Frightening and irresponsible: Medics alarmed as rise of DIY beauty injectables leads to injuries

Nerve damage, severe burns, asymmetry and other potentially permanent side-effects can be caused by DIY beauty procedures that are on the rise due to the influence of social media, experts told RT.

Wannabe beauticians need no longer rely on the black market, as botox kits, fillers, chemical peels and other ingredients for facials have made their way onto legitimate retail platforms. For example, there’s a ‘treatment’ with hyaluronic acid and temporary dermal fillers for sale on Amazon for just $142, while Alibaba offers a similar kit for the bargain price of $38. Both come complete with syringes and are clearly intended to be used at home, RT America’s Trinity Chavez reports.

“The availability of these fillers online and on the black market has really started this very dangerous trend of people purchasing these products illegally and not knowing anything about them: whether they’re contaminated, what they’re made up of” Dr Azadeh Sirazi, board-certified dermatologist, told RT.

DIY videos with titles like “instant plastic surgery at home” can be easily found across YouTube and other social media platforms despite efforts to remove this sort of content. And people often use the products without knowing the right proportions or how they work, warned Dr Ben Talei, a facial plastic surgeon, explaining the devastating effects that homemade chemical peels can have.

“You are supposed to dilute these things and they put it on their skin and it’s not that much different than if they just held the lighter up to their face – like they end up burning that skin layer,” he said.

Watch Trinity Chavez’s report. Some images may be disturbing.

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