Something has shifted in what Irish women are asking me for.

Two years ago, nearly every enquiry that came into the clinic was about filler. Now most of them are not. Filler bookings have fallen away sharply across the country, and the suppliers I buy from are seeing exactly the same pattern.

What replaced it is skin quality. Boosters, polynucleotides, anything that makes skin look healthy rather than fuller. Women are not chasing a new face anymore. They want their own face to look well.

Baby Glow sits right in the middle of that shift, and it is the treatment I am asked about more than any other. So here are the five things I would want you to know before you book one, including the reason I sometimes say no.

1It is not filler, and it will not change your face

This is the part people get wrong before they walk in.

Filler is designed to add volume and change shape. Baby Glow is designed to do neither. The product is a hyaluronic acid skin booster, and the entire technique is built around where it goes and how far apart the points sit, so that it settles under the skin as a layer that holds water and reflects light.

It does not build volume. It does not sharpen a jaw. It does not lift anything. Your bone structure, your proportions and your expressions are exactly the same when you walk out.

If your fear is leaving a clinic looking done, this is the opposite of the thing you are afraid of.

What changes is how your skin behaves. Smoother texture, better bounce, and that lit quality that makeup tries to fake from the outside. This one works from underneath it.

2It is eight small points, not a face full of needles

Baby Glow uses a very fine, very short needle, and the product is placed just under the surface at a set of mapped points across the face. Eight of them, each at its own angle and depth. That is the whole treatment.

With numbing, the appointment takes around thirty minutes. Most people describe the points as small scratches rather than pain, and you can go straight back to your day afterwards.

You may see tiny raised points for a few hours where the product went in. I massage the area at the end so everything spreads evenly, and for most people they have settled by the next morning. A little bruising is possible, the same as with any injection.

3Ask who is holding the needle, not which brand is in the syringe

Almost every reputable clinic in Dublin is using one of the same handful of hyaluronic acid boosters. The brand on the box is rarely the reason a result is good or bad.

Depth is. There are about two millimetres between a result that glows and a result that leaves you with visible bumps for a week. Placed too shallow and the product sits where you can see it. Placed too deep and you lose the effect you paid for entirely.

Spacing matters just as much. Points sitting too close together and the product pools instead of spreading the way the technique intends.

So the question to ask is not which brand the clinic buys. It is how many faces the person injecting you has treated, and whether that person is the one who will actually be doing your treatment on the day.

In my clinic, that is always me, start to finish. Nothing gets handed off.

4You will not see much on day one

Hydration is the first thing to show, usually within three to five days. That is the part people notice in the mirror and in photographs.

The better part takes longer. Hyaluronic acid placed into the skin also encourages the skin to do its own repair work, so smoothness and density keep improving over the weeks that follow.

Which means do not book this two days before a wedding. Book it three to four weeks out. Most people do a short course rather than one session, then come back a couple of times a year to hold the result.

5It is not right for everyone, and I will tell you

Baby Glow treats skin quality. It does not treat volume loss, and it will not erase a deep line that is still sitting there when your face is completely relaxed. If that is the thing bothering you, a booster is the wrong tool and I would rather say so at the consultation than take your money.

It is also not suitable during pregnancy or breastfeeding, or if there is an active skin infection or inflammation in the area.

I send people home most weeks for exactly these reasons. It costs me a booking every time, and it is why the women who do come back keep coming back for years.