Older women’s negative psychological and physical experiences with injectable cosmetic treatments to the face

ABSTRACT

Seven women (43 to 64 years old) who had negative or mixed emotions about having Botox and/or facial filler injections to the face to reduce signs of aging were interviewed about the impact of the procedures. Impacts ranged from disappointment to all-encompassing, lingering physical and psychological effects, and some women felt abandoned by the medical industrial complex when they turned to it for help with their symptoms. A feminist phenomenological analysis focused on corporeal, temporal, and relational existential modes of being. We describe their bodily experiences as (a) commodified, (b) fractured, (c) abandoned, (d) reflective, and (e) transformed.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• beauty work
• body
• body image
• gender
• older women
• phenomenology
• qualitative