Aesthetics | Volume 2/Issue 11 – October 2015
With men increasingly opting for facial contouring, Allie Anderson speaks to practitioners about the reasons behind the growth and how male patients are changing the face of aesthetics.
Oscar Wilde once said that “a man’s face is his autobiography; a woman’s face is her work of fiction”. His words appear to represent a traditional view of gender stereotypes: women present a façade to mask their true appearance, while a man’s visage shows his unaltered, natural self. This view is largely outdated, not least in the context of the aesthetics industry, which is no longer the domain solely of women.
The growth of male treatments
There has been a boom in men undergoing cosmetic and aesthetic procedures over the last decade or so, as more and more men succumb to the desire to emulate the looks of celebrities or to retain a youthful appearance. Botulinum toxin has emerged as a particular favourite with male patients, with clinics reporting a year-on-year upsurge of up to 40% in the wrinkle-busting
treatment.
This is perhaps unsurprising, owing to the non-invasive nature and relative low cost of botulinum toxin injections, but men in the UK have beenseeking more surgical procedures as well. Despite trailing off last year, numbers of men having facial cosmetic surgery soared in previous years, peaking in 2013. At that time, according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), there was a significant rise compared with the previous year. Most notably, there were increases of 9% in rhinoplasty, 17% in blepharoplasty, 18% in brow lifts, and 19% in face and neck lifts.
According to Dr Dan Dhunna, aesthetic practitioner and founder of Skin Etc., male patients are well-informed and decisive about the treatments they want and the outcomes they hope to achieve. “Men have already made up their minds when they come to see me. They rarely walk in shrugging their shoulders; they usually have a clear idea about what they want,” he comments. “It might be enhancing the jaw or chin, or botulinum toxin in the upper face – but they are after something that’s relatively subtle. They want to be able to see a definitive change themselves, and for others to see an improvement in them, but without people knowing they’ve had work done or being aware of what they’ve had done.”