Is Botox bogan? I thought I wanted an ‘old-money face’, but the real me needs a little help

Last June, I made a pact with myself to break up with Botox and hair dye. The motivation? I’d decided I wanted to wake up on my 60th birthday this October looking exactly like myself.

It came after a session with my trusted aesthetic nurse, Christine. I’d put my face in her hands for 12 years. Loved her work so much I went to Canberra for it. But something changed after she last weaved her magic just over a year ago.

My face looked pretty good. Fresh, not “done”. It matched the gloss of my fake hair colour, a golden silvery respectable blonde not unlike my childhood’s pale straw.

But I suddenly wasn’t sure it matched who I was, or at least who I wanted to be. Someone fearless about ageing. A woman confident enough to see her wrinkles and silver ribbons as road maps – proof she’d lived, loved, endured, enjoyed. A mum happy to pass the baton of youth to her kids.

So. The pact was made. The news was broken to my hair colourist Jenny, and to my husband, who would soon be rolling over in bed and seeing something akin to a slowly disintegrating Bog Person.

It felt exciting, knowing soon I’d meet the real me. It was like that thing you do during a fun run, when you don’t think about the 14-kilometre slog but how ace you’ll feel at the finish line.

Over summer, the women at drinks on my friend Sabina’s Point Lonsdale deck were mostly from Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. Clothes from Husk, connections from decades ago at private schools. To steal the F. Scott Fitzgerald line, their voices were full of money.

But their faces were not full of Botox. It surprised me that these women, who could easily afford every intervention, were going natural. Their own faces seemed the badge of well-heeled chic.

Stop – was Botox bogan?

It was a real clash with the women’s looks that have become synonymous with immense wealth. Lauren Sánchez Bezos, Melania Trump, Kris Jenner. As The New York Times reported in April, “Plastic surgeons in Washington are navigating a surge in requests for ‘Mar-a-Lago face’.”

Ick. Who wants to look like a trampoline with eyes?

My poster girl as the Botox-free months slipped by was Caroline Kennedy. She has “old money face”. Laughter lines, crow’s feet, a sailing tan. Everything that says you can’t buy class.

But. By the time of my one-year intervention-free anniversary, it didn’t feel the real me had emerged in the mirror. The woman I saw felt like someone I’d never met.

My hair was bad. The imagined silver streaks were instead a listless muddy brown. I was whacking on tons of blush to compensate. And rather than giving character, the forehead wrinkles made me look like a cranky widow in a costume drama.

Everyone has something that makes them, them. Not a talent or skill, but something intrinsic. Mine has always been that I look younger than I am, helped maybe by great genes, no coffee and being five feet flat.

I think it’s why I started having Botox in the first place. I wanted to preserve not a smooth face but the thing that was my natural calling card.

Three weeks ago, a dog walk by the river. A woman asked if I had a spare poo bag. We chatted. Chelsea’s a local aesthetic nurse, 15 years of experience in Toorak. She shared her details. Had one appointment free until September.

I knew by the time I got back to the car. Took the spot. Didn’t overthink things. Subtle vitamin B please, Chelsea, and leave the crinkles around the hooded eyes, which I love. Followed it up with a cut and colour. And there I was, back again.

Not the me I thought I’d become – that fearless chick facing the world naturally – but the person I’ve always been. Whose vanity isn’t about how other people see me, classy or bogan, but how I see and know myself. Younger than expected.

Going back to being a Botoxed blonde just three months before the big birthday feels ace. Not because I’m chasing youth or giving in to trends but because I’m matching the outside to the inside again.

And as a 60-year-old, I’ll look exactly like myself. As planned.

Kate Halfpenny is an author and the founder of Bad Mother Media.

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