Future Perfect

Science is changing the way we approach beauty, and technology is the way to the fountain of youth. Bazaar looks at five cutting-edge treatments promising head-to-toe rejuvenation.

- Divrina Dhingra

THE NEW WAY TO BOTOX

I had always assumed that if I bit the Botox bullet it would signal a kind of throwing in the towel; giving in to looking unnaturally smooth because I couldn’t anymore handle being naturally creased. Despite being well aware of the trend for ‘baby Botox’—having the botulinum toxin (Botox is just a brand name) carefully injected in amounts calculated to relax, but not freeze away wrinkles—I’d seen enough curiously immobile looking faces to be a skeptic. But if that approach seems out of touch with modern-day standards and expectations, it’s because it actually is.

In its newest avatar, the muscle freezing neurotoxin, in a nod to the age of Instagram and Snapchat, is being micro infused into the skin to give it the pore-less look of your favourite filter. At Isya Aesthetics in New Delhi , dermatologist Dr Kiran Kaur Sethi offers the microinfusion facial, in which a customised mix of Botox, hyaluronic acid, peptides, and PRP (protein-rich plasma derived from a person’s own blood) is micro needled into the face and neck. “This facial uses vacuum infusion, so it can really push the ingredients into the skin and also get a very even deposition, which is key,” explains Dr Sethi. “We reach the dermal and epidermal junction, and at that depth, Botox can get to the oil glands which mean it reduces oil secretion, and sweat.” Hence, airbrushed looking skin.

At her clinic, I find the procedure pleasantly fuss-free. After my face is numbed with topical anaesthetic, it is cleansed and exfoliated before the cocktail of Botox and, in my case, PRP, is gently and methodically stamped on to my face several times over for 30 minutes.