I have a new companion. Her name is the Botox Whisperer. Invisible, she has been speaking to me on a daily basis, giving me this dilemma: to Botox or not to Botox again, that is the question? It is two years since I gave up Botox after a 10-year relationship. Back in 1999, when I was in my late twenties, Botox was newly available for cosmetic use and it was all the rage with beauty insiders.

By 2005, at beauty events, one would see a vanity – surely the collective term? – of beauty editors float into a room with the new look Throughout her thirties, beauty writer Beatrice Aidin happily went under the needle in her quest to look younger. So what happened when she got on the Botox wagon and tried to embrace ageing naturally? ‘My 10-year Botox binge’ of wrinkle-free foreheads and arched eyebrows; immobility was in vogue.

Cosmetic dermatologists had become the new rock stars, flying in private jets around the world to see the celebrity patients they discussed off the record in hushed tones. These derms had a new ability; to change appearances quickly, subtly – in most cases – and without the trauma or expense of a face lift, just the sharp, brief pinch of a syringe. I loved the results of Botox and, I believed, it didn’t look too obvious. Because I was young, I was holding off ageing, rather than launching a full-pronged attack; my strategy was more siege of Stalingrad than charge of the Light Brigade. I had even perfected a routine to have my injections done before a Bank Holiday weekend, to avoid anyone except my nearest and dearest seeing the bruising. Although that didn’t mean I went without criticism – as my sister archly commented, surveying my forehead one Easter, perhaps my Botox recovery time was not the reason Jesus Christ died for us all?

I was flattered to have actresses and TV presenters, with whom I came into contact, seeking my counsel on whether or not to have Botox. Despite celebrities, such as Kate Winslet and Rachel Weisz, now suggesting that Botox isn’t the best idea for an actor – someone who is meant to be able to convey emotion with a single expression – I can understand why many who don’t have their advantages, Oscars and comparative youth or beauty, go for all the help they can get. As house prices soared, so did the industry’s eyebrows, and soon Botox was the hit panacea for all ills, from heavy sweating to depression. And that made me start to question, from somewhere in my vain-brain, that if Botox was apparently being thrown around as a cure-all, how much did we really know about it?

Serendipitously, just as I was asking myself this question and considering a Botox top up, on April 30th 2009, the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) decreed that a ‘black box warning’ be placed on the packaging of Botox and other similar anti-wrinkle drugs. According to the New York Times, ‘requiring a drug to carry a box with bold-face risk information – a so-called black-box warning – is one of the strongest safety actions the FDA can take and is typically reserved for medications known to have serious or life-threatening risks’. The warning the FDA decreed should be put on the packaging would be to explain that it could spread though the body causing problems with breathing and swallowing.

Now, if you don’t breath or swallow you become, well, even with the most positive prognosis, very ill. And at worst… I would have frowned if I could have. I suddenly had a new clarity: I was paying for a substance, derived from poison, to be injected into my head and very close to my brain – and it had been found that this substance could travel? I got nervous. Many doctors were all for the benefits of Botox, but some were vehemently opposed. One normally mild-mannered doctor got seriously angry when I asked him about Botox. ‘We simply don’t know, in the long term, what it does,’ he said. ‘It has not been around for long enough.’ That convinced me. I dropped the Botox, and as the months went by, I became rather fascinated with my wrinkles; I started to feel affectionate towards my lines. They were part of me, my life, my experience, my pain, my laughter – and that felt empowering. It was all very Oprah; I was free of the shackles of Botox!

So, as you do in my line of work, I wrote an article about giving up Botox in an international newspaper, illustrated with my ‘before’ frozen features and my ‘after’ laughter lines. I became a Botox bore, but I felt passionately that it was like smoking in the fifties; people didn’t know what they were doing before they became hooked. Then three things happened.

Firstly, in 2010 I moved to New York, the city that never sleeps, but expects women to look like they have had 14 hours kip between work, daily yoga, eyebrow maintenance and dating like it’s an Olympic sport. Youth is worshipped. Everyone here has a cosmetic dermatologist. The long snowy winter made my skin grey and the contrast between dry central heating and wet, windy weather made me look mottled and pale, except for the red burst blood vessels sprinkled over my permafrown. New to the city, was it these and my recently defrosted crow’s feet that stood in my way of serious romance?

Ten months later, I returned to London for a holiday, and amidst catching up with the ‘’Toxed’ and ‘The Not’ – my friends – it was the ones who’d had Botox who looked fresher, less tired and, frankly, younger. And if comparing yourself to other people is the road to insanity, I was entering a particularly unpleasant cul-de-sac; whenever I looked in the mirror, I looked old, tired and worn next to them. The memory of my Speaker’s Corner-style rants about the Botox Black Box Warning was fading. But was my resolve? The Botox Whisperer started to make her first appearances. ‘Go on, just a few little jabs around your eyes…’ she crowed. And then I turned 40. On my big day, I went to a Bikram yoga class in order to feel morally superior, but also as a positive move to, as the lifestyle gurus would say, ‘live my best life yet!’. On that day, in July 2011, I was in tree pose and glanced in the mirror to notice that not only was my body contorted, my face now was, too. The Botox Whisperer started her chatter in earnest. I fell out of my tree.