Imogen Edwards-Jones is rejoicing in the fact she can finally wear silk shirts and stop bulk buying deodorant thanks to a visit to the Queen of Botox, Dr Vicky Dondos
It’s because I’m a ginge. Or at least that’s what I have been told. Redheads, or indeed strawberry blondes, which is what I really am (despite the Josh Wood highlights) sweat. It’s just one of those things, along with a life-time of Factor 50, freckles, open pores, broken veins and sandy eyebrows and eyelashes: ginger girls glow much more than their darker or fairer sisters.
Or maybe it is just me? Perhaps it’s because I am one of those buzzy, leg-jigging types who drinks too much coffee, smokes too many fags and is rather too fond of the wine? Because I am always a little tense? Always a little anxious? Always trying to work out what to do or say next?
All I know is that I am really quite prone to damp patches under my armpits.
On the surface this doesn’t sound too much of a problem, until you realise quite what the implications are. I have never owned a silk shirt. I can’t. If I put one on trying to channel my inner Gillian Anderson, there would huge dark circles under my armpits with in a few minutes. I never wear pale colour t-shirts, pale dresses, pale jumpers, pale bloody anything. I can’t. The sweat patches are too unpleasant.
Once I am wearing a jacket, I can never take it off, not matter how goddamn hot it gets. If I did, I’d only reveal my giant BO rings right down to my waist.
All my party dresses are black, and so are most of my t-shirts.
And no amount of deodorant or antiperspirant makes any difference. I remember even as a thirteen year old when I was photographed dancing for the front page of the Malvern Gazette, leaping in the air in a white leotard, all you could see were two huge dark rings under my arms. Even on my wedding day I vividly recall standing with a couple of hairdryers trained at my dress. I am a regular in the girls’ lavs at a party. Although those new Dyson hand-dryers are useless; the old-fashioned wall mounted boxes are much better at sorting out a sweat stain halfway through dinner.
And then I found myself at Medicetics on Connaught Street , talking to the Queen of Botox, Dr Vicky Dondos : what she doesn’t know about injecting botulism isn’t worth knowing. Anyway there she was, telling me about Botox being brilliant for migraines and equally fabulous in the armpits.
“Armpits?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “It is massive with execs in America. There is nothing worse than raising your arms in the middle of a pitch only to have your shirt wet through. I do hands as well,” she continued. “Mainly just one hand, the right, for the handshake.”
What a completely brilliant idea! So the Botox is injected in the problem area and it stops the nerves from sending stimulating sweat messages to the glands in the skin. No more sweat, no more wet circles under the arms, no more buttock clenching moments when you sit with your elbows tucked tightly into your waist, hoping, praying the circles don’t grow so big they seep out on to the shoulders.
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So dear reader I did it. It took about twenty minutes and it was not painless, but not actually that painful either. Vicky divided my armpit into sections with a pen (poor love) and then injected in about 20 different places under both arms. You can use anaesthetic cream but it is not really worth it. And that was that.
The next day, I had a collection of red dots and a few bruises underneath my arms, so it's not a treatment to do the day before a wedding, or a big event. But two or three days later they were gone. As was the sweat. It had completely disappeared. Completely. Sitting traffic in a 28-degree heat, there was nothing. Going out to dinner, talking to friends, sitting in my dress (black, naturally) nothing. Running = nothing. Working out = nothing. I have yet to take my armpits to Bikram yoga – but they have been to the park, a party and quite a tricky meeting and STILL nothing.
It is not often that you do a ‘treatment’ that really changes your life. Brighter skin, darker eyebrows; they all make you feel a little better about yourself. But this. This is amazing. Properly life changing. Properly incredible. Arms waving in the air brilliant! I am just furious I hadn’t done it sooner.
Imogen had her treatment with Dr Vicky Dondos at Medicetics. Treatments last up to 6 months.
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