Peer reviewed method
The Tracy Technique
A systems based approach to upper face neurotoxin treatment. Instead of treating the forehead, the glabella and the eye as three separate jobs, it treats them as one mechanism with one dose budget.
Tracy B, Moe K. Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology. 2026;25:e70867. doi:10.1111/jocd.70867
The problem it was written to solve
The frontalis is the only muscle that lifts the brow. Everything else in the upper face pulls it down. So the moment you treat the forehead you are changing the balance of a tug of war, and if you take out too much of the lifting side the brow drops and the eye looks heavier.
The usual response to that risk is to stay well away from the brow and treat the upper forehead instead. The paper argues that this gets it backwards. The lower third of the frontalis contains the strongest fibres, and the middle third is where most of the brow’s resting height actually comes from. Treating high and sparing low removes the support while leaving the lines that brought the patient in.
Why it is sold in threes
Three areas is a regulatory fact. It is not a map of your face.
When you are quoted three areas, the number is not invented. Botox is approved for three upper face indications, frown lines between the brows, forehead lines, and crow’s feet, and each one was established through its own trials, at its own doses, against its own endpoints. The areas are real, and they are the reason the treatment is priced and discussed the way it is.
What an approval describes is what was studied. It is not a description of how those muscles behave once all three are treated on the same face. The frontalis is the only muscle lifting the brow. The glabellar complex and the muscle ringing the eye both pull it down. Treat all three and you have changed a balance, whatever the labelling says about each one on its own. The published paper puts it this way: traditional paradigms acknowledge the relationships among these regions but continue to treat them as separate functional zones.
So the areas are a reasonable way to price a treatment and a poor way to plan one. This method is not a different injection point. It is one dose budget across a connected system, instead of three decisions made as though the other two were not happening.
How Botox pricing actually worksWhat the goal actually is
Nobody can tell. Everybody notices.
That is the whole target, and it is worth being precise about why the systems approach is the thing that gets you there. A result that reads as treated almost never reads that way because the lines are too soft. It reads that way because something moved: a brow that dropped, a brow that arched where it did not used to, a band of forehead gone still above eyebrows that no longer lift.
Every one of those is a balance problem between muscles that were treated as though they were independent. Planning them against each other is what keeps a face looking rested rather than worked on, and it is why I would rather under treat and see you at two weeks than chase a flat forehead on the first visit.
Individual results vary. Nothing here is a guarantee of outcome.
How it works
Three principles
Treat the forehead in thirds
Concentrate in the lower third, preserve the middle, and use limited microinjections in the upper third for evenness. The thirds do different jobs and should not receive the same dose.
Extend laterally
Bring the muscle around the outer eye into the glabellar plan, which reduces the compensatory pull inward that produces an unnatural result.
One budget, not three
Dose the whole upper face as a single decision. What goes into one area changes what the next area needs.
Evidence, stated honestly
What this is and what it is not
The method is published and peer reviewed, which places it above technique passed around by word of mouth and below a large randomised trial. It describes an anatomical rationale and a treatment protocol. It does not claim to be the only correct way to treat an upper face, and it does not predict your individual result.
Anatomy varies. Muscle strength varies. Two people given identical treatment can finish in different places, which is exactly why the plan is built on your face rather than on a diagram.
Straight answers
Questions people ask
What makes it different from standard treatment?
Standard upper face treatment plans each area on its own: so many units to the forehead, so many to the elevens, so many to the crow’s feet. The Tracy Technique plans them against each other, because those muscles pull in opposite directions and dosing one changes what the others do.
Is it published?
Yes. It was peer reviewed and published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology in 2026, and it is indexed on PubMed. Peer review is not proof that a method is best for every patient, but it does mean the reasoning was examined by people with no stake in it.
Does it use more product or less?
Often less, and placed differently. The goal is to spend the dose where it changes how the face moves rather than distributing it evenly across a surface.
Can any injector use it?
Yes, and that is the point of publishing it. I teach it through The Injector Collective and as national faculty. If you are an injector rather than a patient, the paper is the place to start.
Will I still be able to move my face?
That is the intention. Preserving the middle of the forehead is part of the method rather than an accident, because that is the region that carries most natural expression.