Beyond The Botox Closet
South African men are coming out about their cosmetic habits, and they're not just confessing to using moisturisers. Some - but not all - are still skittish about going under knife, but the Botox ® habit is taking hold fast.
BY SUE GRANT-MARSHALL
Younger guys are reaching for the gels and creams to keep themselves looking that way. Some in their thirties and forties are already on Botox®, pre-emptively keeping their faces from falling in their laps. And among the older guard you'll find more and more who aren't opposed to a little panel beating.
The evidence is easy to find; just stake out your nearest skin clinic or plastic surgeon's office and watch businessmen in various stages of repair (or despair) troop through the front door. Like the office of Johannesburg surgeon and dahling of the social set Saul Braun. Five years ago, two male facelifts a month was a record, he says. Today eight a month isn't unusual, and another 15 to 20 will pop around for a Botox® or filler injection.
"I see guys who are anxious about feeling old," says Braun. "No, they don't break down in tears. Fact is, if you look like you're in your late fifties, some regard you as no longer competent." The vast majority of male clients are in the business of business and almost all are white. "We have a few black men coming in for treatment," says plastic surgeon Peter Scott. "Most for Botox ® for forehead frown lines; but black skin ages more slowly than white." Younger guys, in their twenties or thirties, tend to come shopping for octoplasty, in which the ears are pinned back, especially with the trend to short hair or shaved scalps.
The trend is a global one, of course, just like the cult of celebrity and the worship of youthful energy that gives rise to it. In September last year, Research International surveyed 1 500 men in Europe and America. Thirty percent of respondents admitted feeling pressure to improve the way they look. And 25 percent said they might consider using wrinkle relaxing injections in future as part of a regular grooming routine. In Europe, one in five men said they were at least considering facials and admitted that grooming helped them look more professional around the office. The fact is, age just isn't sexy the way it was in Dickensian times when youngsters powdered their hair and padded their jackets to make their shoulders look stooped with wisdom and knowledge. Today looking tired because of drooping eyelids or looking stressed because of a creased forehead can set you back on the corporate ladder.
Men either in or exposed to the media realised this some time back. That's why African Footprint's Richard Loring and Talk Radio 702's John Robbie opted for blepharoplasty, cosmetic eyelid surgery that lifts the lids and removes under-eye bags. Robbie went public about his surgery when he had it done a few years ago and was declared brave for doing so. Loring, the "Peter Pan" of the theatre world, says he decided on the procedure because he could no longer see properly. His utter lack of wrinkles - at age seventy - he ascribes to healthy living and lots of exercise, though.
Those in the business are also at the leading edge of adoption. Hardus Bester, 41, co-owner of the Melrose Aesthetic Centre in Johannesburg, has been a Botox ® devotee for eight years. "How can I sell skin if I have a face like a spaghetti junction?" he asks.
But the surgical quick-fix is also becoming something of the past. Bester, for example, is not impressed when men waddle through the door for facial work but refuse to lose weight. "Fat is ageing and image is a whole story, not just a Botox ®."
Bester's fellow Botox ® followers cite different reasons for adopting it, but all come back to social pressure in the end.
Dean Syren, 46, works in a corporate environment and says his first recollection of the frown between his eyes was twenty years ago when people at work began asking him why he always looked angry or worried.
"These frown lines are genetic, inherited through men on my mother's side and the last straw came when someone suggested across the boardroom table that I 'relax'. I had a filler and the change was instantaneous. My PA couldn't believe I'd not had hours of surgery." He goes for regular Botox ® top-ups.
So does Johannesburg accountant Pieter Bezuidenhout, who was born with a frown line so deep "you could hide a tractor in it". When he smiled, the kids at school thought he was scowling. "It affected my self-confidence." His wife Esbe sent him off to be a Botox ® guinea pig for herself, the reasoning being that if it failed on a man "it wouldn't be such a stuff-up as it would be for her". Now he's hooked and so is his wife.
For others Botox ® is a gateway drug. Francois Rohlandt, 43, is a hugely successful Johannesburg real estate agent who's had Botox ® every three months for the past five years because "research shows when you knock on someone's door they buy with their eyes for the first few minutes. If you're going for a sole mandate, you are essentially selling yourself, so it's important people like what they see."
He's also had mesotherapy, in which up to forty shots of vitamins were injected into his face, making him "look 15 years younger". As if that wasn't enough, he's also had a chemical peel - "You have to take off ten days work and keep out of the sun." But, he draws the line at facelifts; the knife does not appeal.
For Steve Bronks, on the other hand, surgery holds no terrors. The general manager of Sahara Holdings, which operates in technology, mining and property, he's had a chin implant and a nose job (rhinoplasty), both some years ago.
First he just wanted the hook taken out of his nose, then doctor friends suggested he follow it with a chin implant. The first was a disaster, the stitches broke and he was left with a gaping wound in his face. The second attempt worked well, "although anything to do with bones involves pain and swelling. They hide all the mirrors at first."
Bronks didn't conceal his plastic surgery, "and I didn't change from Shrek to me. The best procedures are those where people aren't quite sure what you've had done." Most of us, he says, are extraordinarily unobservant and colleagues glanced at him, slightly puzzled, before murmuring, "you're looking so good".
Surgeon Saul Braun says rugby players with peroxided hair and a cosmetics range from former Springbok star Joost van der Westhuizen are fast changing perceptions around the sexiness of the "beer and boerewors" look. As a result, he is doing quite a bit of gynaecomastia, reduction of male breasts, and carries out calf augmentation about six times a year. He draws the line at pectoral and buttock implants though. "It's not natural," he says.
Neither is much of what we see on television, of course. But these days you shouldn't trust everything you see in the boardroom either.
Sue Grant-Marshall is a writer of a certain age whose looks are all her own. Within socially acceptable norms, of course.
MALE SALES SOAR
They've come off a low base but sales of cosmetics for men are rocketing:
- Lab Series Skincare for Men has grown by 34 percent in the last two years and by 194 percent in the past four years.
- Clinique's Skin Supplies for Men has grown 386 percent since 2000. It grew 33 percent in 2007 and 36 percent in 2006.
- Men constitute five percent of the client base of La Mer, probably the world's most expensive skin treatment cream.
- ClarinsMen's best-selling lines include anti-ageing and moisturising products and grew by 61 percent between 2003 and 2006.
- Lancôme, which focuses specifically on anti-ageing skin care, launched a men's range with products called Age Fight and Rénergie last year.
BOTOX
Your surgeon will describe it as a purified protein that temporarily freezes the muscles used to frown - or smile. What you may not want to know is that the brand name is derived from botulinum toxin, one of the most deadly substances nature has ever come up with. That would be the same stuff the CIA allegedly dabbed on some cigars to try to kill Fidel Castro. A Botox shot, which consists of miniscule amounts of the toxin, should last around four to five months.
FILLERS
These are injections that smooth out skin. Typically they are of hyaluronan (also known as hyaluronic acid), a substance that naturally occurs in the body. It is also used in eye surgery and to treat some forms of arthritis. Its dark side is that it correlates with malignancy and is used as a tumour marker for some types of cancer. A shot to plump out those frown lines between the eyes should last about eight months.
