For years, women have visited the plastic surgeon’s office to get their hands on a bit of Botox to make their fine lines and wrinkles disappear. But recently, men are hopping on board and hoping to get their hands on the male-purposed formula. That new formula is being referred to as “Brotox”.
According to The National Post the men’s plastic surgery center Marina ManLand near the LA airport has seen a rise in male Botox requests as of late. Plastic surgeon Grant Stevens says his sports bar-like practice has been flooded with requests. ManLand is symbolic as the distributors of Botox, Xeomin, and Dysport try to turn their selling focus to men. During the Stanley Cup Finals, Botox rolled out print, television, and social media ads to try and lure in male customers.
The Brotox works the same as regular Botox does. The average number of months a Botox treatment lasts is four months and Brotox lasts the same amount of time. But men are only a small piece of the current medical aesthetics market. In 2017, the market received nearly 470,000 men-requested injections of the toxin which is compared to more than 7.2 million women requests. So while men injections are becoming more and more popular, they’re growing at a much slower rate than the women injections.
All brands offering the wrinkle-smoothing drug are trying to find different ways to win men over faster. For example, Merz Pharma markets their Xeomin injections to “Xeo-Men” using pamphlets and their website which launched in 2016. Allergan is trying to find similar ways to promote their product.
While Allergan is still figuring it out, they might actually have an advantage with their Botox injections. About 10% of Botox’s customers are men and there’s been a steady increase as the years have gone on. On average, the male customers are about 42 years old, though some are as young as 20.
Stephen Hayes, a user of the Botox drug has been injecting for some time. He always gets asked how he avoids looking his age, and he says it’s all thanks to Brotox.
“Male friends maybe made a couple of jokes about it,” Hayes said. “Many of them are getting the procedure now.”