-Cortni 10 years ago would be like, "Botox?
That's for white people."
Like, to be honest.
But now, I can do whatever I want.
♪♪
Hey. It's Cortni.
I'm in New York City, about to go visit Dr. Love
to try out Botox for the very first time.
I'm very nervous, but I'm gonna see
if it's worth the pain, the time, and the money,
and would I recommend it to a friend.
Let's see.
♪♪
So I really want to get Botox
because I don't want my forehead to move.
I don't want any lines here, or here, or under my eyes.
You know, Black don't crack.
That's what they say. I truly believe that.
But I do want to take some preventative measures.
I just stepped into my thirties.
I want to feel as confident as possible.
I'm feeling, actually, a little nervous,
not because of the pain,
but mainly because I don't know what to expect.
It's not something that's widely talked about in my community,
I think, and it's kind of taboo, a little bit.
I don't have that first-person experience from a friend
who's tried this before, but I honestly think that,
whatever you want to do to your body
that will make you feel more confident in who you are,
you should do that.
-Hi, guys. My name is Dr. Love.
I am a board-certified dermatologist,
and I practice cosmetic and medical dermatology
in New York City.
Today, we are in my office.
This is Gramercy Laser and Medical Dermatology,
also called GLAMDERM.
I discovered dermatology actually as a patient.
Growing up as a teenager, I had pretty severe acne.
I just had a really hard time finding someone
who I felt like understood my skin.
We finally found a Black dermatologist.
The difference it made in my skin,
my confidence and the difference it made
in really the entire outlook of my life
inspired me to pursue dermatology.
"Black don't crack" is a really popular saying.
In dermatology, we like to say
"It might not crack, but it does sag."
Fine lines and wrinkles appear about a decade later
in Black patients than they do compared to fairer skin.
What that means is that, in my fairer-skinned patients,
they may come in for Botox in their twenties,
whereas I find that Black patients
tend to come in more around the thirties.
I consider Botox to be preventative,
not a post-treatment.
When you start Botox on the earlier side,
you don't have to look crazy.
You don't have to look frozen.
You don't have to look like some of the things
you've maybe seen on reality TV.
You can actually have a very natural effect,
and people really probably won't even know that you had Botox,
but they'll just know that you look very glowy,
and your skin looks good.
-This is my first time getting Botox.
-Best appointment. My favorites.
-I'm glad to hear that. -Yes.
-Tell me everything. -Where do you want to start?
-What is Botox? -Great question.
So, Botox is a purified protein.
It's called "botulinum."
And essentially what it does is it just decreases
the intensity of muscle contraction.
So, that's going to decrease the intensity of wrinkles
when you make expressions.
-Is it really painful?
-I have patients who are very afraid of needles
who, like, come religiously for their Botox.
-How often should I come back?
-What I tell people,
the way to think about Botox is that it is a wrinkle rest.
The treatment we do today will last you
somewhere between three to four months.
So, that's three to four months
that you're not pushing into this wrinkle,
and you're not making this wrinkle worse.
The one thing to be prepared for --
it takes two weeks for Botox to kick in.
About a week from now,
you'll start to kind of feel like you see it.
But it's really at the two-week mark that it fully kicks in.
-Okay.
And so, what are we gonna do today?
-We're gonna do whatever you want.
-Oh, great.
-Do you want to do a big raise for us?
You're so great for doing this on camera.
Essentially, you have this line right here.
And you can start to see that, when you initially relax it,
you can still see where the line is.
Our treatment today is going to be focused on minimizing that
while also giving you some of the just, like,
smoothening of the forehead.
We're gonna put a tiny bit in your frown muscles
just because we want to balance out where your eyebrows are.
So, if we only treat these, you can feel a little heavy.
So, we'll treat here and here.
And then, big smile for me.
We're gonna do a little bit of Botox
underneath the eye on both sides.
-How much will this cost?
-General cost for what you were doing,
if you came to the office, it would be $550.
-I was gonna say $500. -Perfect. Yeah.
♪♪
-Right now, I'm feeling a combination of a lot of things.
I'm feeling nervous. I'm feeling excited.
So, I'm most excited to show my girls in the group chat
my results.
They have been super supportive of me exploring this,
and going down this journey.
I am still nervous about being judged, and people asking me,
why do I think that I need to do this for insecurity reasons?
So, I'm feeling optimistic, excited, and nervous.
-First, I'm going to remove your makeup.
Again, this does not smell great, so I apologize.
Your eyes may water.
Perfect.
Now, I'm going to have you make the facial expressions,
and I'm going to mark you,
so that your treatment is individual to you.
Raise.
Your most aggressive raise you can ever do.
Perfect.
And relax for me.
And then, big raise for me again.
All right, so, now is time for treatment.
This is honestly the easiest part.
We're gonna start with your frown lines.
Give me your biggest frown ever.
There we go. That's a real frown.
Okay. And relax for me.
You're gonna feel one tiny little poke.
Okay? One, two, three.
And that is your first Botox.
-[ Gasps ] -Perfect.
-That was easy peasy. -That's it.
We're just going to do that a handful of times.
Okay? -Okay.
-Big frown for me.
Just gonna grab this muscle.
One, two, three.
Perfect. And relax for me.
One, two, three.
Perfect.
Okay, now we're going to treat your forehead wrinkles.
You can keep your eyes closed, and just relax.
You don't have to move.
So, one, two, three.
Big raise for me, here.
One, two, three. Perfect.
And then, now, we're gonna do the under-eye area.
Full disclosure, all my patients hate this.
-Okay?
-But it's also everyone's favorite.
So... -It'll be worth it.
-And smile.
And relax.
Look all the way up.
One, two, three.
Perfect.
Excellent.
-Ooh. -[ Laughs ]
And that's it. You're good to go.
All right. So, you are all done.
You can essentially go about your day.
You can put makeup back on if you have somewhere to go.
The big things is that you don't want to do anything
that's going to move the Botox.
So, that's going to be no inversions, no working out --
no cardio, no strength training, no pilates or yoga --
no massages, and no facials.
And don't get your eyebrows done.
You're good for normal skincare,
and you can pick up everything completely normal at midnight.
No restrictions. -Perfect.
-All right.
And then, it'll take two weeks to see your results.
-Thank you. -You're very welcome.
It's a pleasure.
-So, I definitely see where she poked me.
My undereyes, it looks a little swollen under there.
I definitely feel like I can put some concealer on,
and go about my day, which is great.
My first Botox experience was amazing.
Dr. Love was so caring, so informative, so thoughtful
in the way that she handled everything, too.
She made me feel really comfortable,
and that I trusted her.
It was a lot less painful than I thought it would be,
but also, in some areas,
a little bit more painful than I thought it would be,
like under my eyes.
It's definitely a little more sensitive.
I think another thing that made this experience so amazing
is it's hard to find a dermatologist
that you feel comfortable with,
who understands you as a Black woman,
who knows my skin type, works with other Black women.
And I think that this experience was something that
I could not have wished to go better.
Thank you, Dr. Love.
And with that, we'll see how I look in two weeks.
So, it's been, officially, two weeks
since I got Botox for the first time.
I definitely think that I noticed a difference.
My undereyes seem to be definitely
just a little bit more plump --
like, there's less lines.
As you can kind of see when I do this, no line.
Like, I just think that that's so crazy.
I definitely had a -- I have a line kind of here.
It's always been there.
And I talked to Dr. Love about this,
and, you know, kind of just saying
that I wanted that line to go away,
especially when I wear makeup.
And it's, like, way less noticeable than it was before,
even when I do the...
I'm so bad at this. But there's no lines here.
Let me take my glasses off.
I did have a couple of bruises under my eyes,
but those went away, like, the next day.
Like, overall, very, very happy with my results.
As a Black woman, a lot of times,
cosmetic procedures or enhancements
are kind of a little bit of a taboo.
And it's something that I did not realize, you know,
or learn about, or I wasn't educated on.
And I think that it's something that I want to explore more,
something that I want to do my research on,
and learn, and have doctors like Dr. Love, who can come in,
and really make me feel safe and comfortable,
and explain why things like this are, you know, for me, too.
For the investment, the time, the money, the pain --
which was very minimal --
I would highly recommend this to a friend.
And I am excited to continue on this journey.
But overall, very happy.