Back-to-school season isn’t just about buying new clothes and school supplies. For some parents, it also means visits to dermatologists, aestheticians and plastic surgeons for Botox, microneedling and other treatments after summer.

Aesthetic practices tend to get considerably busier through the fall and holiday season, with drop-offs, soccer games, PTA meetings, vacations and holiday parties providing incentives for a refresh. This year, people are going for subtle refinements without dramatically altering their appearance.

They’re open to learning alphabet codes like PDRN, PRP and PRF, enduring thousands of tiny pricks through microneedling and trying treatments such as Sofwave, Sculptra and Radiesse. The focus is on tone, texture and tautness, and they’re willing to book a series of visits and pay more to get glowing, healthy skin.

Jessica Weiser, a dermatologist practicing in New York, where she also teaches at Columbia University, and Aspen, Colo., observes the restrained approach is in demand globally. She attributes its appeal in part to growing interest in health, wellness and longevity, which is helping drive demand for treatments such as platelet-rich plasma and platelet-rich fibrin despite their relatively high cost.

Weiser says, “People really love the idea of health and longevity and wellness, and that kind of fits right into that same energy.”

People aren’t getting the healthy, subtle look they want by doing less. In fact, beauty and aesthetics are undergoing an interventionist era as consumers opt for procedures and prescriptions to mold their bodies and faces.

Cosmetic surgical procedures in the United States increased 7% last year, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, with facial fat grafting up 39%, brow lifts 29%, neck lifts 21% and facelifts 13%. The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery projects facial procedures will climb 19% to 1.6 million this year, with nonsurgical treatments accounting for 80% of procedures. GLP-1 use is fueling growth, too: 82% of ASPS member surgeons reported receiving consultation requests related to GLP-1 use in 2025.

Even as people seek out procedures, they expect to avoid the hassles often associated with them, including lengthy recovery periods. Angela Casey, a dermatologist and surgeon in Columbus, Ohio, founder of skincare brand Bright Girl and partner at Center for Surgical Dermatology, says, “What we’re seeing is patients really want procedures that they can get back into the swing of things next day.”

With packed schedules, she continues, “nobody wants to go in with a face that has raw skin from a really deep chemical peel or a laser resurfacing procedure. Many of them are preferring to have three or four of those lighter procedures to essentially reach similar results to that big procedure [entailing] more downtime, more healing [and] just more risk of complications.”

Packed schedules don’t translate into an appetite for packed faces. In what The Wall Street Journal has dubbed the “Great Deflate,” fillers are trending out. Average quarterly spending on facial fillers in the United States fell from about $970 million in 2023 to $850 million in 2025, according to healthcare data firm Guidepoint Qsight.

“Many of them are preferring to have three or four of those lighter procedures to essentially reach similar results to that big procedure.”

As fillers fall out of favor, treatments targeting skin quality are gaining ground. Patients of Gervaise Gerstner, a New York dermatologist and chief medical officer of Virginskin, are leaning toward microneedling and infusing their skin with polydeoxyribonucleotide extracted from salmon DNA, exosomes or peptides. Other popular procedures include exfoliation with Glo2Facial, anti-aging laser treatments with Clear + Brilliant and tightening via Tixel’s thermomechanical device.

Because of social media, the cycle for what’s in and out can be quick. Take platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), which has been injected under eyes to smooth out fine lines and boost elasticity. Behrooz Torkian, a facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, estimates the rise and fall of PDGF lasted less than a year. The United States Food and Drug Administration has approved products containing PDGF for certain medical uses, but not for aesthetic injections.

He says, “We had a sample box that my nurses and I were considering using on some of our really troubled patients that we couldn’t help with other means, and before we even got a chance to open that box, we were already getting warnings not to touch it.”

Another trend can be credited to the popularity of GLP-1s: the proliferation of products and techniques to compensate for the loss and descent of facial volume resulting from drastic weight loss. Facial fat grafting saw the largest jump among cosmetic surgical procedures, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

Nirmal Nathan, a plastic surgeon in Miami and founder of The Nathan Clinic, is following the advancement of alloClae, an injectable derived from donated human fat tissue that is being used to restore volume without traditional fat-transfer surgery. The product is regulated by the FDA as a human tissue product and is currently used for body contouring. Nathan says a version intended for the face is in development.

Nathan places alloClae in the booming regenerative medicine category. He says, “We are seeing a big push towards regenerative medicine, using human-derived and less artificially produced products to achieve the end goals that we want.”

For all the trends and movement toward newer procedures, Botox still reigns supreme. In addition to softening wrinkles, doctors report patients are using it preventively and in areas beyond the face. Across the board, aesthetic procedures are reaching a broader swath of society than ever before.

Anthony Brissett, a Houston-based facial plastic surgeon who is president of the AAFPRS, chief of Houston Methodist Hospital’s Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Division and cofounder of skincare line EthnicRX, says, “We see the most rapidly growing groups pursuing plastic surgery are Asians, Hispanics and patients of African descent, and those numbers can be dramatic. Some increases, depending upon the procedure itself, can be 30%, 40% [or] 50%.”

Dads’ treatments often mirror what moms are getting. In 2024, men accounted for 7% of plastic surgery patients, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and 11% of medical spa patients, according to the American Med Spa Association. Male patients have particularly taken to Botox to smooth furrows between the brows and around the eyes, eliminating what can be perceived as an angry expression.

Hair is a busy area in Torkian’s practice among men. Among the treatments he regularly employs are exosome injections, an emerging tool for hair restoration that remains under study. He says, “They start to make more hair follicles and grow hair back.”