Rise in popularity of non-surgical cosmetic procedures sparks drastic rise in complaints

Non-surgical cosmetic procedures such as fillers and Botulinum toxin injections like Botox have boomed in popularity in recent years.

But with that rise in demand comes a rise in the number of complaints of dodgy work.

Save Face, which is a national register of practitioners and clinics, received almost 3,000 complaints last year - up by a quarter since 2020.

Michelle was one of the thousands of people in the UK who regularly got these procedures done, but she is also part of a growing number who have had something go wrong.

She says it impacted her emotionally as well as physically.

'I struggled to look in the mirror because I felt I looked horrendous'

“My Botox had caused ptosis so that had leaked into a muscle that should cause the drooping of the eyelids,” Michelle said.

“The misplacement of the filler which was the swelling that had under my eye and my lips had a considerable amount of lumps in them. They'd lost their shape."

"I struggled to look in the mirror because I felt I looked horrendous. It definitely did and it's definitely made me think twice about any further treatments or, you know, getting anything done in the future.”

Michelle told us the clinic she used has been doing these procedures for many years and they said nothing like this had happened before.

She was fully refunded for the treatments.

'A person that's been on a day's training course can inject you and there's nothing to stop them from doing that'

Under current rules, there aren't any mandatory qualifications for aesthetic practitioners in the UK.

Ashton Collins, the Director of Save Face, says that it desperately needs to change.

“Scarily in the UK, anybody can inject these treatments. You know, a lay person that's been on a day's training course can inject you and there's nothing to stop them from doing that,” Mr Collins said.

“These treatments are often trivialised. They don't appreciate that they are medical interventions, they just perceive them as everyday beauty treatments and so that when they see cheap deals and time-limited offers, they think they're getting a bargain where in actual fact [it] ends up costing them far more in the long run because there's a higher chance of complications and adverse reactions.”

Advice and support

If you have had a non-surgical cosmetic procedure that has gone wrong and you feel unable to address it with the clinic directly, you can raise a concern with Save Face or the JCCP. Complaints can be made anonymously.

• Save Face offers people advice and support following negative experiences of non-surgical cosmetic treatments, even if the clinic or practitioner isn't on their register.

• The Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners (JCCP) also offers advice as well as information on how to gain access to registers of approved practitioners. Victims of dodgy work - or anyone who is worried about certain training courses or providers - can raise a concern with the JCCP.

The government told ITV News that they are working to introduce a licensing scheme for non-surgical cosmetic procedures in England which will make it an offence for anyone to carry out certain non-surgical procedures without a licence.

But until the law changes, victims of dodgy work have to live with the sometimes life-changing consequences.

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