Slicing a decade off your face no longer means going under the knife.

They’re business women, housewives, maybe the woman on the treadmill next to you, but they all have one thing in common. They look great for their age.

These are the Cairns women, and men too, who are making injectables part of their beauty routine.

For less than what many spend on their hair and make-up a year, the average woman aged 35 to 50 can
take 10-15 years off her face thanks to injectable dermal fillers and muscle relaxants. Eight out of 10 Australian adults are worried they look older than they actually are, a new poll has revealed. The Newspoll survey, commissioned by the manufacturer of a cosmetic treatment, found “ageing stress” was troubling millions of Australians, with flow-on effects for their
relationships, work and social life. It also found greater acceptance of cosmetic enhancement, with three quarters of people saying the treatments were more “socially acceptable” now than a decade ago.

The finding is backed by the Cosmetic Physicians Society of Australasia, which has estimated that Australians spent a record $300 million on non-invasive and minimally invasive procedures in 2007, such as anti-wrinkle and scar removal treatments. Cairns is part of a growing trend towards non-surgical facelifts with more than half a dozen clinics offering treatments which can keep wrinkles at bay and correct problems such as drooping eyes.

Gill Mertens took the plunge last month on the eve of her 47th birthday. The ageing process caught up with her only six months ago with a downturned mouth, deep nasolabial folds (the crease between her nose and mouth), drooping brows and the glabella lines between her eyebrows making her appear drawn and tired.

A week after receiving a combination of Botox and Restylane injections at The Jade Cosmetic Clinic while she was on a working holiday in Cairns, Gill returned home to her family and rave reviews.

“As soon as I looked in the mirror tears came to my eyes because I was so pleased and happy, I was just thrilled that I looked so much younger,” she says of her initial reaction. “I had a huge reaction from my sister who said: ‘Wow, you’ve got a suntan’. Then she kept looking at me and said: ‘No, you look different’. My husband said: ‘Ooh you’ve had your lips done, wow it looks great … you’ve had more done’. They say as you get older you become invisible but I no longer feel invisible.”

The local demand for non-surgical treatments has grown so much that when Sydney-based Face Today owner Nicole Bell, whose branches are based in Cairns and Sydney, flies to the Cairns branch once a month she has a fully booked schedule of treatments.

The specialist cosmetic injector and trainer, and former Cairns Base Hospital nurse, says Face Today treats a range of people wanting to enhance their features or maintain a youthful appearance.

“We get people from 18 (years old) who had really fine lips and wanted larger lips,” she says. “Someone would come in and want higher cheekbones or young people wanting to remove bumps on their noses or scars. There’s people who have hit their early 30s who want treatment for anti-ageing. Then there are people who are 40 plus, they want their second chance in life.”

Nicole says people in the 40-plus age bracket are opting for skin tightening and resurfacing. She says new treatments such as Radieffe (an injectible implant) and plasma portraits (for skin regeneration) bypasses any need to go under the knife and results in a “lovely, youthful roundness that elevates tissue out”. And with only a week of downtime for a plasma portait, which Nicole says takes 10 years off the face, treatments such as these are becoming more accessible.

Jade clinic’s owner Lisa Price, a registered nurse who worked for a plastic surgeon in Melbourne before establishing her business in Cairns, says the reaction to Gill Mertens’ new look is the aim of a successful non-surgical facelift.

“You want people to say you look well, not look different. There is a fine line between being done and being overdone,” she says. “People are becoming more accepting of non-surgical techniques. The chances are we’re all walking past someone in the street who has had something done and if it has been done well then we won’t notice it. I believe non-surgical procedures
are becoming more acceptable because people are happy to spend money on their hair and clothes, so it is becoming acceptable as a form of grooming. No one wants to look 20 when they are 50, they just want to look their age,” she says.

Lisa says treatments start at $108 for Botox injections
to correct a downturned smile or $180 for a brow lift, which would need to be re-applied every three to four months. Fillers such as Restylane start at $380 and last on average nine months. With repeated treatments the results last longer and you may need less product.

According to Lisa, a woman in her late 40s to early 50s could take 10-15 years off her face for between $750 and $1500. Dermal fillers such as Restylane are biodegradable gel made with hyaluronic acid, which occurs naturally in the skin. It boosts the skin’s natural hydration and stimulates the production of collagen and elastin, which in turn plumps the skin and adds volume.

Muscle relaxants such as Botox are made from a purified protein originally derived from Botulinum and have been used for cosmetic purposes for more than 20 years without any long-term side effects.

“It has been used in children with cerebral palsy to stop contractions in their limbs so they can learn to walk, Lisa says. “They are injected with 300 times as many units with no side effects.” It also is used as a treatment for excessive sweating, migraines, to manage pelvic pain in women and to stop muscle spasm that create back pain.

While most cosmetic users are middle aged, Lisa says younger people in their early 30s use anti-wrinkle injectables as a preventative treatment. “For less than $100 the lines around their eyes can be softened so they don’t become permanently etched,” she says.

Vogue, 41, has naturally smooth skin but has been
using Botox to prevent wrinkles on his forehead for about two years and recently started using it for the laughter lines around his eyes.

“My laughter lines were becoming pronounced, so I looked into Botox and liked what I saw on other people, it irons out a lot of wrinkles,” he says.

But is it addictive and will you end up with a non-expressive ‘bat’ face? Vogue is keen to do whatever is necessary to keep a youthful appearance and Gill is certain she’ll keep up her treatments. However, both acknowledge that the practitioner knows best.

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