Botox Has a Predominately Female Clientele
Most botox users are women (88 percent, according to the ASPS), and most are aged 35 to 50 (59 percent). Says Kevin Poitras, M.D., who treats some 100 people each year with botox injections in his Bethesda, Md., dermatology office, "My patients aren't satisfied with growing old gracefully. They say 'I don't feel old. I don't think old. Why should I look old?'"

For $300 to $1,000 per treatment — $366 on average, according to the ASPS — botox can restore a refreshed appearance to aging faces that are starting to look anxious, tired or angry. "I knew it was time to do something when people started looking at me and asking 'Are you mad'?" says 40-year-old Anna Masica, an aesthetician at a Bethesda, Md., spa who turned to botox earlier this year to get rid of bothersome frown lines between her eyes.

"I feel better about myself knowing my forehead doesn't always look scrunched up," Masica says. "I feel I look younger, and my makeup doesn't end up in the creases between my eyes like it used to by the end of the day."

The Results of Botox Are Temporary
Masica knows her wrinkles will return after four months. Botox is a temporary fix, lasting about that long before the lines gradually reappear, requiring another treatment to keep them at bay. (However, doctors have observed that repeated botox treatments may last progressively longer as the facial muscles atrophy from non-use.)

Although the benefits of botox injections are more fleeting than those from surgical procedures such as facelifts and laser skin resurfacing, botoxing has pluses of its own.

To name one, the injections are doled out in a five-minute to half-hour procedure, depending on the number of areas treated. Patients "come in, have it done, get off the table and go back to work," Poitras says. "There's no down time."