How Many Units For A Brow Lift

A brow lift is an excellent way to rejuvenate your appearance by tightening the skin around your eyes and forehead. This procedure can also reduce drooping eyebrows and can improve the overall appearance of your face. It’s important to understand that everyone reacts differently to Botox injections, so there are no standard dosage recommendations for how many units will be necessary for each individual. That said, on average most people will require anywhere from 10-20 units of Botox per side — though this number may vary according to the individual patient

In this guide, we review the aspects of How Many Units For A Brow Lift, botox brow lift technique, How many units does it take to fix a Spock brow, and What does 40 units of Botox cover?

How Many Units For A Brow Lift

Everyone has a different idea of beauty, and a brow lift is one procedure that can help patients obtain the look they desire. However, it is important to know that everyone reacts differently to this treatment. The amount of Botox needed to achieve the ideal look will vary based on the patient’s facial structure and musculature, their aesthetic goals, and the degree to which they are starting with a drooping brow. Some patients may need more units of Botox than others. On average, though, how much Botox is needed for a brow lift?

The amount of Botox needed to achieve the ideal look will vary based on the patient’s facial structure and musculature, their aesthetic goals, and the degree to which they are starting with a drooping brow. Some patients may need more units of Botox than others. On average, though, how much Botox is needed for a brow lift?

The answer depends on several factors:

• How much you want your skin to be lifted (the amount of laxity)
• The strength of your depressor supercilii muscles (DSCs), which pull down on your forehead when they contract; if these are weak then there will be less support for lifting the eyebrows so more muscle relaxant is required
• How strong your zygomatic major muscles are – these pull up on cheeks when contracted so if these are strong then less muscle relaxant is needed

What’s A Brow Lift?

A brow lift is a procedure that improves the appearance of your eyes by lifting the skin around them. The procedure works by removing excess fat, tightening muscles and repositioning the forehead tissue.

The benefits of a brow lift include:

• A more youthful appearance to your face
• Less visible wrinkles around the eyes (crow’s feet)
• More open eye sockets that make you look younger

Botox is injected into the muscles in the forehead, where it binds to specific receptors. The result is that the treated muscles relax and contract less vigorously, making furrows and wrinkles less pronounced. This is particularly true for “dynamic wrinkles” — those that are caused by muscle contractions or repetitive facial expressions like raising your eyebrows or squinting.

Botox is injected into the forehead to relax muscles, making furrows and wrinkles less pronounced. This is particularly true for “dynamic wrinkles” — those that are caused by muscle contractions or repetitive facial expressions like raising your eyebrows or squinting.

Injecting Botox into the forehead can help smooth out lines between your brows and around the eyes, soften deep creases between them (the glabellar crease), remove crow’s feet at the outer corners of each eye and prevent new ones from forming there (orbicularis oculi), soften nasolabial folds by relaxing overactive muscles in this area, reduce jowls by relaxing masseter muscles under each side of your jawbone beneath your chin, lift sagging cheeks by relaxing temporalis muscles behind them if they’re not too severe — but it won’t do much else!

Both men and women can benefit from brow lifts, though some experience better results than others (depending on their unique facial anatomy and physiology). These treatments are popular among both men and women ages 30-65 — though there’s no upper age limit for anyone choosing this treatment.

A brow lift is a procedure that lifts sagging eyebrows to create an overall smoother appearance to the face. This can be done in conjunction with other cosmetic surgeries such as facelift surgery, neck lift surgery and eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty).

• A brow lift can help reduce excess skin above your eyes that droops down over your eyelids.
• It will also remove excess fat from under your eyes which creates hollows there.
• The procedure tightens up loose skin around the entire area so it looks more youthful and refreshed than before.*

How Many Units For A Brow Lift?

The number of units used to perform brow lifts is dependent on the degree of drooping and your goals. If you have a moderate degree of drooping, then one or two units may be enough to achieve your desired look. However, if you have severe brow ptosis (a medical term for “drooping”), then more than three or four units are needed to lift your eyebrows into place.

The amount of Botox needed depends on the patient’s unique facial structure and musculature; some patients require less than others because their muscles are naturally loose or laxer than average.

In addition to these factors, it’s important not only that we understand how many units are ideal but also where each one goes so as not only achieve improved aesthetics but also avoid complications like asymmetry between left versus right sides–which could lead patients down dangerous paths such as unplanned cosmetic surgeries later down road!

botox brow lift technique

Eyebrow lift Botox injection patterns

The above image shows the injection patterns that can be used to create an eyebrow lift with Botox® (botulinum toxin). If you follow these injection points for all your patients, you will achieve a decent brow lift for most of them, however, you will sometimes get bad results – you may lift eyebrows too much in some patients and drop them in others. The reason for this is that every face is different, and Dr Tim reminds us that the Holy Grail of a one-size-fits-all approach just isn’t out there. A patient’s age, sex, muscle strength, eyebrow shape, and desired lifting all play a part in the nuances of their individual face and the treatment plan you must design, just for them.

To do this we must understand the principles or building blocks from which you can appropriately design a treatment plan for any face, and any patient.

The impact of the shape of the female eyebrow on a Botox brow lift

The shape of the ideal female eyebrow is a guiding principle for this treatment as it is mostly performed on women; Botox eyebrows lifts in men are less common as they tend to feminise the face.

The female eyebrow has been well described by artists and should be in harmony with the rest of the facial features. The medial border should be on a line linking the alar base of the nose, the inner canthus, and the head of the brow. The tail of the eyebrow should be on a line from the alar base of the nose, through the lateral canthus and to the end of the tail of the eyebrow. The arch of the eyebrow will typically be on a line running from the alar base of the nose, through the pupil and up to the arch of the brow.

Knowing the position of the arch of the eyebrow is key to knowing which parts of the muscles must be left with movement and strength to lift the eyebrow when you are carrying out an eyebrow lift with botulinum toxin.

Which facial muscles affect eyebrow positioning?

You can divide the upper face into eyebrow elevators and eyebrow depressors. The eyebrow is elevated by the frontalis muscle, upwards and laterally. It is pulled downwards and medially by the corrugator supercilii, and the procerus muscle and the depressor supercilii pull the medial head of the brow down. The orbicularis oculi pull the eyebrow inferior and medially, laterally, and inferior, laterally, medially. The most important being the lateral component.

Understanding the muscles and the different directions of pull over the eyebrow makes it more intuitive to understand how relaxing different muscles, or affecting their resting tone, can affect the balance of forces across the eyebrow and its relative position.

When using botulinum toxin, there are two ways that it can affect the position of the eyebrow. It has been observed that if you relax half of a muscle, the other half increases its resting tone; this is very useful when treating the medial frontalis as it makes the lateral frontalis more active in some cases and is typically where we want to lift the eyebrows. The second is by altering the vector across the eyebrows. Vectors are simply a force with a particular direction and the eyebrow is held in a balanced position by the forces from all the muscles, much like a game of tug-of-war between the elevators and the depressors. As injectors, you have control over how strong the elevators remain and how weak the depressors become, to achieve variations in the degree of lift achievable.

How to perform a Botox eyebrow lift

If we consider the weakest possible eyebrow lift, we can look at a muscle that is involved in restraining the eyebrow and pulling it down, seeking to relax it slightly – the orbicularis oculi. By injecting this muscle, just at the area it pulls the eyebrow down, we can treat the lateral brow. A 4-unit (Botox) injection into the tail of the eyebrow will affect the orbicularis oculi muscle superior and laterally and create a little lift with minimal risk and side effects possible.

This lift could be increased by treating more of the orbicularis oculi muscle, which can be achieved by injecting medially, underneath the eyebrow, typically a 1-unit dose, always very superficially, and underneath the lateral third of the eyebrow. This will enable more lift whilst still creating a natural-looking result.

For more information on why this is low risk when it comes to eyelid ptosis, check out Dr Tim’s video from SkinViva Training where he gave a lecture on eyelid and brow ptosis.

To lift the eyebrow even more, we can utilise the other effect of botulinum toxin to increase the resting tone of the lateral frontalis muscle, by treating the medial frontalis. Dr Tim finds this to be one of the most powerful ways to lift an eyebrow.

Avoiding a Spock brow

A word of caution – typically it is not advisable to treat the frontalis muscle without also treating the glabellar complex because in most patients, although not all, the corrugator and the procerus are sufficiently able to depress the brows, so when you treat the elevator (frontalis) on its own, and the depressors are no longer opposed, a heavy frown may develop, alongside a lateral brow lift, otherwise known as the ‘Spock brow’. Your patient may still end up looking angry, when they are not, even if the brow spocking is avoided. This also occurs if the medial frontalis is over treated, even if the glabellar complex is treated. It all stems from an overall loss of medial support to the brow.

Perform a Botox eyebrow lift with the frontalis muscle

Take the line from the alar base of the nose, through the mid-pupil and the eyebrow arch, and extend it out to the hairline. The frontalis muscle along this line is the area that should be more active for the arch of the eyebrow to be lifted.

However, we do not want ladder lines running all the way up into the forehead which is a side effects of under treatment of the frontalis, thus we need to shape this area of untreated muscle so that it lifts without causing lines.

The line drawn up to the hairline helps with this as you can see the direction of the vector you are trying to increase. Next draw a line from the endpoint to the position of the tail of the eyebrow and a second line from the hairline to a point equidistant to the tail of the brow. This triangular shape is an area where you do not want botulinum toxin to reduce the strength of the lateral frontalis muscle.

There are other areas of the frontalis muscle that we do not want to treat, so they must also be ruled out before treatment planning. To prevent a medial brow ptosis, it is a good idea to leave a good portion of the frontalis muscle active in the lower third. Dr Tim uses a rule of two centimetres from the orbital ridge, drawing a line to create a safety zone of untreated frontalis. Conveniently, very few patients have lines in the lower third of their forehead, so the area can happily be left untreated to provide support to the medial brow.

To ‘save’ and be more efficient with your botulinum toxin usage, it is worth marking out the areas where there is no frontalis muscle within the forehead, so you know you are targeting active muscle, this avoids wasting product on the aponeurosis, for example.

Taking all this into consideration, you should be left with a small area of the frontalis muscle, medially, that is ready for you to treat with Botox, with the areas required to support the medial brow and lift the lateral brow having been excluded from relaxation.

Injection points should be spaced evenly within the target zone, for efficiency, and to optimise the spread of botulinum toxin – with a dose of 1-2 units of Botox, Dr Tim estimates a circumferential spread or effect on the muscle of 1.5cm, about the size of a marble, so spread your injection points accordingly, and maintain symmetry. It is vitally important that your injections are symmetrical laterally, if the face is symmetrical; small changes in the placement of your lateral injections can lead to large changes in the relative size of the untreated muscle meaning that the relative size of lift will be impacted, resulting in asymmetrical eyebrows which are very noticeable.

Upon reviewing your patient after two weeks, if the degree of lift is too much, you can add 1 unit of Botox into the tip of the triangle you created, at the hairline, to soften the look. Similarly, if you only treated the glabella and frontalis at the first appointment, and are looking for additional lift, you can treat the orbicularis oculi at the follow-up. Treating a patient for the first time is a journey for you both, and adjustments are normal as you build up a pattern for their personal eyebrow lift and understand their face, ready for next time.

Be sure to download Dr Tim Pearce’s 26 essential patterns for Botox for more specific information on product placement when treating the forehead and other areas with botulinum toxins, including licensed cosmetic dosing and off-label use for eyebrow lifts.

Learn more about how to manage and avoid Botox complications with Dr Tim’s eLearning courses on botulinum toxin complications mastery.

How many units does it take to fix a Spock bro

Many fear the dreaded spock brow that can occur with neuromodulators. This video, Dr. Rajani discusses the spock brow and what can be done to prevent and correct it.

The spock brow typically occurs from neuromodulator use from products such as Botox, Dysport, Xeomin and Jeuveau. A spock brow results when the central forehead is weakened and the outer sides of the forehead are active, causing the central brow to drop and the outer brow to lift too high in comparison. In general for many injectors, the spock brow happens because they were “being safe” – meaning an injector would typically inject an area that would not cause a dropped brow. A heavy brow can be adjusted by injecting the orbicular part of the orbicularis oculi muscle and by also avoiding injections at the levator palpebral muscle which can lead to lid droop.

Understanding anatomy and vectors is important when trying to prevent or adjust a spock brow. Injecting the forehead above the lateral brow can create brow droop as Dr. Rajani reviews in the vector diagrams. The equidistant point from the nasal ala to the medial canthus provides a zone that creates a triangle in the forehead region and if injected, can potentially cause lowering of the brow. Here are some problems:

1. Injecting this danger zone can be performed if needed. If injections are needed in that region, the sprinkling method of micro doses of Botox can be done.

2. The temporal crest is typically where the frontalis muscle stops but can also go laterally. This leads to the muscle not being in an area where it usually is. This anatomical variation can lead to a spock brow if it was not injected.

The forehead is one of the most challenging areas to inject. Fortunately the spock brow can be corrected. Each patient has different goals and needs as well as anatomy and variations. By using the vectors and having a great understanding of anatomy, the spock brow can be avoided.

What does 40 units of Botox cover

I’m about to answer a question I get frequently, which is how many units of Botox do I need? Usually we are talking about the common areas, which are the forehead, the crow’s feet or wrinkles around the eyes and the frown area. Botox is measured in units, and Allergan, the makers of Botox, has different recommendations for each area. By the way, I use Botox because it is the only FDA approved product for all three of these areas.

The Guide to Botox

According to Allergan’s guide, it is twelve units for the crow’s feet or wrinkles around the eyes to get the desired result. That means 24 total units because we have two eyes. On the forehead, there are two different areas. Right above the eyebrows and in between the eyes is called the frown lines. According to the recommendations, this requires 20 units. And finally, for the lines further up the forehead, which we just refer to as forehead lines, it takes 20 units of Botox. That’s a total of 64 units to treat all three areas. However, remember I said this was just a guide.

Everyone is Different

I have some clients, especially men, who need a little bit more than that. Men tend to have stronger face muscles, which means they need more Botox to inhibit those muscles. I have one guy who needs fifteen units on each side of his eyes to eliminate the crow’s feet, thirty units for his frown lines, and 20 units for his forehead wrinkles. That is a total of seventy-two units. However, I have female client who needs seventy units in her forehead alone, and another female client who only needs fifteen units.

Less Is More

I personally think that 64 units is a bit too much. Unless I know you and we’ve worked up to optimal amount of units, then we are going to start with less. Especially if it’s your first time. I like to start conservatively and add more at your two-week follow up appointment if it’s necessary. Botox is at its peak at two weeks, so it’s a great time to look at the results. Remember we can always add more Botox, but we can’t take it out. Botox interrupts the signal from the brain to the muscles, which essentially weakens the muscles. That means we don’t use them as much and wrinkles don’t appear from using the muscle. If the Botox is already in the muscle, it takes three to four months to wear off. This is a great duration if we like the results. However, if you don’t, there is nothing you can do to undo it.

A Visual Guide

Below is a guide that we have put together to give you a visual representation of what I talked about above as well as other areas that I can treat with Botox injections. Botox treatment can be useful for areas you would never think of, which makes my job lots of fun. I can give you a brow lift or eliminate the bunny lines on your nose when you scrunch your face up. If you smile and have a large part of your gums showing, I can put a few units of Botox on the sides of your nose to eliminate the appearance of a gummy smile. I can also elevate the corners of your mouth or do what is called a lip flip, which is turning the top lip up to make it appear fuller. I can slim the appearance of your jawline, as well as get rid of dimples in your chin. Finally, I can soften the appearance of the neck bands, which becomes more prominent as we age. The guide below will help you in understanding what to expect, though obviously it is not exact as I discussed above.

The best thing for you to do if you are interested in getting Botox treatment is to come in for a free consultation. I can evaluate your wrinkles and make a recommendation, and we can move forward together. Give us a call or text us at (254) 781-8169 to set up a free consultation or click the link above. See you soon!