Many of the people in the U.S. who pay hundreds of dollars every few months to get Botox plan to keep spending money on cosmetic injections despite the economic downturn. Botox’s not exactly recession-proof. AbbVie
ABBV,
+0.17%,
which sells Botox and Juvederm fillers, said demand softened over the last six months of 2022, even while reporting double-digit revenue growth last year.
“There might be some short-term pressures on perhaps new patients entering the category,” said Carrie Strom, president of Global Allergan Aesthetics at AbbVie, “but the patient base is highly composed of continuing or existing patients. They see it differently. They see it like, ‘This is a part of my routine.’” There were about 3.6 million instances of someone getting a botulinum toxin injection for cosmetic purposes in 2021, a 40% jump over 2020, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Customers, who are primarily women, pay $450 on average for each shot in cash. Even with the threat of a recession, ongoing layoffs in the tech and media sectors, and months of record inflation, there is little expectation that bottles of Botox, Xeomin, or Dysport are about to gather dust. These products have a kind of staying power that’s more akin to a spending-habit staple than a discretionary purchase for many of their users. “It becomes psychologically addictive in the sense that you become used to seeing your face in a very different way,” said Dana Berkowitz, an associate professor of sociology and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at …