What is "Spock Eye," the Botox Side Effect Brooke Shields Gets?

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Brooke Shields says Botox made her look like a character out of "Star Trek", which is why she now chooses to steer clear of it. The model shared her experience with cosmetic injectables in a recent interview with Glamour, where she was the cover star of the US magazine's 2023 Women of the Year issue.

"I am all for any of it if it truly is done for yourself, for the right reasons, and gives you a level of some kind of confidence that you need," Shields said of cosmetic procedures. "But I think it's easy to go down the slope of overdoing it." She then shared a side effect that has deterred her from injectables: "I'm scared of not looking like myself; the times that I've had Botox, I end up with this Spock eye and I'm like, 'I don't look like myself.'"

What exactly is "spock eye," you wonder? While it's not the medical term, "spocking" is the name of a phenomenon that can occur when your eyebrows slant upward after getting injections of a neurotoxin in your forehead area, resulting in a surprised expression. "Fully relaxing the muscles in the middle part of the forehead but not treating the outer part causes the characteristic shape that resembles Mr. Spock from 'Star Trek,'" board-certified dermatologist, Joshua Zeichner, MD, tells POPSUGAR. "As the inside of the brow drops but the outside is allowed to pull up, the brows develop a steep, sloped appearance."

The condition can happen for a myriad of reasons, from injecting too much of the liquid to an inexperienced injector's lack of understanding of facial muscles. Fortunately, it is something that can be fixed, typically by injecting more Botox into the muscles on the side of your forehead to drop the outer tails of the brow and balance things out.

While spock eye can happen to anyone after Botox treatments, finding a provider who is well-versed in the injectable can go a very long way in avoiding this kind of adverse reaction. Before you get anything done, be sure to go do a consultation with your physician and make sure that they have a plan in place should you be unhappy with your results.

Now, with this experience and also the decades of working within the fashion and beauty industry, Shields has adopted an entirely different approach to ageing. "I don't want to chase youth," she said. "I want to chase now."