10 myths about aesthetic medicine people still believe

Aesthetic medicine has a remarkable quality: everyone has heard something about it, and almost always from someone who had also just heard something. That is how myths are born—myths that live for decades, migrate from conversation to conversation, and at some point start sounding like medical fact.

We have collected the ten most durable. Without condescension: some were true once, some grew out of real observations, and some are simply very convenient explanations of the world. We take them seriously—with as much amusement as the subject can bear.

Myth 1. “Once you start injecting, you can never stop—your skin gets used to it”

The phrasing implies some sort of dependency at tissue level: as though skin becomes habituated to a product and, without it, ends up worse than it started. There is no mechanism for that. When a product wears off, the tissue returns to its natural state—the state it would have been in anyway, given the time that has passed.

So where does “it got worse than before” come from? From comparison. For six months you saw a well-rested version of yourself in the mirror, and now you see the ordinary one—and the gap between those two images reads as decline, when it is simply a return to baseline. Plus, those six months did happen.

Myth 2. “Collagen cream restores your collagen”

The most charming myth of the lot, because the logic seems airtight. Short on collagen? Apply collagen. The problem is that skin is not built like a sandwich—it is built like a barrier, and that barrier is extremely conscientious about its job.

The collagen molecule is large. The stratum corneum will not let it through to the dermis, which is the only place collagen matters. All that collagen from a jar can do is stay on the surface and act as a humectant, holding water in the upper layers. Your skin does genuinely look better for it: smoother, less dry. But your own collagen scaffolding is unchanged.

You can stimulate your own collagen production—just not by delivering a ready-made molecule from outside. It takes a stimulus the skin answers with synthesis: microneedling and device-based methods, collagen biostimulators. The difference is fundamental: in the first case we set a brick down next to the wall, in the second we ask the builders to get to work.

Myth 3. “Botox makes your face lifeless”

This myth was born from observation, and that is what makes it so hard to shift: frozen faces really do exist, and you have seen them. The error is in the conclusion. A lifeless expression is not a property of the product but the result of specific decisions: too high a dose, poorly chosen injection points, work that ignores an individual pattern of movement.

Botulinum toxin relaxes particular muscles. Which ones and how much is the doctor’s call. You can eliminate movement entirely, or soften a crease and leave the expression intact. It is a dial, not a switch.

There is also a sampling problem. Work done well is invisible to you—it just looks like a person who looks good. Only the failures stick in your memory. Hence the impression that “you can always spot Botox,” when what you can spot is only the bad version of it.

Well-done botulinum therapy cannot be identified from a photograph. Which is precisely why everyone is convinced they can identify it every time.

Myth 4. “Aesthetic medicine is for after 40”

The logic of this myth: first let it deteriorate, then we will repair it. In any other field that would sound odd—try applying the same approach to your teeth, or your car.

Aesthetic medicine is not only about age-related change. Acne, post-acne marks, pigmentation, rosacea, dehydration, a compromised barrier, skin quality in general—none of that has anything to do with turning 40, and all of it shows up at any age. More to the point, a substantial share of visible change accumulates long before the first noticeable wrinkles: sun, stress, and sleep debt have been at work since your twenties.

Hence the idea of prejuvenation—maintaining the skin’s resources while they are still there, instead of rebuilding what has been lost. This is not about fillers at twenty; it is about skincare, sun protection, and gentle maintenance treatments chosen by condition rather than by date of birth.

So it makes more sense to change the question: not “what age should I start,” but “what am I seeing.” If you can see the changes yourself, in the mirror, in ordinary light, an assessment is worth booking. Whether you are 25 or 45 is beside the point.

Myth 5. “You don’t need sunscreen in winter”

The myth survives because winter does not feel hot. But warmth on your skin comes from infrared radiation, whereas photoaging is driven by ultraviolet—and those are two different things. The sensation of heat simply is not an indicator of UV load.

Winter adds reflection off snow, and in cold and wind the skin barrier is already having a hard time. On top of that, UVA rays, which contribute to photoaging, pass through window glass—so they reach you in the office and in the car, whatever the season and whatever the weather outside.

The practical conclusion is unromantic and simple: sun protection is a year-round habit, not a beach accessory. Especially after treatments, when your skin is in recovery.

Myth 6. “An expensive cream can replace a treatment”

A tempting idea: you never have to decide anything, you just buy a pricier jar. Sadly, the price tag does not change the physics. A cream works in the upper layers—where a topical product is able to work. Treatments add what a cream cannot do in principle: reaching the deeper layers, stimulating your own collagen, addressing vessels and pigment, delivering actives into the dermis.

This is not a competition. Skincare and treatments solve different problems and do not substitute for each other. In fact, they work poorly apart: on unhealthy, dehydrated skin with a compromised barrier, device-based and injectable methods deliver noticeably less, and without at-home care the results of treatments hold up worse.

Myth 7. “Extractions stretch your pores”—and “pores can be closed for good”

Two opposite myths with a shared root: the belief that a pore is a little door you can open, close, or break. In reality a pore is the opening of a hair follicle with a sebaceous gland attached. It has no muscle to clench or release it.

Pore size is largely determined by genetics, skin type, and how active your sebaceous glands are. Pores look larger when they are full, when skin loses density and the texture becomes uneven, and when oil production is high. That is exactly what treatments address—the contents, the quality of the skin, and its density.

Which is why the honest version of the result sounds duller than the advertising: pores become less visible, they do not disappear. And that result has to be maintained—sebaceous glands do not resign after a successful appointment.

Do extractions stretch anything? Performed properly in a clinic, no. What can stretch and injure tissue is squeezing things yourself in front of a bathroom mirror, where there is neither control of pressure nor sterility. That, most likely, is where the myth grew from.

Myth 8. “Hyaluronic acid in fillers and in biorevitalization is the same thing”

The name of the substance matches, so it seems the only difference must be price or marketing. In practice the properties of the product differ—and so does the problem it solves.

Hence a practical conclusion: these treatments are neither interchangeable nor in competition. Asking for a filler when your problem is dry, dull skin makes about as much sense as fixing a wrinkled shirt by buying a blazer. Which one you actually need is settled at the diagnostic appointment.

Myth 9. “If it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t working”

A legacy of the era when aesthetics was rougher and endurance was the measure of efficacy. The idea is simple and intuitively satisfying: if it hurts, something must be happening.

Pain is a signal of damage, not an indicator of results. Modern protocols move in the opposite direction: get the biological response you need from the tissue with the least possible trauma. In fact, excessive damage can make the outcome worse—it raises the risk of inflammation, prolonged swelling, and post-treatment pigmentation.

Some discomfort during certain treatments is expected, and that is fine. But if a treatment turns into an endurance test, the question is not about your pain threshold—it is about the settings—and it is worth raising with your doctor during the appointment rather than enduring heroically.

Myth 10. “Any treatment can be done in any season”

Strictly speaking, the issue is not the season as such but your sun exposure—yet there is a real restriction behind it, and ignoring it is expensive. Some methods increase the skin’s sensitivity to UV or involve active exfoliation. Unprotected sun after those is a direct route to post-treatment pigmentation, which then takes a long time—and very little enthusiasm—to clear.

So the question is not “what month is it,” but “how much sun will your skin get over the next few weeks.” A December holiday somewhere hot is a heavy sun load. An indoor job in July with consistent protection is a far lighter one.

Which gives a simple rule: at your consultation, mention what the next few months hold—trips, holidays, a wedding, work outdoors. Both the choice of method and the order of the protocol depend on it. Your doctor will fit the plan around your life, but only if told what your life looks like.

How to tell a myth from a fact

There are more myths than one article can cover, and new ones appear faster than the old ones are debunked. So rather than memorizing a list, it is more useful to have a filter. It comes down to three questions.

• Who is the source—a doctor with the relevant training, or someone with a discount code under the post
• Is there a mechanism—do they explain why it works, or only what the result will be
• Is a miracle being promised—a specific outcome before any examination, “minus ten years in one visit,” “permanently”

Three strikes and it is almost certainly a myth. And the reverse: if someone explains the mechanism, names the limitations honestly, and tells you what a treatment will not do—that is a conversation about medicine, even if it sounds less inspiring than an advert.

How this works at RE/FACE

We try to explain rather than persuade: we describe the mechanism, name the limitations, and say honestly what a given method will not deliver. Diagnostics come first, the prescription second, and never the other way round.

Over five years of practice the clinic has performed more than 100,000 treatments, 82% of patients come back, and our 2GIS rating is 5.0 across 271 reviews. Appointments are held by Kristina Dzebisova, Ksenia Kasabieva, and Eliza Nikolaeva—all with full medical degrees. If this article left you with questions, bring them to a consultation: a myth debunked costs less than a mistake corrected.