Zimpapers Logo

Tafadzwa Zimoyo Senior Lifestyle Writer
Grammy Awards winner Beyonce sings in “Pretty Hurts”:

“Pretty hurts, shine the light on whatever’s worse,  perfection is the disease of a nation.

“Pretty hurts,  shine the light on whatever’s worse,  trying to fix something,  but you can’t fix what you can’t see,  it’s the soul that needs the surgery.

“Blonder hair, flat chest,  TV says bigger is better,  South beach,  sugar free,  Vogue says thinner is better . . .”

After watching the video, one doesn’t need any further explanations, as it depicts how women can go an extra mile just to look pretty. Beyonce croons like an assault on the pressures that women endure to attain physical perfection. However, the trend now has spread to some of our local women, including celebrities, socialites, who have gone as far as Dubai, China and Turkey for plastic surgery and Botox.

For those in the dark, Botox, which is made from a neurotoxin called botulinum toxin that is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, is the first and only medical treatment approved to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow’s feet and forehead lines by cosmetically removing wrinkles and temporarily paralysing muscles.

It’s a quick 10-minute treatment with minimal down-time and you may begin to notice results within 24 to 48 hours, with results lasting up to four months for moderate to severe frown lines.

By the way it is not for those with thin purses. Saturday Herald Lifestyle conducted a survey, checking on most women locally, who have changed their body structures, skin pigment and obvious you can tell from afar that it is not about “dollars and bathing water”, as some claim.

Surprisingly some women are not taken in by the process, while others conform to it. Well, the first thing you notice is the lips and the eyes.

Well, it is not so much the eyes, but the eye region; bold brow, plump cheeks, and the plumed lashes offset on the sculpted skin.

Is that the beauty you want to see? Or maybe you see artifice, but just know that we are living in the age of facial tweaks.

Zimbabwean-born Shirley Fere-Richards now based in the United Arab Emirates, said she has worked with a lot of celebrities, including diplomats’ wives, but can’t reveal the list of who she has done Botox on and helped with surgery because of the contract and confidentiality status they involved.

Richards said the treatment ranges from between US$250 and US$700 depending on individual tastes.

In addition to the rising number of masks, serums, and contour kits, which most women are buying, a growing number of Zimbabwean women are taking it a step further and seeking treatments that won’t rinse off even in the pool.

According to the latest report from the plastic and Botox surgeons, the use of minimally invasive cosmetic procedures grew by 100 percent between 2017 and 2019.

“The favourites include Botox, fillers, collagen, hyaluronic acid, laser-skin resurfacing,” she said.

A local businesswoman who got Botox and “under the knife” treatment, commenting on condition of anonymity said she was inspired by reality TV star show, “The Kardashians”.

“Women are more skeptical and conservative. They get nervous about looking like a Kardashian or the late Joan Rivers.

“In fact hip-hop singer Nicki Minaj has destroyed many ‘raw’ bodies.

“Everyone wants to look like Nicki Minaj. There’s not a tone of knowledge about what aesthetic procedures can achieve. It’s just not super popular here compared to other countries,” she revealed.

She said the vast majority of women she sees in local supermarkets or malls were not born like that.

Tatenda Mlambo a hairdresser, concurred: “What you are seeing on most women is not real.

“I personally know a certain lady, who travels after every three months to Dubai, to get a Botox injection because here it’s not available.”