Just A Little Prick Inside Cosmetic Surgery's Zoom Boom

In an uncertain world, a new wave of non-invasive cosmetic procedures promises to give white-collar men a competitive advantage: the right look for the boardroom, and—maybe more importantly—the Zoom call. Don’t have a face that fits the corporate ideal? Now you can buy a ‘power profile’. And why stop there, when you can own Ryan Reynolds’s jawline for less than the price of a bespoke suit?

- Finlay Renwick

A single syringe of dermal filler at Dr Wassim Taktouk’s London clinic costs between GBP400 and GBP600. “You might need three or four for a jawline,” says Taktouk, “so it can get expensive.”

A former general practitioner turned dermatologist and ‘aesthetic expert’, Taktouk, who is 43 and has clear eyes and clearer pores, specialises in non-invasive cosmetic procedures, injectables used to re-shape facial features. He has a respectable 14,000 Instagram followers and a month-long waiting list. Taktouk can change the way you look, and he can do it without making an incision, or using an anaesthetic, or requiring you to take even a day off work to recuperate.

“Everyone wants that squared-off chin and sharp jawline,” Taktouk says, during a Zoom call, that most facially exposing of business communication tools. A hit of Botox can be injected to eradicate ‘male resting face’—the crease that forms in between your eyebrows as the gravity of middle age exerts its pull. “Eyes are big for us, too,” he says. “A small syringe beneath the socket can make it look like you’ve just had a really good night’s sleep.”

Male clients have started to bring in photographs of celebrity bone structures. Ryan Reynolds’s jaw is a popular choice. “As we age there is a loss of the so-called superhero jawline,” he says. “I replace the lost volume in this area, alongside the chin, back to its former glory.”