For eight years now, Sofia* has been living a double life. She isn’t cheating on her husband or doing anything illegal, but her illegal activities are something she plans with military precision to avoid being caught.
Sophia, who is in her 30s and lives in north London, hides her secret in plain sight. She is one of the hundreds of thousands of British women who undergo non-surgical cosmetic treatments every year and lip fillers are her cosmetic of choice. But her husband doesn’t know.
Welcome to the world of cosmetic infidelity.
She started with a small amount of filler on her upper lip. Then he had to go back to subtly fill it out. Before he knew it, he was hooked. She has a separate bank account, which helps cover her tracks, and schedules dates around her husband’s soccer practice. She makes sure it’s first thing in the morning, in hopes that the swelling will go down by evening. But it’s not always easy to keep it under wraps.
“It doesn’t matter what time of day you get lip filler, by nightfall you look like a baboon’s rear end,” she says.
Sofia only needs about 24 hours for the swelling in her lips to subside, leaving her plump but natural-looking. But in this difficult transition period? “I get into bed and pretend to have period pains while covering my mouth under the covers in the dark, with only the TV on.”
Honesty is not an option, she says, as her husband has made it clear that he is against cosmetic treatments. “Or so she thinks,” she adds, remembering him telling her how beautiful she looked after a procedure. “I think men assume you’ll look too full and I can’t be bothered to argue. I’d rather hide it, it’s so much easier.”
Whether it’s Botox, fillers or other injectables, there are plenty of Brits who help their natural beauty with ‘tweaks’ – but the majority, experts say, keep it a secret from their partner or other significant people in their lives. While most people in relationships tell the odd white lie here and there, hiding the truth about cosmetic work is a betrayal of trust – or is it your body, your business?
The money justification was one of the reasons given by the secret tweakers we spoke to. Injectables are not cheap in a cost-of-living crisis, with the NHS saying prices vary from around £100 to £350, depending on the clinic and area being treated.
There’s also the societal pressure, especially on women, to look effortlessly wrinkle-free – but do it naturally, please. And so the occasional bump or bruise after treatment can be from children, pets or cupboard doors – one woman even convinced her husband that he had injured her in his sleep.
Once a haven for the rich and famous, an estimated 900,000 Botox injections are given in the UK each year, according to the government. Skin enhancers, which hydrate and add moisture, are also growing in popularity and a recent report in the British Journal of Plastic Surgery predicted that the UK injectables market will reach £11.7 billion by 2026.
The world is becoming more open about it, with influencers often filming their treatments to show how it all works. Love Island star Zara McDermott and former Made In Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh are among the British influencers who have opened up about their injections.
And yet, for many of those who invest in these treatments there is still a stigma attached to it.
Pamela*, a 34-year-old mum from south-west London, has botox on her forehead and between her eyebrows. For years, she kept it a secret from her husband, even when they lived abroad in a country where treatments were not always up to scratch.
“Sometimes my husband would look at me like he knew something was different, but he couldn’t put his finger on what,” she says. “And those weren’t good botox jobs.” At one point, he says he was left looking like Dr. Spock. “My eyebrows went up… it was so bad, a complete shock.”
Still, even with vampiric eyebrows, he managed to hide it. Her husband had previously told her that she would be wasting money and that she “didn’t need it”. So he always paid cash. “I couldn’t leave any traces,” he explains.
Once after a less-than-successful trip to the injector she was left with bruises so bad no makeup could cover them. “I convinced my husband that he had elbowed me in the middle of the night and given me a black eye,” she says. “She felt so bad about it.”
Dr Rina Bajaj, a London-based relationship and counseling psychologist, says honest communication is vital in any relationship – but people also have the right to make choices about their bodies.
“In relationships that value individual freedom and independence, these choices may be viewed as personal and not necessarily shared information,” he says. “But, in a different kind of relationship, when one partner finds out the other is keeping cosmetic procedures a secret it can break trust.”
Understanding the motivations behind secrecy is important, she adds, as if fear of judgment or negative reactions from a partner is a motivating factor, it could be indicative of underlying issues.
But fellow behavioral psychologist and relationship coach Jo Hemmings says keeping minor cosmetic procedures a secret from a partner is an omission, not a lie. “It’s not a betrayal of trust because you’re doing it for yourself,” he says. “You don’t cheat someone else the way you would if you cheated.”
Even the A-listers do it. Oscar winner Olivia Colman previously said she tried Botox and “LOVED IT” in an interview with The Times in 2015, but admitted she initially kept it from her husband. “For about six months he kept saying, ‘Hello, beautiful!'” she told the newspaper. When she finally told him, he “found it hilarious.”
Botox and other skin enhancers remain a complicated issue for many. For every influencer, beauty journalist or celebrity who opens up about their cosmetic work, there are more who insist that their flawless faces are down to the magic formula of drinking lots of water and taking care.
Paula*, a 43-year-old mum from Hertfordshire, started getting Botox for her ‘Gordon Ramsay’ brows after discovering some friends had been doing it for ‘years’. After her first treatment, she was nervous her husband would notice, but he didn’t. “He panics me every time, but he’s not the most observant.”
At the other end of the spectrum, Anna, 40, is open about her Botox and fillers with her husband, but doesn’t volunteer the information to friends. “I’m trying not to do school for the next couple of days,” she says. “Maybe because I’m a mom, there’s a kind of pressure to dress a certain way and not improve.”
While professionals say it’s more common for women to keep their treatments under wraps, there are plenty of male patients who lie about their beauty habits.
Simon*, a 60-year-old man living in his counties, has been with his partner for 24 years. During that time, she had a cocktail of treatments including Botox, fillers and BBL (Brazilian Butt Lift), as well as tightening and fat reduction procedures.
He is very quiet, but he wants his partner to believe that his youthful appearance depends on his healthy lifestyle. Does he ever worry about finding out? “Not at all, blind as a bat.”
But it’s not just his partner who’s keeping it a secret. “Everyone,” he says. “Everything looks so natural and I don’t have scars on my ears or chunks missing from my face. They just think it’s Peloton and smoothies.”
Euan Mackinnon, a maxillofacial surgeon and cosmetic doctor who treats cosmetic patients at The Lovely Clinic, has been doing tweaks for more than 10 years and says around 70% of clients keep it a secret from someone.
“There are a lot of people who worry about being found out by a partner,” she says. It’s usually women who don’t want their husband or boyfriend to find out their secret, because men give examples of celebrity horror stories, not realizing that there are hundreds for whom it has worked out. Men fear that their partners look like caricatures, “with excessively puffed lips or frozen foreheads,” she adds. “Actually, we don’t do that at all.”
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Patients often tell him excuses they have given for any temporary bruising that may appear immediately after the injections. “You do what you have to do to get through those first few days. But most treatments don’t result in significant bruising.”
On a more serious note, patients worry about being judged, she says. “Partners can make them feel like they’re stupid or vain… But you shouldn’t feel ashamed if you look in the mirror and you just don’t like something… if there’s a very safe solution to that problem then why not do you make yourself feel good?”
There are also conflicting societal pressures, he says: age gracefully, but don’t. “It seems like it’s a success to look incredibly good and have done nothing because you’re winning at life, and if you have some help along the way, some people see it as cheating or weakness – which it obviously isn’t.”
And there is a difference between generations. Younger millennials have grown up watching influencers film from their beauty beds as needles go in, and are more likely to think of cosmetic treatments as self-care. Older millennials, Gen X-ers and Boomers are more likely to keep it private.
“But it’s not just a vanity project,” adds Mr Mackinnon. “I see patients all the time who tell me their confidence has improved – ‘I got that promotion,’ ‘I stepped up with something’ – it can change everything for them.”
Lee Garrett, Advanced Cosmetic Nurse Practitioner and Clinical Lead at The Cosmetic Skin Clinic, performs around 3,000 treatments a year and has more than 20 years of experience in the field.
He agrees that it’s common for patients to keep their treatments a secret from their partners, as well as colleagues – some have even told him that working in a very young environment makes them worry about their appearance and being “put off by a younger version”.
Secret or no secret, both Mr Mackinnon and Mr Garrett agree that the most important thing is to do your research and see a health professional. “Avoid at all costs people who say they can do it cheaply,” says Mr. Garrett. “They can, but they’re not qualified, they’re not insured, and so when it goes terribly wrong, you’re on your own.”
And if that happens, the secret will surely be revealed.
Meanwhile, Sofia is hoping to get beauty vouchers for Christmas to cover her next lip filler secret. Last time, her husband thought he was gifting her a facial. “He asked me how it went and I said, ‘really relaxing, thanks!’
Cosmetic infidelity, it seems, is a habit that is hard to break.
*Names have been changed
