Hi Alice, I recently had Botox for the first time in three areas and my brows went very arched – I got ‘Spock brow’ although thankfully after three weeks it has calmed down. The practitioner said this happens with some people – is this the case? I can’t decide whether this is my muscles or the injector? Any advice based on previous experience? Unsure whether to try elsewhere or only have two areas!

Ok, two thoughts on this. (1) Yes this does, as your practitioner said, ‘happen with some people…’ when the practitioner has misread your facial muscles or miscalculated the dosage! Ie it’s them, not you. Botox and other wrinkle-relaxing injections are not a one-size-fits-all treatment that can be done to a standard template, even though that’s the way practitioners learn the basics of the treatment. It needs to be adapted according to the way your particular facial muscles move.

Getting toxin ‘right’ in the brows means the practitioner has to work out a balancing act between the muscles that pull your brows up and the ones that pull them down. If your brows are flying up and out after treatment, it will just take a small adjustment, a tiny bit more toxin, to damp down the muscle that’s causing the brow to wing up and out. If your practitioner doesn’t seem to ‘get’ all this, try elsewhere.

Thought (2), having re-read your question – if this Mr-Spock-style arching happened around day 7 after treatment, and by the third week after treatment it had settled down – faces often look a bit wonky between days 4 and 14 after treatment – it takes two weeks for the full effects of the toxin to take hold. Also, if this was with a new practitioner who doesn’t know your face and how your facial muscles adapt to toxin, they will to some extent be guessing as to what will give you an optimum result. If you’re happy with the final result, all’s good.

Either way, there’s nothing wrong with your muscles; it’s the practitioner’s job to work out how to treat them to get the result you’re looking for.