The male tweakments taking over the office – from chiselled chins to ‘brotox’
‘My male patients are CEOs, construction workers and ex rugby players… Everyone just wants to look less tired,’ says Ascot-based plastic surgeon Dr Ash Soni. ‘There’s way less stigma attached to men booking cosmetic treatments compared with a few years ago.’
Indeed. Men are queuing up for Botox in such numbers that the practice now has its own portmanteau word: Brotox. Spending on this and other interventions (lasers, fillers, ultrasound and high-tech facials) has risen 400 per cent since 2000* and is still rising.
‘The Zoom boom saw a big leap in males booking in for tweakments,’ says consultant dermatologist Dr Ophelia Veraitch from her Harley Street clinic, where she treats a lot of men for skin tightening and laser resurfacing for redness or broken veins. She also offers treatments for hair thinning. ‘I now see way more male patients than I did pre Covid, before video calls became the norm and so many men were suddenly looking at their faces more on a screen.’
An Italian investment banker friend in his late 40s, who shall remain nameless, asked me for advice on sharpening his sagging jawline. The lines on his forehead didn’t bother him, but he wanted a chiselled chin to help brave a series of vigorous job interviews.
‘With men, it must be quick, involve minimum pain, and they need to be back at their desk that afternoon. Like taking a car for an MOT,’ explains aesthetic practitioner Dr Wassim Taktouk from his Sloane Street clinic with its vivid Hermès-orange door. ‘Botox is still the most popular treatment,’ says Dr Soni, who admits to having injections every three months himself.
‘It’s not only good at smoothing out forehead lines but it stops more wrinkles forming. But I’d say refreshing tired eyes is my most requested treatment.’
In Dr Soni’s clinic, injections of polynucleotides (derived from salmon sperm) around the eye area are popular with men because the results are noticeable but apparently natural. ‘It’s not a filler,’ he explains. ‘It makes the skin look better by stimulating your own collagen production.’ For more drastic measures, Dr Soni reports that day surgery operations to open up hooded eyes (blepharoplasty) have risen in popularity by 74 per cent in the past year. And he’ll even send his own driver to collect you and drop you home the same day.
Men are also buying more serious skincare products to use at home. ‘They’re not as good at applying SPF in the winter as my female patients,’ Harley Street-based Dr Sophie Shotter tells me. ‘But they are getting better. They like products which deliver results. Revision Skincare or Skinbetter Science keep getting repurchased.’
‘More men are also booking results-driven high-tech facials,’ says Dr David Jack from his Belgravia clinic. ‘Lots of my male patients book in for post-skiing facials to keep that mountain glow going for a couple of months. The facials are bespoke and will often combine microneedling, Profhilo hydrating injections or even some laser during the winter months to remove any sun damage.’
Last summer there was more interest in body-toning treatments too. At Dr Rita Rakus’s Knightsbridge clinic an 86-year-old regularly books in for Emsculpt Neo (electric stimulation of the muscles that can offer a reduction in subcutaneous fat and improve muscle quality). He has it on his calves, hamstrings and quadriceps to ‘improve his quality of life’.
* according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons