Preventative Botox might sound like an odd trend, especially when you hear about Millennials who very decidedly do not have wrinkles flocking to get treatment.

It can be particularly confusing to those who know just enough about Botox’s mechanism of action to wonder how it can possibly be preventative.

It relaxes muscles, right? How can that possibly prevent wrinkles?

The Science of Wrinkles

The science behind wrinkles is simple, even if it can be a bit pessimistic. We don’t produce as much collagen the older we get, and that loss of collagen means that somewhere deep in our skin fissures are forming that eventually become the wrinkles we see on our face.

And what are the overactive muscles we typically use Botox to relax?

They’re the tectonic plates, and every squint is an earthquake ever deepening the fissure.

If you’ll allow the Geological metaphor one more step, Botox is essentially what calms down the earthquakes.

Our every squint, frown, and grin activates the 43 muscles of the face in some way, and a few facial muscles happen to be more counterproductive than others when overactive.

So, Why is Preventative Botox Becoming a trend?

As it stands now, the vogue is to apply the Botox once the wrinkles are visible. But preventative Botox wants to minimize these fissures before they even start happening.

Even for cosmetic treatment, preventative medicine may just be the best medicine.

Aging is, of course, an uphill battle, and preventative Botox is simply millennials trying to get as much rolling momentum as they can at the start of the race.

And that’s why Botox has increased 28 percent amongst young adults in their twenties.

Is preventative Botox right for you? It might just be — but the very earliest you should consider it is 25, when collagen production drops off.

Any earlier than that is, as the Millennials like to put it, a bit extra.