The UK government treats women’s bodies as expendable: the case of the cosmetics industry

In September 2024, a 33-year-old mother from Gloucester walked into a beauty salon to undertake a liquid Brazilian butt lift, a non-surgical cosmetic procedure that involves injecting dermal filler into the buttocks to make them more rounded. She died a few hours later in hospital.

The woman, named Alice Webb, is believed to be the first woman in the UK to have died from a liquid BBL. However, she is not the first woman to have experienced serious complications following dangerous cosmetic procedures.

An investigation conducted by the TV programme  This Morning has revealed that around half of women who receive non-surgical procedures require medical assistance, and around 15% of them end up in hospital or A&E due to complications following cosmetic treatments.

Why is it that the risk of complications from cosmetic procedures is so high in the UK? The answer is fairly straightforward: the absence of regulatory action within the industry.

Shockingly, the cosmetics industry in the UK is one of the least regulated in Europe, both for surgical and non-surgical procedures.

Doctors who provide surgical operations in the private sector, often high-risk procedures that generally involve making incisions into the body, do not have to be specialist surgeons.

For non-surgical cosmetic procedures, which are most often used to refer to injectables, such as Botox or dermal fillers, there is no standardised training across the industry. Instead, the market is plagued with private providers offering brief, substandard training courses to aspiring practitioners who often have very little or no experience in the sector.

The most recent audit by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons shows that women account for 93.3% of all surgical procedures in the UK. Although there has been a significant rise in the number of men undergoing aesthetic treatments in recent years, the cosmetics industry continues to be largely driven by women customers.

Social media platforms are in large part responsible for the growing number of women seeking cosmetic surgery, pushing unattainable beauty standards on young women and pressuring them to opt for aesthetic treatment. A study by the medical journal Cureus has found 70% of young adult women to be dissatisfied with their body image, leading them to consider undertaking cosmetic procedures.

Because women represent the overwhelming majority of customers in the aesthetics industry, they are most at risk from complications arising from the unregulation of the sector. And as the number of women choosing to undergo cosmetic treatment rises, so does the extension of a public health crisis that is overwhelmingly affecting women.

Yet, the government seems unable to offer anything more than empty promises for radical change in the industry. In August last year, the Labour government laid out plans to restrict high-risk procedures, such as BBLs, to specialists and to implement a licensing scheme for fillers and Botox clinics. However, one year onwards, these promises still remain to be fulfilled.

More than a decade after the PIP scandal in 2010, when it was discovered that thousands of women had unknowingly received breast implants filled with cheap silicone prone to rupture, and the Keoghan review in 2013, which recommended the introduction of standards within the industry, the cosmetics sector continues to flourish whilst putting women’s health at risk.

The most recent calls from the Women and Equalities Committee and from the Royal College of Surgeons for the implementation of immediate regulatory action in the industry have also been met with inaction.

The dismissal of women’s concerns with regard to cosmetic treatment is not unsurprising in the context of a healthcare system that is plagued with “medical misogyny”, the systemic minimisation of women’s health issues.

According to a report by Mumsnet, around 68% of women described the NHS as “institutionally misogynistic”. Around half described having their concerns dismissed, ignored or not believed by an NHS worker because they are a woman.

The trivialisation of health complications arising from cosmetic surgery is also rooted in social stigma around women who choose to opt for cosmetic surgery, who are likely to be perceived more negatively in terms of their warmth, competence, morality and humanness.

It is also an issue anchored in financial inequality, as women from poorer backgrounds are more likely to be pressured into settling for cheaper, but less secure, clinics and practitioners.

It is no wonder that cosmetic tourism is a booming business: countries like Turkey offer cosmetic procedures that can be up to 50% cheaper than the UK, making it an extremely attractive option for women with less financial means. But it is also an incredibly dangerous option, as the product quality and standards within the industry abroad are often unbeknownst to the customer.

The government’s inaction on the matter is just another manifestation of the misogyny that ripples through our institutions unscathed and unchallenged. Once again, women’s health and lives are treated as expendable.