Welcome to the new age of tweakments

Microtox is the latest South Korean beauty export a barely-there injectable that has a big impact, says Alexandra jones

- Alexandra jones

THE real con that the beauty industry has pulled on us is the idea that applying things to our skin will make any kind of material difference to our appearance. Or so I found when I went down the rabbit hole during the pandemic. After one too many Zoom calls, I'd begun to suspect that I looked like a melted waxwork version of my former-self. The internet reliably informed me that if I wanted the kind of dewy, poreless, lit-from within 'glass skin' I so craved, I would simply need to engage in a 10-step skincare routine. It would take slavish devotion, the investment of hundreds of pounds and a near-PhD-level understanding of chemistry - but after a few months, I'd look as plumped and textureless as a supermarket chicken breast. Heaven.

Of course, it was almost entirely ineffective and whatever gains I did make were undone by a few nights out. "The thing about the 'glass skin' effect is that in South Korea [where the concept originated], many people achieve that look through micro tweakments that aren't widely available here," says Dr Christine Hall, an aesthetic doctor at the Taktouk Clinic in Knightsbridge where she has been pioneering exactly these kinds of next gen techniques.