Checks before you agree
The verification you can do yourself, in public, for nothing, before anyone touches you.
How to check the person injecting you is on a public register
Four regulators publish free, searchable registers. Here is how to use them, what each entry proves, and what to do when nobody can find the person at all.
What a consultation must cover before a cosmetic procedure
A consultation is not a sales appointment with a medical name on it. Here is the information that has to be given to you, who has to give it, and what its absence means.
Informed consent for cosmetic treatment, and what makes it valid
Consent needs capacity, information and freedom from pressure. Cosmetic sales practice regularly undermines the third and quietly thins the second.
Cooling off, and why same day treatment should worry you
There is no general statutory cooling off period for cosmetic procedures. There are consumer cancellation rights in some circumstances, and a professional expectation of time to reflect. Those are different things.
The questions that make a bad provider uncomfortable
Twelve questions, what a good answer sounds like, and why the reaction to the question is more useful than the answer itself.
How to read a clinic website for what it does not say
Marketing is largely about emphasis. The useful information is usually present, usually small, and usually located a long way from the photographs.
Why we do not rank clinics, and what we publish instead
Every list of best clinics in Britain was assembled by someone who did not visit them. We publish the verification method instead, and we explain why that is the more useful object.
Is this clinic registered with the CQC, and does it have to be?
Some cosmetic services must register with a health regulator. A great many non surgical treatments fall outside registration entirely, and the difference is not obvious from the outside.
Indemnity insurance in aesthetics, and why to ask to see it
Indemnity is the mechanism by which a successful claim is actually paid. Without it, winning a case against a practitioner can be worth very little.
This article contains no commercial links of any kind. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements, and no links to any clinic, practitioner, brand, product or retailer. Nobody paid for it, nobody previewed it and nobody outside the editorial team saw it before publication.
This publication does not name, rank, rate or review any clinic or practitioner, because it has assessed none of them. Our funding is set out in full on the about page and in our editorial standards.
Nothing here is medical or legal advice. Speak to a qualified clinician about your own circumstances, and to a solicitor about a claim.
When the rules change, we will tell you
One email when a law or a regulator's guidance changes in a way that alters what you should check, and when a new article is published. No treatment offers, no product recommendations and no clinic suggestions, because we do not make any.