Preventative Botox: Why Gen Z Is Starting Earlier (And If You Should Too)

Written by Abbi Schumacher, Nurse Injector

As someone who started their tox journey at 25 years old and now an injector and aesthetician myself, I’m a firm believer in preventative Botox (or Daxxify or Dysport) treatments. In this blog post I’m going to share my professional opinions, personal experience, and education on the topic of what starting neurotoxin treatments early can, and frankly can’t do for you.

The idea behind preventative tox is to prevent deep, static lines from forming in the first place. This could be in someone who is 21 or 61 and has less to do with age and more to do with baseline skin quality, muscle strength, genetics, and lifestyle. Dynamic wrinkles (think forehead lines, 11 lines, crow’s feet, peri-oral lip lines) are caused by a combination of repeated muscle movement causing folding of the skin and loss of collagen and elastin from various factors. I like to think of preventative tox as pinning the skin in place so it can’t fold causing deep lines over time.

Gen Z is smart. They are progressive, educated, care about wellness/self-care, and they want to be hot. They also have the advantage of being exposed to these ideas thanks to social media. Naturally given all of these factors they are thinking about starting tox treatments earlier and it’s a big advantage to them. Not having to chase deep lines often allows them to have softer results, lower dosages, and more flexibility in spacing out treatments. (On the topic of dosing — I must mention age does not determine muscle strength.)

So, when’s a good time to start? I usually recommend starting when you notice your skin folding or wrinkling with movement. A true preventative tox treatment is on someone who has very faint to no visible lines at rest. Again, there is no age limit to this. I’ve seen 20 year olds with many static forehead lines. In my case I had one static 11 line (visible at rest) and started treating my entire upper face to “prevent” horizontal forehead lines and crow’s feet from forming.

In theory this seems like the ticket to never aging. A sprinkle of tox everywhere 2-3 times a year and I’ll never age! And while I wish it were that simple, and tox is our bread-and-butter injectable treatment, it simply can’t do it all. Tox doesn’t directly increase collagen or elastin, it doesn’t protect you from sun damage, and it frankly doesn’t do anything for age related volume loss. If tox is the only treatment you’re doing, and you’re consistent, you might have a smooth forehead but the foundation under that is crumbling and your skin quality is deteriorating. This is where our other skin quality improvement treatments, fillers and biostimulators come into play.

So for me: preventative tox? 100% yes!! But it must be paired with good skincare and skin quality improving treatments to truly prevent premature aging. Once you establish a good skincare routine a quarterly skin quality boosting treatment (laser, microneedling, chemical peel, sculptra/prp) with your tox is a simple way to stay on top of maintaining a healthy, youthful glow.