No longer do people — hey, it’s not just women — looking to fight the aging process have to visit the plastic surgeon’s office, book appointments far in advance, or plan a trip into Manhattan. An injectable beauty bar on Bridgehampton’s Main Street saw a steady stream of clients for Botox and medical-grade skin care this summer.
Ject opened first in the West Village in February and quickly gained a following with social media influencers looking to take off the years with fillers, not filters. A second location opened on the South Fork this summer, and the demand means it will be open, sporadically, throughout the year.
Gabrielle Garritano, a board-certified physician assistant from Missouri, worked for years in plastic surgeons’ offices on the Upper East Side but wanted to offer medical aesthetics at a more reasonable price, in a less stuffy environment, without the classical music and white-glove doorman service, she said. Patients were paying at least $500 per Botox injection and $1,000 for fillers, she said.
“When I left, I ended up cutting all those prices in half. My mission is to make all these services more accessible and mainstream,” Ms. Garritano said at the Bridgehampton office. She spends summers in the Hamptons and had dreamed of opening a spot here.
Smoothing solutions, or neuromodulators, to remove fine lines and deep wrinkles, which include Botox but also Dysport and Xeomin, run $250 to $300 per area on the face, like the crow’s feet around the eyes or between the brows. Volumizers or fillers, like Juvederm, Restylane, and Radiesse, which add or replace lost volume in the lips, cheeks, under the eyes, or on the jawline, run $500 to $800 per area.
Asked how her prices can be so different from those on the Upper East Side, she compared office spaces. Those plastic surgeons she used to work for had 10,000-square-foot-plus spaces with surgical costs to consider. Ject’s storefront
in Bridgehampton is a 500-square-foot space with no private rooms, just a curtain separating the front from the single white leather chair where clients can lean back for a specially tailored treatment. Indeed, it feels less like a sterile doctor’s office and more like a private salon.
Ms. Garritano, who started the business with a friend, Devon Nagelberg, hopes it is a much more welcoming environment. “When I worked in plastics, these guys were in the operating room and doing a couple of injectables a day, maybe a handful, and I’m seeing four times that in a day,” she said.
With high prices at plastic surgeons’ offices, she said, clients were coming back only every three to four months. Ms. Garritano’s prices allow clients to come back more often for preventive treatments like chemical peels, which improve texture and decrease hyperpigmentation, and microneedling, using the SkinPen Precision Systems, the only F.D.A.-cleared microneedling device, to stimulate the body’s natural healing process and trigger collagen production, while reducing fine lines and acne scarring.
She said she has purposefully kept the menu simple. Most treatments take between 10 and 30 minutes. Walk-ins are common and she hopes to offer weekend hours in the off-season.
A boost from social media influencers and a piece in The New York Times has helped catapult her business to among the top injectable beauty bars in Manhattan. French Montana, the rapper, visited the West 10th Street location for one of Ject’s signature treatments, the AquaGold Fine Touch Facial, in July. Known as “skin Botox” in Asia, Ms. Garritano said the 24-karat gold micro-dosing technology painlessly infuses a personalized cocktail, which includes hyaluronic acid, vitamins, and neuromodulators, into the deepest layers of the skin. The result is shrunken pores, brighter skin and an overall glow with little to no downtime. The cost? $500.
Aside from social media buzz, Ms. Garritano is concentrating on educating clients, particularly young women, on these noninvasive cosmetic procedures and creating editorial content to answer questions. Studies have shown, she said, that the main reason people do not get Botox and other similar treatments is because they are scared. They are worried they will end up looking like certain celebrities who have, shall we say, overdone it.
“A lot of girls say, ‘How old should you be to get Botox? Can you go on a date afterward? Can you work out the next day?’ ” she said. “Even if you Google those questions, it’s really hard to find that information out there.”
Her concept is to keep it fun and do what makes you feel good. “So many women come to me and say, ‘I can’t believe I went without doing it for so long.’ ”