Unless
she is telling a most unusual lie, cosmetic nurse Susi Garrett is a walking
testimony to her art.
Unusual,
because most people lying about their age would shave off a few years. But
Garrett has just told me she's nine years older than me when, honestly, she
looks a decade and a half younger.
Under the
bright light bouncing off the white walls of the injectables room here at Face
Plus Medispa in Sydney's Bondi Beach, her skin is dewy perfection, not a
wrinkle or age spot to be seen under her barely there make-up. Nor does she
look like someone who's had cosmetic work. She looks fabulous – calm, relaxed
and glowing, as if time's wearying strains have simply passed her by.
She hands
me a mirror to look at my own face. "Tell me what you don't like,"
she says. Where do I start? With the bags under my eyes, exacerbated by a head
cold? My frown line? The sun damage caused by years of blithely baking myself
under an African sun?
It's a
confronting business looking at yourself in the bright light of a place staffed
by beautiful women whose promise is that you could be more beautiful too should
you be prepared to spend the money. Certainly there's no shortage of treatments
to splash out on at Face Plus and other clinics of its ilk, from smoothing
facials and soothing massages to enzyme peels, laser treatments and LED light
therapy.
Holistic clinic
Here in
the injectables room are "anti-wrinkle relaxants" (starting at $150)
and "dermal fillers" to replace lost skin volume ($390-$790 for a 1ml
syringe of hyaluronic acid gel). On the wall in front of me is a
before-and-after chart of faces and lips in various stages of ravagement and
rescue.
Women's
lips lose volume and colour as they age, Garrett tells me, but she also sees a
lot of "virgin lips". "Girls as young as 18 come to me twice a
year because there's pressure to look like Kylie Jenner." Lots of men
come, "particularly gay men in their 20s and 30s", but older men too.
Garrett
started out as a nurse assisting in plastic and facial reconstruction surgery.
She moved on to injectables because "I'm quite artistic", she says.
"I love design, drawing and architecture, and to sculpt someone's face
with filler is very rewarding."
Her first
recommendation for me, however, has nothing to do with needles. She advises me
never to go outdoors without SPF50 sunscreen, even to hang up the washing, and
to drink more fluids.
Because
this is a holistic clinic, she recommends I see the naturopath. I can have
laser treatments or chemical peels to remove pigment, and a dermal therapist
can advise me on a serum to brighten my skin.
As for
her, she would draw me up a 12- to 24-month plan. I'll need Botox for that
frown line, and a couple of fillers here and there. She touches my temples and
below my cheek bones. My jawline, thank goodness, is fine.
As I
leave she gives my arm a kindly pat. "Come back and I'll look after
you," she promises.
Charis
Perkins
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