A SHOCKING 70 per cent of women and girls desperate for lip fillers choose their practitioner from social media – where plump pouts are for sale at the click of a mouse.
Yet beneath the flashy adverts boasting of bargain prices and glamorous results lies a dark, unregulated trade where so-called 'beauticians' are putting their clients' lives on the line for cash.
Countless Brits – including unsuspecting mums Siobhan Phelan and Kelly McVicker – have been maimed, disfigured and left in agony after being lured in by filler 'deals' on sites like Facebook.
That's why, as part of Fabulous's Had Our Fill campaign, I investigated Facebook Marketplace to see just how easy it is to buy fillers.
I found that 'beauticians' are:
- Selling SIX times the recommended dose of filler
- 'Disappearing' with customers' cash before the treatment date
- Offering lip fillers to children with no parental consent
Facebook has nearly 45 million users in the UK alone and the company posted a record profit of $6.88bn (£5.23bn) last year.
The Marketplace section of the site operates in a similar way to Gumtree, where sellers can advertise used goods from cars and cosmetics to fashion and furniture.
But the site has previously come under fire for being linked to criminals selling off stolen items and numerous scams.
Users are meant to be least 13 years old to access Facebook and Marketplace is supposedly only available to those aged 18 or older but in practice no proof of age is needed to sign up.
Once on the platform, they are easy prey for 'beauticians' – who have left customers withdisfigured "duck" pouts and 'within minutes' of losing their lips with botched filler treatments.
It's for this reason our campaign is calling for tighter regulations on Britain's filler industry, and for social media companies like Facebook to clamp down on dodgy practices.
"Girls can go on Facebook Marketplace and buy anything from a bag to a dermal filler," warns director Ashton Collins, of Save Face, a national register for accredited practitioners.
"These sellers are totally unregulated – they're, worryingly, lay people. It's a hotbed for them to make an incredible amount of money."
'I could do them myself'
Searching for 'lip filler' on Marketplace brought up more than 100 different ads within 12 miles of London, ranging from needle- and pen-administered fillers to requests for 'filler models'.
One advertised a pack of three hyaluronic acid fillers – which the seller told me I could use myself for £100.
Facebook guidelines prohibit users from offering "medical, cosmetic, or personal wellness services", as well as promoting "medical devices" or advertising with "before and after pictures".
Yet some sellers were doing all three.
Posing as a prospective client, I contacted 18 people at random, asking them whether I could get 2ml or 3ml of filler – four and six times the recommended 0.5ml dose for a first-timer.
Fifteen replied and alarmingly, a third agreed to give me between 2ml and 3.5ml in one go.
Aesthetic specialist Dr Roshan Ravindran warns that such high filler volumes "can distort and lead to an unnatural facial appearance" and "volumes higher than 1ml per area can be dangerous and potentially cause serious complications including blindness, tissue death and permanent scarring."
I was given quotes as low as £100 – despite accredited practitioners charging around £300 for 1ml.
Experts advise that few brands of filler have undergone rigorous research and testing processes and many being offered on Facebook are 'black label'.
"When inexperienced, aspiring injectors buy fillers, they may prioritise the cheaper products which have much less backing research proving its safety," says Dr Saetta of Allure Aesthetics.
And social media platforms, like Facebook, have become key territories for selling counterfeit goods.
"Sites such as Facebook inadvertently give a pseudo-legitimate front to criminals selling counterfeit goods," a spokesperson from National Trading Standards tells us.
"The popularity of these platforms enables counterfeiters to increase their reach and as a result the scale of the potential and actual harm to consumers is rapidly increasing."
Had Our Fill campaign
Britain's Botox and filler addiction is fuelling a £2.75billion industry.
The wrinkle-busting and skin plumping treatments account for 9 out of 10 cosmetic procedures.
50% of women and 40% of men aged 18 to 34 want to plump up their pouts and tweak their faces.
Fillers are totally unregulated and incredibly you don’t need to have ANY qualifications to buy and inject them.
83% of botched jobs are performed by people with no medical training, often in unsanitary environments – with devastating results.
Women have been left with rotting tissue, needing lip amputations, lumps and even blinded by botched jobs.
Despite the dangers, there is no legal age limit for dermal filler, which is why Fabulous has launched Had Our Fill, a campaign calling for:
- fillers to be made illegal for under 18s
- a crackdown on social media sites plugging fillers
- a Government-backed central register for practitioners with accredited qualifications
We're working in conjunction with Save Face and are backed by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), British Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS) and British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS).
We want anyone considering a non-surgical cosmetic treatment to be well-informed to make a safe decision.
We’ve Had Our Fill of rogue traders and sham clinics – have you?
Six times the recommended dose for £450
One beautician got back to me in just a minute, offering to inject me with 2ml of filler for £300 or 3ml for £450 at her home.
She then left me a voice message, telling me I could have a discount: 2ml for £250, 3ml for £400, explaining that the injections she uses "are actually more than 1ml" each so I'd be getting a great deal.
"If you're gonna do 3ml, it's gonna be 3.5ml," she added.
"The pharmacy I get it from – they sell it that way for me because it's more usable."
Beauticians 'vanishing' with customers' cash
And it's not just being offered dangerously high quantities of filler that is blighting unsuspecting Facebook users.
When Tamzin Evers, 22, signed up for a lip filler appointment advertised on Facebook in April last year, she was told to pay the entire £160 cost in advance.
Because she'd previously attended a clinic run by the same woman – and loved the results – she didn't question forking out the money for her 1.6ml treatment and paid it by bank transfer.
But when the clinic kept being rescheduled, Tamzin, from Cornwall, grew suspicious.
'She turned off her phone to avoid contact'
"I eventually said, 'Can I please just have a refund as I’d like to go elsewhere'," Tamzin tells me.
"She agreed and arranged to meet me in Plymouth city centre with it in cash… but she kept messaging saying she was running late then turned her phone off so I couldn’t contact her."
Although Tamzin sent numerous messages, she says the money never materialised. She has since recovered only her £50 deposit – from an anaesthetist working with the woman.
"I was more angry than anything," recalls Tamzin.
"£110 is a lot to some people and I work hard for every penny I receive."
Beauticians happy to inject kids
Most of the sellers I spoke with asked for a deposit to secure my booking – from £25 to £50.
None volunteered information on their qualifications and others claimed they were "fully qualified", but didn't offer any evidence. Just one seller sent over certificates showing she'd completed beauty therapy courses and trained with fillers.
And shockingly, I wasn't the only person some were willing to treat.
Five also offered to inject my '16-year-old cousin' – although two cited the need for 'parental consent'.
Among medical professionals, it's considered unethical to perform lip fillers on anyone under the age of 18. But as British law stands, it's not currently illegal to do so.
Students 'training' themselves with online videos
Dr Max Malik, of Cosmetics Clinic in Birmingham, says that nowadays Brits – many, still students – can easily get hold of fillers and "watch a few videos on social platforms on how to inject".
But these self-taught cowboys are putting cash before their clients' health – and lives.
"These people are literally gambling with people's lives just to make money," says Ashton, "and Facebook Marketplace and other platforms are unfortunately the easiest way for them to do that."
I was alarmed to find hardly any of the Marketplace sellers touched on safety concerns.
When I informed Facebook of my findings, I was assured the Marketplace posts had been removed.
"We don’t allow the sale of medical and cosmetic services on Facebook Marketplace and we actively remove content which violates our Commerce Policies," a spokesman said.
"We have removed the posts shared with us by The Sun and we urge people to report anything they think doesn’t belong on our platforms so our teams can review and take action."
Yet to this day, most of the posts still remain on the site. Some sellers have taken down the adverts themselves, while one or two say their product has been "sold".
One thing seems clear – unless the filler industry is more tightly regulated and social media firms crack down on adverts, the number of botched ops, and kids going under the needle, will only soar.
And as experts warn, the consequences can last a lifetime.
"You shouldn't be fooled by the cheap prices," says cosmetic surgeon Alex Karidis. "There's no cheap and cheerful when it comes to lip fillers – this is playing Russian roulette with your body."
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