People are starting to argue that you don’t get Botox for the sake of your relationship – “I wanted her to be able to read my emotions and really teach me’
It was only when Audra Bear, a 30-year-old teacher in Mexico, stopped taking Botox after two years of regular appointments that she noticed the difference it had made in her relationship. What had been a ‘mask’ for her emotions suddenly lifted. “I realized I was stuck in an emotional prison,” she says.
Bear first got Botox at her sister’s 30th birthday brunch. She was 27 years old and had been watching her sister inject for over five years. “At the time I was going through a horrible breakup that involved me having to file for a restraining order and I cried almost every day,” she says. A few days after the botox, the crying stopped. “I immediately felt a boost in confidence and started making more videos on social media,” she says. When the Botox began to wear off three months later, she made an appointment for another syringe. Finally, after getting into a new relationship, a question lingered in Bear’s mind – was her now-boyfriend still getting to know “the real her” with Botox? “I wanted to cry and express myself,” she says. “I wanted him to be able to read my emotions and really get to know me and it’s amazing that he’s seeing me so intimately now.”
Bear’s realization that Botox was affecting her relationship has a scientific basis – many studies have shown that Botox can impair our ability to connect with others. Paula Niedenthalprofessor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that our facial expressions help us to communicate and receive information from another person in a social interaction. “When we’re on the same page with someone, we start synchronizing our emotional facial expressions and even our voice with the other person,” she says. This facial mimicry helps us recognize exactly how the other person is feeling. A 2011 study showed this Emotional perception can become “significantly impaired” for people having a cosmetic procedure that reduces muscle feedback from the face (Botox). Another found a connection between Botox injections in the forehead and reduced empathy.
Before getting Botox, Niedenthal recommends asking yourself if you’re willing to compromise the quality of your face-to-face interactions in important, close relationships. But despite research linking Botox to potential relationship issues, the most popular concerns about Botox circulating online are still physical (such as skin sagging, volume loss or involuntary paralysis). Critic of beauty culture Jessica DeFino she says this is because the beauty industry is selling an aesthetic pursuit with no real human appeal. “We weigh the socioeconomic cost-benefit of becoming beautiful against the existential consequences in areas of our lives that involve meaning, connection, and communication,” she says. “And it’s because we don’t perceive the concepts of beauty, desire and attraction in the multidimensional way they exist in our lives.”
The irony of a cosmetic treatment like Botox that can ruin your dating life is something that reminds DeFino of Raquel Benedict’s article. Everyone is beautiful and No one is horny. In the past, Benedict argues in the piece, “people worked to look hot so they could attract other hot people and fuck them.” The ultimate goal has always been pleasure and connection. Today, however, we see our bodies not as vehicles for pleasure but as investments to be optimized. “It is considered annoying and codependent to want to be touched. We do this for ourselves, because we, instead of nothing, desperately want to achieve a physical standard set by some invisible Other.”
DeFino has a theory that Botox is part of the reason eroticism is dead. “Loneliness is on the rise, so I wonder if there’s a connection between the increase in Botox in the same demographics that experience feelings of disconnection and sexual frustration,” she says. And, indeed, changes in relationships can often begin with a change in self-image. For Bear, that even included looking up at Botox-free faces during the height of what she calls her injecting addiction. “Suddenly I didn’t like my face without it,” she says. “Botox had become my savior and I started mentally judging other girls who didn’t have it.”
Georgia Woodardits owner Pêche Skin Co. and licensed esthetician, started a new relationship about six months into getting regular Botox. Then in 2022, partly after dating, it stopped. “I remember him saying, ‘Wow, you’ve gotten a lot more expressive,'” she says. They’ve since broken up and decided to be friends, but Woodard says she continues to point out how much more expressive she is now than when they were dating. “I was excited about something, it just didn’t show on my face, or if I was happy, I just didn’t get the same interactions from people,” she says. This carried over into her professional life. As someone in a patient-facing role, she soon noticed that, post-Botox, people thought she was much stricter or less friendly than before. “I had a few cases with patients where I realized mine The facial expressions didn’t match what I was trying to get across,” he says. “Eventually I asked someone, ‘Does it look like I’m upset or angry with you?’ and they said they thought I was.”
Despite the fact that people treat Woodard differently with Botox (because her limited facial expressions sent mixed signals), she says she’s not anti-Botox at all. However, he believes that we can collectively give therapy “too much credit” and that people can easily become addicted to it. Because of this, Woodard often cites her personal experience when patients ask her about Botox—not in an attempt to dissuade them but as a way to inform them of all the neurotoxin’s potential side effects. “I’ve definitely noticed that people react better to me now that I’ve stopped,” she says. “I tend to be warm and expressive, but, with Botox, I had more negative interactions because I looked angry.” And maybe people even knowing this is part of the equation will encourage more injectable patients to opt for their friendly (slightly wrinkled) natural faces.
