Shopping for Botox Is Easy at Any Age
Some journalistic exercises just never get old, no matter how many times they're carried out, like the one in which a young woman asks for anti-aging procedures and then becomes mildly outraged when doctors recommend what they're in business to sell. (Slim woman seeking out liposuction works, too.) In today's Daily News, a "baby-faced" 26-year-old reporter named Leah Chernikoff goes undercover at Botox-peddlers and, what a surprise, the doctors are more than happy to inject her.
At Smooth Synergy Cosmedical Spa in midtown, the doctor unhesitatingly says Botox is "awesome. You'll love it." Then at a "nightclub-meets-doctor's office" gathering at Plastic Surgery and Dermatology of NYC on the Upper East Side, where procedures are promoted while wine and sushi are served, Chernikoff is prescribed Botox between the brows and Restylane under the eyes. Her self-esteem might be "dashed," but at least her byline will survive, given that this is the entire point of the article.
The next leg of the investigation is with doctors who know what Chernikoff is up to. At SmoothMED, near Bloomingdales, she muses: "Surely a place that dishes out Botox the same way Starbucks serves up chai lattes would confirm the suggestions of the other doctors." Yet Dr. Laura Gridley is the epitome of ethical integrity: "I can see in the future where the wrinkles will come over time, but right now, do you need to get Botox? No." The fact that this exchange was being filmed for Daily News readers had no bearing on her diagnosis, we're sure.
