Botox shortage bites in Russian salons

BEAUTY clinics in Russia are running out of Botox in a sign Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine are increasingly being felt throughout Russian society.

Allergan, the US producer of the chemical used to smooth out wrinkles and puff up lips, has banned exports to Russia since the Kremlin’s invasion, leaving clinics running low, according to the Kommersant newspaper.

“The dwindling supplies are already causing alarm in clinics,” Svetlana Kukushkina, head of a Moscow-based beauty clinic’s dermatological department, told the paper.

Russia had been one of the world’s biggest Botox markets, with even Vladimir Putin rumoured to be a client. Local substitutes do exist, but are not yet widely available or used.

Those desperate for an injection would have to catch one of the few international flights left out of Russia to Istanbul, or Yerevan in Armenia, but it is not a cheap trip. Russia’s Aeroflot is no longer flying and the cost has skyrocketed.

It is a further sign of the impact sanctions are having, with ordinary Russians increasingly suffering the repercussions of the Kremlin’s “special operation”.

In shops, retailers are reportedly running low on products such as iphones and Dyson vacuum cleaners, while brands such as Chanel and Pepsi have left the country. Hollywood blockbusters are no longer released in cinemas.

The Kremlin has banned criticism of the war and blocked access to Western websites. Russians had been able to get around this by using a virtual private network, but this week Russian censors said they plan to block those too.