If muscle-relaxing jabs don’t appeal, but you neither do your forehead lines and crow’s feet, there are ‘notox’ alternatives worth knowing
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Botox has definitely become more normalised since I had my first wrinkle-relaxing jabs 15 years ago. Plenty of people schedule their ‘toxin’ injections like their haircuts – all part of general maintenance.
But not everyone has the inclination, the budget or the anatomy to partake of botulinum toxin’s undeniably spectacular wrinkle-smoothing effects. It works by preventing the muscle contractions that create expression lines, particularly noticeable on the forehead and as crow’s feet, ‘eleven’ lines between the eyebrows, and ‘bunny’ lines (where the nose crinkles).
Toxin injections can subtly lift the eyebrows (the ‘Botox Brow Lift’ is one of Dr Ahmed El Muntasar’s signature treatments), but this depends on your personal facial structure and muscle activity. For some, toxin injections applied across the forehead can actually make the brows drop slightly, resulting in a heavy-looking brow and saggy, tired eyelids. It’s a piece of bad luck that both GTG’s Victoria Woodhall and yours truly are afflicted with. We both still have the stuff, though – but we make sure we see experienced doctors who can tell from the way our muscles move where NOT to inject.
Thankfully, Botox alternatives are multiplying, with options as varied as biostimulating injectables, peptide creams and microneedling patches, and some of them are pretty good. Here are seven methods we rate.
Viscoderm Hydrobooster
Viscoderm is a highly liquid filler injected directly into forehead lines and lines around the eyes (‘barcode’ lip lines are a popular target too) to deeply hydrate and subtly stretch them out. It’s much less dense than regular fillers (which would create unsightly ridges if injected in these areas), and it integrates with the skin surface better. It involves lots of tiny pinprick blobs, which take a few days of slight lumpiness to settle.
The product requires a very experienced practitioner as, despite its fluid consistency, injecting more than the bare minimum will leave you with raised ridges that can take months to disappear.
Victoria, who has deep lines above her eyebrows, was treated at Dr Sophie Shotter’s Illuminate Skin Clinic in London. “The process was a little uncomfortable due to the sheer number of micro-injections,” she says. “My forehead looked a little lumpy for about a week, but only I noticed. You don’t get the smoothness of Botox, but lines definitely look less noticeable. I’d recommend it for particularly deep expression lines that would benefit from blurring, such as the deep groove I had above my eyebrow, rather than for finer lines.”
Viscoderm at Illuminate Skin Clinic costs £900 for two sessions, eight weeks apart
Jalupro Super Hydro
There are many types of injectable skin boosters, but the ones to look out for are biostimulating skin boosters based on hydrating hyaluronic acid, such as Profhilo and Sunekos. These are increasingly decent toxin alternatives as they can supercharge collagen production to soften lines in a way no skincare can. A plumping biostimulator that’s new-ish to the UK and is finding a lot of favour with doctors is Jalupro Super Hydro, with water-binding hyaluronic acid, peptides and amino acids. It “replenishes skin with moisture as well as collagen and elastin building blocks and so helps plump out lines,” says cosmetic physician Dr Nina Bal.
Injected as micro-droplets all over the face, including the forehead, the jabs aren’t too painful with numbing cream applied. For firm, smooth, juicy skin, Bal advises three initial treatments, three weeks apart. The instant hydration will give you a glow immediately, and in terms of softened lines, you’ll see results from four weeks after your course, as your skin starts to make new collagen. You’ll need a single maintenance session every four months.
Jalupro Super Hydro from £640 with Dr Nina Bal. Nationwide, prices start at £300
The super peptide creams
Peptides such as argireline have long been included in skincare for their wrinkle-relaxing effects, but their results have been subtle to say the least. Recent biotech advances, however, mean that peptides are now more targeted and effective if – and that’s an important if – they are used in evidence-based doses and with the right delivery mechanisms. It’s something many brands ignore, so beware: seeing a ’wrinkle relaxing peptide’ on the packaging doesn’t guarantee your crow’s feet will fly away!
Cosmetic dermatologist Dr Tiina Meder is the queen of peptide technology, and the five hi-tech peptides in her Meder Myo-Fix Wrinkle Control Active Care Cream, £99, tick all the right boxes. You apply it directly to expression lines around the eyes and brow and they will become smoother with consistent use.
Revision Skincare Revox Line Relaxer, £139.90, Exuviance Wrinkle-Smooth Topical Peptide, £80, and SkinCeuticals P-Tiox Wrinkle-Modulating Peptide Serum, £130, are good alternatives that are equally evidence-based.
Miniproteins
Miniproteins are similar to peptides in that they can unlock and kick-start skin functions such as tissue repair. But they do this in a more targeted way than peptides thanks to their intricate 3D structure, which makes them ace at performing finely-honed tasks such as blocking the muscular micro-contractions that cause expression lines.
Like many peptides, their not-very-small size (despite the name) makes penetration into the skin a challenge, but Medik8 Liquid Peptides Advanced MP Wrinkle Reduction Serum, £79, has the studies to prove their delivery system gets these worker bees to where they need to go, with fine lines looking smoother in a little as ten minutes and deep wrinkles improving over eight weeks. Apply all over or just on lines – it’s up to you.
Similarly, Trinny London Take Back Time Eye Treatment, £65, is an eye cream with miniproteins that boasts an independent clinical test proving it gives you less-saggy eyelids in 12 weeks and fewer crow’s feet in a little as four weeks, if used consistently.
Microneedling, from £495 with Dr Rabia Malik
Microneedling is a more affordable clinical treatment than most and is one that nearly every aesthetic doctor, practitioner and dermatologist we know rates. An electric Dermapen or manual Dermaroller creates tiny channels in your skin to kick-start collagen production. “It’s effective at minimising fine lines and even deeper wrinkles,” says holistic aesthetic physician Dr Rabia Malik. In her mid-40s, she has never had Botox or other injectables and attributes her smooth complexion to collagen banking treatments such as this.
In her London clinic, she’ll ‘microneedle in’ (as an alternative to injecting) a choice of peptides, polynucleotides, or PRP for a double-whammy collagen boost. The twin benefits of dermis-stimulating needling and deep-penetrating professional-grade actives really make a difference to skin texture.
Depending on the patient, Malik encourages gentle at-home microneedling as well, but only if her patients promise to follow her strict safety instructions: more is not more!
Her mini Collagen Bank ATM Roller, £75, allows you to bring her clinic treatments home with a precision 0.5mm-needle roller that automatically dispenses and infuses Malik’s award-winning Doctor Skin Collagen Serum, with its retinoid-rivalling copper peptides.
Microneedling patches
If needling your face, however safe, is still too scary for you, you could try a microneedling patch. These are stick-on patches featuring minuscule pointed cones made from crystallised hydrating and anti-ageing skincare. When you push them into the skin (they open tiny channels in the top skin layer and don’t hurt or make you bleed), they start to melt and deliver their goodness deeper and more effectively than topical skincare can.
ESK Ageless Dissolving Microneedle Eye Patches, £107 for 4 pairs, feature a cocktail of potent line-smoothing ingredients, including retinol, ferulic acid, niacinamide, and copper peptides.
111Skin Wrinkle Erasing Retinol Patches, £44 (five patches, one each for different areas of the face) can be left on overnight for their blend of retinol, peptides and vitamin C to plump frown, forehead, eye and nasolabial lines. Of course, you’ll have to use these types of single-use patches long-term to get a proper result.
Face taping
Frownies, £28.95, the original face taping strips, have been around since 1889. They were used by Hollywood divas such as Raquel Welch, and have recently excited TikTok enough to dub them ‘Botox skin patches’.
They are patches of skin-friendly sticky tape that you stick on clean, dry, tautened skin between your brows and on your forehead before bed, to ‘train’ the muscles that cause folds and wrinkles to relax. Used consistently, they do soften lines somewhat.
A cheaper alternative is to use plain Kinesiology tape for Face and Neck, £14.90. Google ‘face taping’ or ‘facial taping’ (which is definitely a thing) for tips on how and where to apply it. A more glamorous modern option, complete with instructions and with pre-shaped sticky patch
