Can Taking 10 Years Off Your Face Add 10K to Your Salary?
Botox and the Beauty Premium: Can Taking 10 Years Off Your Face Add 10K to Your Salary?
by Melanie Haiken on FORBES.com
Before I answer that question, answer a few of mine. In the past few years, by any chance, have you:
- Used a Facebook profile photo that’s more than 5 years old?
- Taken your year of college graduation off your resume?
- Deleted the dates from your resume’s employment history?
- Googled yourself, checking to see if anything comes up that reveals your age — and purged it?
- Caught yourself as you were about to say you loved “X” song when you were in high school, realizing the comment would date you?
- Lied about your age on eHarmony or Match.com?
- Been deliberately vague or “fudged” your age in a job interview?
Why are these questions important? Because they go to the issue of perception vs. reality. Maybe listing 1976 as your college graduation year wouldn’t hurt your chances of landing that Senior VP slot — but maybe it would. And we must all believe it would, or so many of us wouldn’t have deleted those dates, right?
And if youth equals beauty, well, beauty in turn equals money. Numerous studies over the years have documented the reality of the “beauty premium” in the workplace. One study at the University of Texas even put percentages on it; plain people earn 5 to 10 percent less than average people, researchers concluded, while the “better than average” jump their earnings another 5 to 8 percent.
And while, as the sages say, you can’t put a price on beauty, you can put a price on looking better, as demonstrated by the stampede to cosmetic clinics for a host of procedures that promise to lift years off faces, necks, even hands. Anywhere, in fact, that someone deciding whether or not to offer a job or dole out a promotion might look.
Numbers released a few months ago by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons tell the story. Despite the general belt tightening in so many other spending categories, overall cosmetic procedures rose more than 5 percent between 2009 and the end of 2010, with non-invasive procedures increasing as much as 12 percent. Interestingly, men are fueling some of the rebound after aesthetic surgery suffered a dip at the low point of the recession/depression. Face lifts for men were up 14 percent in 2010, says the report.
And the most common reason given by new patients for seeking their first procedure: To be more competitive in the job market. In England and Ireland, despite their economic woes, this year saw an even more startling rise in anti-aging procedures, with some categories, such as Botox in women 40-45, up by as much as 200 percent.
So, does it work? Career counselors think so. Robin Ryan, author of Over 40 and You’re Hired! (Penguin, 2009) after describing the ageism affecting the career prospects of those over 40, offers this counsel: “Don’t look old!” Newsweek, in a special report titled The Beauty Advantage, surveyed corporate hiring managers and found that more than 50 percent of them advised job-seekers to spend at least as much money on improving their appearance as they spent on perfecting their resume.
Some things never change?
Fast fixes for a beauty (and potential salary or career) boost:
- Fillers (Restylane, Juvederm): Erase “marionette lines” along the side of the mouth, plump up wrinkles around lips, and make the face look softer and fuller. One of the newest uses of fillers: To plump up veiny hands.
- Botox and Dysport: Not just for frown lines anymore (though you want to get rid of those; they make you look grumpy and stress.) Use to lift and open eyes, smooth forehead, relax a chronically tense expression.
- Thermage: Tighten sagging or wobbly skin underneath the chin and neck, correct “jowls.”
- Pulsed light lasers: Zap age spots — don’t neglect “giveaway” areas such as neck, chest and hands.
- Sclerotherapy: Dissolve bulging or discolored veins with an injection.
Do they really work? Depends what you’re looking for and who you ask. None of these procedures will turn back the clock as dramatically as surgery. And botox, fillers and Thermage are temporary and have to be repeated regularly to maintain the results, so they add up fast. Ask any plastic surgeon and she’ll tell you that you’ll get more bang for your buck — over time — with an eye lift or face lift.
But you’ll also have to take a couple of weeks off work, and even then it may not be easy to keep the procedure from coworkers. And there’s always the chance you’ll have that scary over-stretched look which, of course, destroys the all-important illusion. If you’re 50 and want to be taken for 35, what good does it do you if everyone knows you went under the knife?
The procedures above, on the other hand, can be done on a long lunch break. If, that is, you still have a job to take breaks from.
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