot of Asians have it. When that muscle overgrows, it makes the jaw look a bit wide.
If we inject Botox into that muscle, and usually we have to start with a pretty good amount of Botox, anywhere from 20 to 35 units, we can cause that muscle to atrophy with time and to actually get thinner.
The idea is you take somebody who may have a bit of a rounder, fuller face and by injecting Botox you can help to recontour their face to make it thinner.
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Rebecca is a licensed aesthetician and certified laser technician with almost 15 years experience in the dermatology. Her life-long passion is making people look good and happy.