I’ve seen tge future of beauty and it's terrifying!
Our columnist visits Britain’s biggest cosmetic surgery show and says ...
London’s olympia exhibition centre appears to have been invaded by aliens or the cast of the Rocky Horror Picture show. A slightly stooped, cadaverous looking man stands by a stall, wielding what seems to be a ray gun. Meanwhile, two attractive women, caked in make-up, totter past on stripper heels, wearing only fleshcoloured bandages and fetish headgear.
But this is no movie set. It is, in fact, the f ourth annual Clinical Cosmetic and Reconstructive Expo, a two-day show that attracts hundreds of suppliers intent on selling their lotions, potions, gadgets and services to the thousands of practitioners who attend.
The cadaverous man is from Italy. His ray gun is set to stun — but only because it’s a needling device, designed to deliver tiny jabs to the skin to stimulate collagen renewal.
A video depicts a woman undergoing the treatment, wincing slightly as her face is transformed into a human pincushion.
The scantily clad girls are modelling postoperative compression garments, to be worn after face-lifts, liposuction and breast surgery.
I’ve never seen so many crazies all under one roof — and I’ve been to the Labour Party Conference. There are stalls touting every imaginable procedure on the planet.
I pass an over-made-up woman offering alarmingly aggressive facial peels (‘Come, come, let me demonstrate’; ‘Er, no thank you’).
Another is promoting something called the ‘Mona Lisa smile’. I imagine some new form of lip enhancement, but as I examine the before and after pictures, I pull back, shocked.
The Mona Lisa smile concerns a body part not frequently on display — not in polite company, anyway. Hence the name: it gives the patient a private sense of satisfaction.
Poor Leonardo da Vinci — how could he ever have imagined his masterpiece would one day be used to sell vaginal tightening?
one stall doing brisk business promotes vitamin drips — as seen on reality TV show The only Way Is Essex. These contain energyboosting ingredients including taurine, the active part of Red Bull. Essentially they’re fancy hangover cures with added benefits.
‘Apparently, all the celebrities use them,’ confides one woman to another in the queue. Well, I suppose that makes it all right, then.
Indeed, celebrities are much in evidence. This world thrives on their endorsement. Lucrative contracts abound. Jennifer Aniston supports Merz’s Ultratherapy — a whizz, apparently, for firming and tightening skin, especially saggy jowls.
Angelina Jolie gets laser facials. sharon stone is the new face of Galderma, the company behind a variety of professional brands, such as Cetaphil skincare, Macrolane (made famous as the ‘ lunch-time boob job’, now rarely used for that purpose since it can cause hardening of tissue in some patients and interferes with mammograms), the filler Restylane and a brand of botulism toxin called Azzalure.
Even EastEnder Gillian Taylforth’s face looms large next to one stand.
BUT the really striking thing are the machines. They are everywhere, of all s hapes and s i zes, claiming all sorts of benefits. Light therapy (blue for acne, red for skin rejuvenation, pink for I can’t quite remember) i s very popular. Highly rated specialists, including facialist sarah Chapman, regularly incorporate light therapy into their treatments.
Cryotherapy, or fat freezing, has also taken off as a solution for stubborn areas of fatty tissue such as the stomach, so- called ‘love handles’ and upper arms.
I watch as a woman, her legs inelegantly akimbo, has the fat on her inner thighs frozen while she chats to passers-by about the benefits of the procedure.
Elsewhere, on a raised platform in front of an audience, a woman has had her face sandblasted. or at least it looks that way. she flinches as the nurse soothes her bright red skin, the promise of a new complexion a few uncomfortable days away.
one of the largest stands is promoting insurance — for the professionals. something tells me they’re going to need it. For the primary aim is clearly not patient welfare, but making money. selling as many gadgets, concepts and procedures as possible. It’s a cynical market, where the patient is not so much a person as a figure in a book.
Plastic surgery is going through a bumpy patch.
Following the PIP implant scandal of 2013 ( i n which some breast implants were found to contain i ndustrial grade silicone that leaked, causing serious medical complications), the number of annual cosmetic operations overall in the UK has fallen almost 10 per cent.
But the demand to ‘make me look better’ is still there — more so in this age of Instagram. The public are just choosing the cheaper, noninvasive options. Trouble is, non- invasive treatments are entirely unregulated, unlike plastic surgery, which is safer than ever.
This is clear upstairs in a slightly dog-eared side room, where leading members of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic surgeons ( BAAPs) gather for their annual Press conference. Their mission? To remind the world that, done properly, cosmetic surgery is a responsible, selfregulating, eminent part of the medical establishment. The most glamorous among them is elegantly suited Rajiv Grover, former chairman of BAAPs and London’s face-lift king. Known for surgical restraint, his trademark t echnique is t he selective SMASectomy, which slims the lower face to give definition to the cheeks and jaw. His face-lifts are not cheap: upwards of £10,000. But then he has years of expertise. This is the responsible face of the cosmetic industry, a group fighting to drive up standards, promote regulation and accountability and drive the cowboys out of town.
They’ve campaigned for a ban on advertising for cosmetic surgery and condemn the discounts offered by larger chains. They launched an apprenticeship programme to raise clinical standards.
on THE whole it’s not the scalpel- wielders you have to worry about, but non-invasive beauty treatments — as these complex procedures are euphemistically called.
This is where you’ll find frozen foreheads, t r out pouts and strangely puffed up cheeks. Because though Botox requires a medical prescription, anyone with a needle can administer it.
other types of fillers — such as collagen or hyaluronic acid — are not subject to serious regulation and can be bought and administered by anyone.
Machines fall under the same EU rules as a household kettle. There is no industry standard. You just have to trust the manufacturer and your practitioner.
A recent department of Health review into the sector by sir Bruce Keogh recommended making dermal fillers prescription only, ensuring all practitioners are qualified and introducing an ombudsman to oversee all private health care, including cosmetic procedures.
sadly, sir Bruce’s recommendations were largely ignored by the government. despite protestations f rom BAAPs, the Wild West approach to cosmetic enhancement appears to have worsened in the two years since the report.
Two out of three surgeons report seeing patients for corrective work following botched non-invasive treatments, and unproven substances continue to be introduced.
Anyone sane would check before l etting anyone other than a qualified medical professional near them with a needle containing a foreign substance.
But, as the mainstream beauty industry proves, hope can cause all sanity to desert even the most hardened sceptic.
The pre-face-lift market — as it’s known — is an ever- expanding, infinitely appealing and entirely unpoliced area. It occupies a kind of no-man’s-land between a High street face cream and a surgeon.
Many of the ideas here have not been subject to even basic medical scrutiny. Many will be obsolete by the next conference, and may or may not turn out to be dangerous.
Which ones is anyone’s guess. Just better hope it’s not yours.