What is 'Barbie Botox' and why is it all over TikTok? What you need to know about the latest cosmetic injectables trend.

It's one thing to brush your hair with a Barbie pink hairbrush or apply makeup in the famous doll's color palette. But now there’s Barbie Botox, a cosmetic procedure garnering praise for its neck-slimming capabilities, which are said to mimic the shoulder profile of the world-famous doll.

“I feel like it is everywhere I look,” says Arianna Bankovich, a medical aesthetics nurse, who has both performed and received the procedure that’s piqued the curiosity of beauty influencers and raised a red flag among body image experts.

But what is Barbie Botox exactly? And why are so many people requesting the procedure? Here's what experts say about the trend that’s racked up over 2 million TikTok views and counting.

What is Barbie Botox?

Also known as trapezius Botox or “Trap Tox,” Barbie Botox is a term popularized by social media creator Isabella Lux. It refers to the injection of Botox — an FDA-approved neurotoxin that works by inhibiting muscle contraction — into the trapezius muscle between the neck and shoulder.

While it can relieve neck tension, the biggest drivers of the Barbie Botox trend seem to be aesthetic in nature, as it relaxes the shoulder muscles, giving the appearance of an “elongated neck and softened shoulders,” similar to that of a Barbie, says Bankovich. “When you look at a Barbie, they have no trapezius muscles.”

“Botox in the trapezius reduces excessive muscle tone and appearance,” explains Dr. Daniel Barrett, a Beverly Hills-based plastic surgeon.

Although the cosmetic procedure might be trending now for Barbie-related reasons, experts say the use of neurotoxin injections for pain relief has been around for decades.

“This has been used in neurology in the [trapezius and scalene] muscles for at least 20 years," facial plastic surgeon Kay Durairaj tells Yahoo Life. “It has only been used in aesthetics more recently,” around the last 10 years, she says. Durairaj explains that trapezius Botox has become extremely popular among her clients during just the last month — a phenomenon she attributes to the trending power of social media.

“I’ve been doing it for the last 10 years, but it’s popular because now people know they have an option to get a long, slenderized neck,” says Durairaj, noting that she has at least one trapezius Botox appointment a day, typically with women between ages 30 and 50. “So about half the patients are coming for beautifying and wanting that look of the Barbie neck and the other half are coming for neck muscle pain,” she says.

How does Barbie Botox work?

Like traditional facial Botox, the trapezius Botox experience is tailored to the patient. But the overall process remains fairly consistent, as Durairaj explains she typically begins with a “physical exam, manually palpating the muscle to see where all the tension and bulk is located.”

After the mapping the area, the physician does the injections. “We’ll do about four or five injection points, and it may take only like 10 to 15 minutes,” Durairaj says of the process, which can also be done with other FDA-approved neurotoxins, such as Dysport, and typically costs between $900 to $1,500.

Some patients say the injection pain is more intense than facial Botox. “There were such large quantities going into each muscle that you could literally feel it in the muscle,” says Lux, who first heard about trapezius Botox through TikTok and decided to give it a try. “My wedding is coming up. So I thought, ‘You know what? This is the perfect time.’”

Melissa Reidhead, an Austin, Texas-based beauty communications specialist and content creator who got the Barbie Botox injections, tells Yahoo Life that her main motivation was to obtain “that dainty and feminine look.”

The length of time it can take for results to show up varies from person to person, but traditionally “the neurotoxin starts working within a week, and typically the slimming effect can happen around week four to six,” says Durairaj. The results, add Bankovich, should last four to six months.

What are the risks?

As with most cosmetic procedures, experts advise going to a trained medical professional, and note that the procedure can cause temporary swelling or tenderness immediately following the injections.

Durairaj warns that it’s important to see an experienced medical professional because “there are important nerves that pass very close to the trapezius, like your whole cervical plexus and the brachial plexus that controls the nerves of the arms and the neck. So if it’s injected too deeply or incorrectly, you can have muscle weakness problems.”

But beyond the physical risks, there are also psychological implications of trying to look like a Barbie doll.

“Barbie is a representation. She’s an image of an idea,” Diana Blaine, a professor of gender and sexuality at University of Southern California, tells Yahoo Life. She says that striving for the Barbie look is an unrealistic standard.

“In trying to look like Barbie, what we’re doing is trying to make ourselves look unreal,” says Blaine, adding that this may cause women to view their own appearance negatively.

“The psychological impact, of course, is a constant sense of trying to achieve a goal that is impossible to achieve,” she says, pointing out that the Barbie ideal is a “goal with no terminus. It never ends.”

That tracks with decades-old criticisms of the Barbie doll’s unrealistic body proportions and studies that show girls who play with thin dolls in general are more likely to experience body dissatisfaction, along with what's called Barbie Doll syndrome — namely, that playing with the dolls (at least the pre-body diversity options) can lead girls to have body image issues.

Ultimately, experts say it’s important to remember that Barbie dolls are just that — dolls.

“You are not falling short of being Barbie,” says Blaine. “Barbie is not real.”

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