What constitutes beauty and what troubles our clients often changes over time. This means we have to utlilise the tools and experience built up over years of treating our clients to come up with novel solutions to new problems.

When a young lady came to the clinic for treatment of something she referred to as ‘resting bitch face’ – we were stumped! The young professional in her mid-twenties, contacted us to say she wanted wrinkle relaxing injections. This certainly isn’t a new scenario as we treat men and women of all ages, it was simply how she referred her concern that made us look a little deeper into the emerging trend of young people worried about their resting facial expression.

‘Resting bitch face’ is the term given when a person, usually a girl, has a scowl or feels they look mean when their face is expressionless, without meaning to. An article in the New York Times ‘Resting Bitch Face’ relates ‘RBF’ to celebrities such as Victoria Beckham and Kristen Stewart. Intrigued, we spoke to her a bit more to find out about ‘RBF’ and why she decided to seek wrinkle relaxing injections to correct her frown lines. This is what she told us:

“I decided to have Botox because I was sick of my friends AND strangers asking if I was OK all the time! Having worked in a face to face customer service environment every day, there was no escaping the daily, “are you ok? What’s wrong?” I’d be completely fine, but my face said something else! Having to profusely apologise and explain that I can’t help how I look really bothered me so I decided to correct this!

I wanted to feel approachable and I read an article online on the use of Botox for “Resting Bitch Face.” This is a term for someone who looks miserable/angry/moody all the time. For me, Botox was not for anti–ageing, I’m only 27 and have no visible lines or wrinkles. Since having Botox to stop myself from frowning, I no longer have that “Resting Bitch Face”. My friends have definitely noticed an improvement and I don’t get asked if I’m OK!

For me, it wasn’t about eradicating wrinkle lines, it was to make my face more approachable and not look angry all the time.”

So there you go, next time you see a surly customer services assistant, a miserable looking person on the street or someone who generally seems to happy when they are frowning!