The Burnout Glow-Up

Can this hot collagen treatment restore my ‘burnout face’ – and my confidence?

For most of my career, I prided myself on being like a ‘swan’ – the woman you could follow on Instagram as she effortlessly glided from glamorous work events, to editing a national magazine, to motherhood and home renovations all with apparent ease, a permanent smile on my face, top to toe groomed and glowing.  As editor‑in‑chief of HELLO! Magazine, where I worked for nearly 16 years, I lived in a world of red carpets, management meetings and deadlines and I thrived on the buzz – until I didn’t anymore. 

Beneath the surface, this ‘swan’ was flapping like crazy and in 2022 things came to a head when I was signed off work on the brink of burnout. My nervous system had decided it couldn’t keep all the balls – let alone the glossy image – in the air for any longer. 

I was used to portraying a groomed, glossy, made-up face during my days editing HELLO! But the reality was that, over the years, the stress began to show on my face

As I have rebuilt my wellbeing and working life, saying goodbye to HELLO! and reinventing my career to author, coach and founder of Rosie’s Reinvention Retreats for midlife women, I have regained a new purpose and zest for life, yet there has been one tell-tale sign I wasn’t quite myself again yet: my ‘burnout face’.

Looking in the mirror over the last couple of years, and as I turned 50 last summer, I could still see the signs of burnout staring back at me. My jawline had softened, my skin had lost its glow, everything seemed to have drooped, including my upper eyelids, which no longer held onto eyeliner like they once did. It wasn’t ageing – I am perfectly at ease with the privilege of every year of good health I am able to enjoy – it was exhaustion, still etched into the fine lines on my sagging, lacklustre visage. Stress doesn’t just affect your mind; it can show up in your skin, and chip away at your glow until one day you realise it is impacting your confidence and emotional wellbeing too. So I decided to take action and reinvent my burnt-out face too.

The 'before' pics were a bit of a shock. I wanted something natural, non-surgical, and long lasting that would make my face feel less saggy, but tighter, glowing and naturally radiant.

Let me be clear, I didn’t want a new face. I wanted my face back – the lifted, radiant version. Having had small amounts of Botox over the last decade, which has been helpful for softening expression lines, it hasn’t addressed the deeper laxity of my skin tone. I’ve never tried fillers, not wanting to risk ‘pillow face’, and wasn’t keen on anything surgical. I wanted something natural‑looking, non‑invasive, backed by science and with long-lasting results. 

That’s when I discovered Ultherapy Prime. The fact that Hollywood goddess Salma Hayek Pinault is global ambassador of this collagen boosting treatment is what first caught my attention. Whilst drinking collagen has become mainstream, the idea of regenerating our own supply, which diminishes with age, is still a new area of development in the beauty industry. Salma has long championed authenticity and natural beauty, crediting UlTherapy Prime with boosting “my production of collagen and elastin exactly where I need it, giving me a long‑lasting, natural‑looking lift. It takes only one session, and has zero downtime.”

She had me at ‘one session’.

Hollywood actress Salma Hayek is the global face of Ultherapy Prime - she is someone I have long admired for her natural looks and attitude towards ageless beauty.

Ultherapy Prime is an ‘advanced micro‑focused ultrasound platform for personalised, non‑invasive skin lifting and sculpting of the face, neck and décolletage’ which, in layman’s terms, means it uses ultrasound to treat skin at a deeper level than many other devices. While some technologies only reach around 1.2mm beneath the skin’s surface, Ultherapy Prime can treat down to 4.5mm, which is just above the SMAS – that’s the Superficial Musculo‑Aponeurotic System – which is a layer of tissue that sits beneath the skin and fat, but above the deeper facial muscles. It’s essentially the supportive ‘scaffolding’ of the face and the layer surgeons target in facelifts. That depth matters when you’re addressing sagging rather than just surface texture.

The Ultherapy Prime machine at the TakTouk Clinic in London's Knightsbridge where I had my treatment

Plus Ultherapy Prime is personalised. The machine delivers heat at 1.5mm, 3.0mm and 4.5mm depths, using vivid real‑time imaging to measure the depth of your skin and what will yield the best results, thus creating a personalised lift for each client. Images are shown on a screen - much like the experience of having an ultrasound of the womb - so the practitioner can see exactly where they’re treating, and tailor the heat to where you need it most. 

Best of all, it’s noninvasive with zero downtime which, as a busy working mum keen to avoid any further experiences of burnout, was a huge incentive.

I booked in for my treatment at the Taktouk Clinic in Knightsbridge, the multi-award-winning clinic I’ve been visiting for Botox for many years, and known for its subtle, natural aesthetic. Warning me the treatment could feel ‘spicy’, the clinician, Dr Vishnu Nathan, applied numbing cream all over my face first. This made the treatment surprisingly manageable. I’d expected pain, but it was more of a warm, prickly sensation from the laser as it targeted the lower layers of the dermis. It uses a micro‑focused ultrasound laser to generate heat, just above the SMAS and this heat stimulates fresh collagen through the body’s natural wound‑healing response.

With numbing cream all over the face you are less aware of the 'spicey' heated sensation on the skin during the treatment. I wouldn't call it a painful procedure at all though.

Dr Nathan gently guided the laser across the whole of my face, area-by-area, including the neck, where this treatment is also highly effective. There were intense moments, but it was never unbearable. My session took two hours, although this can vary depending how much is required to treat each person individually. A subtle immediate lift was visible at the end of the treatment and I walked out looking slightly pink and blotchy, but that faded within an hour. There was no bruising or swelling, and I was fine to go out that evening. 

Dr Nathan gently guided the laser over all areas of my face, reaching the lowest levels of the dermis to restore collagen at its roots. It felt hot and a little prickly but largely painless. It is a non-invasive treatment with no downtime except some slight reddening of the skin.

Ultherapy Prime doesn’t yield instant gratification, it works by stimulating your own collagen over time, so it’s much more like a restoration project than an intervention. Results are expected after three months, as your body responds, so patience is required, but over that time I started noticing big improvements. 

My jawline is much more defined, my jowls have noticeably lifted, as have my cheekbones and my brows appear higher, making me look less tired. My skin looks much fresher, firmer and it is glowing again; my skin also feels much softer to touch, because of the additional collagen I am producing naturally. Friends and family have commented that I look more “rested” and “glowing” and have asked what my skincare secret is.

These pics reveal a slight lift and more definition of my jawline after three months, and more obvious changes began to evolve in subsequent months and I am absolutely thrilled with the result.

Results last up to 18 months, which is a huge bonus when you’re juggling work, family and the menopause. When you consider the cost of this treatment – it’s from around £3000 – that's the equivalent of a facial a month. Plus the cumulative effect of a treatment every 18 months or so, will yield even longer lasting results. Just like training in a gym, starting from scratch is much harder than maintaining what you have, and this counts for collagen production too. 

After years of pushing myself to the edge of burnout, I am now not only reinventing my working life, but my sense of self, and seeing a face in the mirror that reflects this renewal, is the icing on the cake. I finally see a face that is not burnt out, but as fresh as my new chapter. 

Eight months on from the treatment, I feel so much more confident and back to my glowing self thanks to the creased collagen my skin is now naturally producing. I am so pleased with the result and will definitely do this again.

Ultherapy Prime costs from £3000 at Taktuk Clinic, Knightsbridge www.drwassimtaktouk.com

Thanks to Jean Beard at www.jbpr.me for arranging my treatment as a PR experience.

I really believe in sharing the tips, tricks and treatments that work for us in midlife, so I hope this has been interesting!

Love