When Ali Weiss, 30, shares a selfie on Instagram, she often adds a disclaimer: This is a face that hasn’t had any work done.
“The punkest thing you can do in 2024 isn’t with your face,” the New York-based host and podcaster writes via email. Surrounded by peers who got fillers early and often, she believes her choice puts her in the “minority,” especially for those who work in front of the camera. “The fact that people seem more shocked by a 30-year-old who hasn’t done any work than a 30-year-old whose face is frozen is scary,” he says.
Weiss writes with pride about her face that she can’t stand, but still cares about her youthful appearance. She has several less invasive treatments in her arsenal, including a red light therapy gadget, laser facials and facial massages. In a few years, he hopes to try more invasive laser treatments that cost thousands. Anything before you consider injectables.
In recent decades, the consumer base for neuromodulators like Botox and dermal fillers like Juvuderm has grown exponentially. In 2010, more than 5.3 million people received Botox and more than 1.7 million received fillers in the U.S. In 2022, 8.7 million received Botox and more than 6.2 million received fillers, according to American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Especially in recent years, these procedures have gone from being a treat for the rich and famous to occasional and frequent appointments costing a few hundred dollars.
“They are incredibly effective, relatively low-cost, and have become part of an accepted core self-care lexicon,” said Dr. Steven Williams, president of the plastic surgeon group.
But now, many beauty-conscious consumers are saying no to injectables and directing their money to expensive natural treatments.
Marta Freedman, 33, is one of them.
“I grew up in the hyper-injection era and the Kardashian era, so to me it makes sense that the pendulum is swinging back as people explore alternatives,” said the Los Angeles-based entrepreneur.
Weiss and Freedman are among a chorus of anti-injection sentiment on social media and in the beauty press who he’s got intensified to recently years.
“Art is to make the work disappear and look as if nothing has happened.”
— Dr. Ava Shamban, founder of Skinfive Medical Spa in Pacific Palisades
Tik Tok and Instagram feature thousands of Video of (mainly) women recording the process of dissolving their filler. The sometimes painful procedure can take several sessions and is done by injecting an enzyme called hyalase that can cause the lips to bruise and balloon before they return to their original shape.
Many Los Angeles-based practitioners notice filler fatigue among their clients. They have seen more patients requesting not only the dissolution of their fillers, but also seeking alternative procedures to maintain an improved, if technically more natural, appearance.
“There’s a pendulum swing back to the most natural, best version of yourself, similar to the ‘no makeup look,'” said Dr. Ava Shamban, founder of Skinfive Medical Spa in Pacific Palisades. “Art is to make the work disappear and look as if nothing has happened.”
So what do beauty fanatics do, but who loathe Botox? Some will pay top dollar for all-natural ancient practices, while others opt for high-tech, sometimes painful treatments—as long as they can say they’re toxin-free.
Julie Civiello Polier has amassed more than 120,000 followers on Instagram by adopting non-invasive anti-aging facial massage techniques. Before the pandemic, the Los Angeles-based esthetician and Chinese medicine practitioner offered in-person facials to celebrity clients including Goldie Hawn, Miranda Kerr and Christy Turlington, but has since moved her practice online, teaching clients techniques massage for facelift and sculpting.
Her Instagram videos — with titles like “Ovarian support and eyebrow lift” and “No forehead sculpting botox was needed” — have built her a devoted following. The services she provides range from live-streaming DIY facelift classes ($100 per ticket) to one-on-one coaching packages priced at over $2,000.
“I don’t feel aligned with filler or botox, I prefer a more natural looking self.”
— Marta Freedman, Los Angeles-based entrepreneur
Angela Cravens, a 45-year-old San Diego-based copywriter who favors chemical-free beauty products and natural Eastern-inspired practices, is one of her fans. Since finding Polier’s free tutorials on Instagram, she’s created one gua sha and facial routine that works for her. She says people often mistake her for being younger than she is – which she claims may be because she avoids injections, “not the other way around”.
Polier says her clients come for the aesthetic benefits, but find unexpected emotional relief from her techniques. Inspired by traditional Chinese medicine, she believes that internal injuries can affect parts of the face.
“This one client kept having surgeries on one side of the face and kept falling out or being really inconsistent with the other side, until we started looking at her relationship with her father,” Polier said. “That left side of the face is where our relationship is [our] the father is saved.”
In West Hollywood, a three-year-old aesthetic acupuncture practice is named the Reset aimed at people in their late 20s to 40s who don’t want to try injectables. Owner Toni Weinrit, a board-certified and licensed acupuncturist and Chinese medicine practitioner, says that while some of her older customers still use injections, the younger generation is thinking twice.
Freedman, the Los Angeles-based entrepreneur, found Weinrit on Instagram and had weekly treatments at Reset for about 10 weeks last year. He plans to repeat them there soon. (Meanwhile, he supplements with electrical appliances at home, Frows wrinkle reduction patches and professional facial massage).
“I don’t feel aligned with filler or botox. I prefer a more natural looking self,” she said.
Weinrit charges $250 a visit for the service, advising a regimen of 10 sessions over five to 10 weeks (after which she recommends maintenance once a month, combined with occasional $500 microneedling, which she said helps improve the texture skin).
The American Institute of Alternative Medicine says that aesthetic acupuncture “works on the belief that the face reflects the body’s internal balance and health.” While the practice is rooted in more than 2,000 years of traditional Chinese medicine, it has been limited Scientific studies investigating its benefits on facial skin elasticity.
Although Weinrit’s services are significantly more expensive and time-consuming than your average botox or filler treatment, her schedule is closed. He believes this is because the results are gradual.
“If you do Botox, 24 to 48 hours later, you have a different face,” Weinrit said. “It’s not that”.
Some clinics have begun counseling patients about the changes they want to make, going so far as to reject requests that don’t seem natural.
“If you do botox, 24 to 48 hours later, you have a different face. This is not it.”
— Toni Weinrit, owner of West Hollywood acupuncture studio The Reset
Cosmetic nurse Vanessa Lee almost quit the industry after being asked to give lip injections to a teenage girl with her mother’s approval. In 2018 it opened The things we do, a medspa in the downtown Arts District (now with locations in Chino Hills and Venice as well) that focuses on a moderate approach. Lee, who has more than a decade of experience, says the medspa receives so many filler-dissolving requests from other professionals that she has had to start charging for the once-free service.
The things we do has a naturopathic doctor, a licensed health care provider on staff trained to address skin care through gut health. Lee says she has turned away patients who ask for too much work and referred them to a therapist.
“If someone comes in and says things like, ‘This guy just broke up with me,’ or ‘I’ve had the hardest year,’ maybe they’re not in a position to make a big facial decision. balancing while they’re in that emotional state that needs a little bit of support,” he said. “Let’s start elsewhere first.”
Even so, Lee has a business. For patients looking for a youthful rejuvenation, she and her nurses first recommend biostimulating treatments like platelet-rich fibrin matrix.
The treatment, which clinical studies have shown it can reduce wrinkles and hyperpigmentation, it involves taking blood from the patient, extracting the plasma from it, and either injecting it into the face for people with localized volume loss or using it with microneedling devices to patients with thin or dull skin.
A session starts at $1,100 for results that can last up to two years if done twice. Yes, needles are used, but no foreign bodies are injected into the face, a technique that makes sense for clients who want to avoid chemicals.
The process is proof that while the pendulum may be swinging toward a more natural approach and look, one thing will never go out of style: the willingness to pay — and suffer — for the promise of beauty.
