Aesthetics: Pros & Cons

It’s a face-off when it comes to botulinum toxin injections and dermal fillers. Ng Yi Lian has no qualms about doing them, while kayce teo shuns all invasive aesthetic treatments. It’s about ageing gracefully, they both say. Where do you stand?

- Goh Yee Huay

Hell, yes!

In my 20s, I told myself I’d never get fillers and botulinum toxin injections. I worried about becoming addicted to aesthetic treatments, the possible pain, and that I wasn’t accepting what nature had given me.

I found myself wondering about my own definition of ageing ‘gracefully’. I believe grace is the ability to think independently, even if it goes against the status quo. Which is more graceful? Remaining open to life’s changes, or simply avoiding (or resisting) aesthetic treatments for the sake of it?

I’ve done fillers in my nose bridge, chin, lips and under-eye area, botulinum toxin injections around my eyes and brow bones, and am open to plastic surgery in future. Does that make me less of a person? I don't think so, even if society judges me for it.

Let’s talk about pain. Why put myself through it – especially when a treatment involves multiple injections over a small area? Getting fillers in my lips, with its many nerve endings, was the most painful experience by far, even though numbing cream was applied. On other areas of my face, the pain feels like pinches.

I’ll always remember my first filler session – the moment my doctor finished the series of 12 injections on my thin lips. Skin smarting and eyes brimming, I asked him, “Why would anyone put themselves through this?” His response was to pass me a mirror. Looking at my newly filled-out lips, I understood. “I get it now. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”