Two treatments people confuse all the time
Botox and Profhilo are probably the two most-asked-about injectable treatments in my consultation room. They are also the two treatments people most often confuse. They look superficially similar — both injectable, both anti-ageing-adjacent, both popular — but they do completely different things, treat completely different concerns, and starting with the wrong one wastes money.
What Botox actually does
Botox is a neuromodulator. It temporarily relaxes specific facial muscles so they stop pulling repeatedly at the skin. The wrinkles that come from muscle movement — frown lines, forehead lines, crow's feet — soften as the muscle relaxes.
Botox does not improve skin quality. It does not hydrate. It does not stimulate collagen. It treats one specific thing: dynamic wrinkles caused by muscle movement.
What Profhilo actually does
Profhilo is a bio-remodeller. It is stabilised hyaluronic acid injected into the dermis, where it hydrates from within and stimulates fibroblasts to produce new collagen and elastin.
Profhilo does not relax muscles. It does not reduce frown lines caused by movement. It treats one specific thing: skin quality — hydration, firmness, luminosity, fine textural lines.
How to know which one you actually need
Look at your face in a mirror with no expression. Now frown, raise your eyebrows, smile fully. The lines that appear only when you make expressions and disappear at rest are dynamic lines — that's Botox territory.
The general flatness, dullness, fine crepiness, slight loss of bounce that's there regardless of expression — that's skin quality. Profhilo addresses that.
If your concern is "I look tired and flat," start with Profhilo. If your concern is "I have lines between my eyebrows that bother me when I see photographs," start with Botox.
Why doing both at once is usually a mistake
I rarely start a new client on both treatments simultaneously. Two reasons.
First, you need to know what each one is actually doing. If you do both at the same time and like the result, you don't know which treatment contributed what. That matters when planning maintenance and when troubleshooting if something doesn't feel right.
Second, the right order matters. If skin quality is poor and you start with Botox, the relaxed muscles often reveal the textural quality problems you didn't notice before — and the result feels disappointing. Profhilo first, Botox second, tends to give a more cumulative, controlled result.
The exception
There are clients where both treatments make sense from the start. Clients in their late 40s or 50s with both pronounced dynamic lines and significant skin quality changes. Clients with a defined event timeline where everything needs to happen in parallel. Clients who have had both treatments before and know what each one does for them.
For first-timers, I almost always recommend starting with one.
Pricing at Verse
Botox at Verse is £250 for one area, £350 for two, £400 for three. Profhilo is £240 per session or £480 for the two-session course. London clinics typically charge significantly more for the same products.
Booking a consultation
If you're uncertain whether Botox, Profhilo, or something else is the right starting point, a free consultation is the best place to begin. I'll assess your face properly, talk you through what each treatment would and wouldn't do, and recommend an order that respects how your skin actually responds.
