Fashion-conscious teens booking Botox and fillers to achieve ‘perfect Instagram face’ after ‘Love Island surge’

SELF-conscious teens have been booking Botox and fillers in a bid to achieve the perfect Instagram face after practitioners saw a “Love Island surge”.

But ministers finally put their foot down, in a huge win for The Sun’s ‘Had Our Fill’ campaign, and banned children from getting the risky treatments.

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Damning figures revealed over 41,000 procedures were carried out on under 18’s last year alone – as there was no legal age limit.

The tough new laws now require businesses to verify a client’s age before any cosmetic enhancements can be carried out – or practitioners will be prosecuted.

The new Act now requires a doctor, registered medical practitioner, or a health professional to administer the jabs where there is a medical need in kids, to avoid brutal botches that disfigure youngsters forever.

Now Health Minister Nadine Dorries has spoken out about the regulations that will control an industry that is fuelled by “pressure from social media to look a certain way.”

The ban will come into force from October 1 and hopes to “protect” our children, while stifling the “boom” of teens aiming to achieve the “Instagram face” that Dorries dubbed “utterly unrealistic”.

She wrote in the Mail On Sunday: “We’re all under constant pressure to look our best. We are bombarded by advertisements and on social media with images of bodies that are utterly unrealistic for us to have any hope of matching.

“No wonder a recent poll showed that 80 per cent of girls and young women have considered using surgical procedures to change their appearance, with the primary reason to improve their self-confidence.”

The mental health advocate described it as “a deeply depressing statistic” and slammed the increase in people pursuing a “so-called ‘Instagram Face'”

Teens are “seeking cosmetic procedures such as Botox and fillers to give them the high cheekbones, cat-like eyes and full lips seen in the heavily airbrushed photos that celebrities post on social media,” she continued.

“No child needs cosmetic procedures unless for medical reasons. Their physical and mental development is not complete.”

The Act will bring non-surgical cosmetic procedures under the same age restrictions that apply to other body modifications such as tattoos, teeth-whitening and the use of sunbeds.

The Health Minister admitted she had used Botox in the past in an attempt to “hold back the years”.

“But far too many people have been left emotionally and physically scarred after botched cosmetic procedures,” she wrote.

PROTECT OUR CHILDREN

Contemporary social media stars and TV shows such as ITV2’s Love Island and Keeping Up With The Kardashians have become a focal point of the surge in treatments.

Many of the stars appear to have enhanced their features while some regularly boast about their non-surgical touch ups.

This year’s series sparked a 37% rise in searches for lip filler appointments in just the first two weeks of it airing, according to campaign group Save Face.

It also featured a memorable row between contestants when Hugo Hammond said he found “‘fake looks and personality unattractive,” much to the irritation of self-confessed filler lovers Sharon Gaffka and Faye Winter.

In contrast, one of the dating show’s most successful stars, Molly-Mae Hague, has documented reversing her lip fillers and other non-surgical procedures as she now prefers a more natural look.

Some practitioners have even tried to entice impressionable youngsters by offering treatments named after celebs such as Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, alongside their images, suggesting clients can achieve the exact same look.

HORROR STORIES

Complaints regarding botched Botox and lip fillers have risen tenfold in just five years, Save Face said, after they recorded 2,083 last year, up from 217 in 2016.

Horror stories of necrosis, blindness, blood clots and even patients having parts of their faces REMOVED often sweep the internet.

One woman was just 16 when she had her lips and cheeks plumped trying to look like Kylie Jenner, but was left with uneven lips filled with hard, white lumps that were so big she was unable to speak.

An influencer went viral after having an allergic reaction when getting her lip fillers dissolved – seeing her whole face swell up as her lips ballooned.

One woman told how she was left unable to leave the house for a year, covered in huge pus-filled boils and almost blinded after receiving dodgy Botox and fillers.

Another young mum was raced to hospital after fillers caused her lips to swell to twice their size and turn blue, before she got sepsis.

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