30. May 2026

In My Chair Today: "I Just Wanted To Look Like Myself Again"

The story of a first-time client, a lot of courage, and a very small amount of filler.

*Elaine almost didn't come.

She told me that later, after the treatment, when she was looking in the mirror with that quiet expression I've come to recognise. The one that means something has shifted.

"I nearly cancelled three times," she said. "I thought you'd take one look at me and start pointing out everything that was wrong."

I hear this more than you might think.

Elaine is 54. Recently come through a difficult couple of years, the kind that leave their mark not just emotionally but physically. She'd lost weight, lost sleep, and somewhere along the way felt like she'd lost herself a little too.

She wasn't looking for a transformation. She was very clear about that in her consultation. She just wanted to look less tired. Less like the last two years were written all over her face.

We talked for a long time before I even considered picking up a single needle. About what she wanted, what she was nervous about, what "natural" meant to her. About the version of herself she felt most like, on her best days, before everything got hard.

Then we did a small amount of work. Genuinely small. A little volume restored where time had taken it. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that would make her friends think "she's had something done."

When I handed her the mirror she went quiet.

Then she said: "There I am."

Three words. That's it. But in sixteen years of working with people, first in Midwifery, now in aesthetics, I'm not sure anything has ever landed quite like those three words.

There I am.

Not a new face. Not someone else's face. Just hers...rested, present, recognisable to herself again.

She booked her next appointment before she left.

This is why I do this work.

Not for the before and after photos. Not for the likes. For the moment someone looks in the mirror and finds themselves again after a chapter that took a lot from them.

If any part of her story sounds familiar, the hesitation, the tiredness, the feeling of being slightly off from the person you know yourself to be, my door is genuinely open.

No pressure. No pointing out what's wrong. Just a conversation.

Faith x

*Shared with full permission. Name and identifying details changed for privacy.

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