Botox and fillers used to be the must-haves for anyone who wanted to avoid wrinkles and have a Hollywood-esque pout at the same time.
But data suggests Britons are now no longer falling in love with the age-defying injectable procedures.
Plastic surgeon data shows that there was a 7.5 per cent drop in the number of cosmetic facial treatments in the UK in 2023 compared to the previous year.
Glamorous celebrities and reality stars are often cited as driving the trend among women to get both Botox and fillers.
But now they’re leading a trend called the “make-under” movement
Friends star Courteney Cox and Love Island influencers Molly-Mae Hague and Faye Winter have all paraded their breathtaking transformations since getting their fillers sorted out.
Friends star Courtney Cox said she regrets facial cosmetic injections (as in 2015 on the left) and has since had them resolved to return to a more natural look (pictured in 2017 on the right)
Former Love Island star Molly-Mae Hague has documented that she’s had her fillers removed since 2020, which has dissolved in her lips and jaw, and has also spoken of how “blessed” she feels to be able to reduce the excess amount filler that she put in to ‘fix’ her face. Here she is shown before the fillers were removed in 2019 (left) and post (right) in May 2022
Fellow former Love Islander Faye Winter has also spoken about her regrets about facial cosmetic injections, saying she felt like she was “ruining her face” by using so much lip filler. Here the influencer is shown during her stint on Love Island in 2021 (left) and in January of this year (right) after flipping the filler
Campaigners have said that celebrities’ stories of regret over their cosmetic injections no doubt inspire other Britons to do the same.
But they added that many young Brits may still be seeking the procedures from cheaper, unregulated sources, making themselves feel similar regrets in the future, but without the money to undo them.
Botox is the best-known brand of botulinum toxin, a powerful substance used to paralyze facial muscles with the goal of reducing wrinkles.
Fillers, on the other hand, are substances that are injected into your face that fill in lines and wrinkles and give volume to, for example, the lips or cheeks.
Neither is permanent. Botox can cost up to £350, while fillers can have a price tag of £700, depending on the extent and location of the treatment.
Courteney famously spoke of her regrets about getting Botox and facial fillers and has since had them resolved to return to a more natural look.
The Scream VI star’s artificial look in 2015 caused alarm and she has since said she “didn’t realize” how “weird” she looked.
Now 58, Courteney said, though she initially tried to beat the clock with several facial injections, she’s thankful they could be turned back, allowing her to age gracefully.
Influencer Molly-Mae, who rose to fame on the reality dating show Love Island, has also spoken about how “blessed” she feels to be able to “fix” the excessive amount of filler she’s put on her face.
She is now 23 and had her lips done for the first time when she was just 18 years old.
She has said this led to a “vicious cycle” of supplementing treatment.
The new mom, who gave birth to her daughter Bambi with partner Tommy Fury in January, famously documented having her filler decomposed in 2020.
In May last year, Molly-Mae said she looked five years younger after her lip and jaw filler dissolved.
Fellow Love Islander Faye Winter has also spoken about her regrets about facial cosmetic injections, saying she felt like she was “ruining her face” by using so much lip filler.
“Obviously they got huge… the only feature you could see on my face was my protruding lips,” she said.
“I’ve always had big teeth thanks to my dad and always had small lips so they didn’t really frame my teeth the way I would have liked them too, so I decided to get the filler put in to even out the balance.”
The now 27-year-old said her family had told her she’d had too much, but it wasn’t until she saw herself on TV that reality hit.
“It wasn’t until I saw myself on screen, where I saw myself talking to people and where I wasn’t posing and looking in the mirror,” she said.
“We all know we look different when we pose in the mirror, I felt like I totally screwed up my face.”
While documenting the process of dissolving the filler, she said she was “too embarrassed” to show the initial results.
“It was hard to see that my lips were really wrinkled, they looked like a deflated balloon because they were stretched,” she said.
Faye has previously revealed that her lips were stretched so much from the 4.5ml she injected that after it dissolved, she had to have a small amount of filler added because “there was no elasticity left in my lips.”
BBC Five Live also showed data from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) suggesting there was a 7.5 per cent decline in cosmetic facials this year compared to 2022.
Dr. Kathryn Lloyd-Thomas, an aesthetic practitioner based in Cardiff, told the BBC she thinks some people are ‘too embarrassed’ to let their treatments dissolve.
“Faye is such an extreme case of such a large amount of filler,” she said. “Her lips may never be the way they were – which is worrying.”
But Dawn Knight of the Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners, a body dedicated to promoting good practice in the cosmetic industry, told MailOnline that celebrity stories of regret had “no doubt” inspired mainstream Brits to reverse procedures too .
“There was part of the initial drive, the initial problem, and we’re now seeing people trying to fix it,” she said.
But Ms Knight added that the BAAPS figures could be misleading as they represent only the more expensive and regulated part of the market.
“That’s coming from a cohort of regulated members of BAAPS, so I’m not sure that’s an accurate reflection of where the market is,” she said.
Ms Knight said with so many unregulated providers offering Botox and fillers in the UK it was hard to pinpoint real trends in the industry.
“It would be difficult to say that there is a decline across the industry,” she added.
“But young people who are influenced by these celebrities don’t have the disposable income to go to the top,” she said.
Under current rules, an aesthetic practitioner in the UK does not need any mandatory qualifications to carry out such procedures.
It means that anyone can follow a course and then perform filler treatments on the public.
The non-surgical cosmetic industry, which includes procedures such as Botox injections and fillers, has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years.
Last month it appeared that the number of complaints about such procedures had reached a record high.
Save Face, a national registry of practitioners and clinics, received 2,824 complaints last year.
The figure, including treatment complications, was a quarter higher than in 2020.
A new industry licensing regime is being planned, but critics say the government is taking too long to implement.