The sell
Advertising rules, finance, pressure, and claims that run far ahead of the evidence behind them.
Before and after photographs, and what the advertising rules require
Permitted in principle, heavily constrained in practice. Most of what you see would not survive a complaint.
Finance and buy now pay later for cosmetic treatment
Credit arranged inside a clinical appointment is a sales instrument. Here is what to check, and the one protection worth understanding.
Pressure selling in aesthetics, and how to recognise it
Pressure in this sector rarely looks like pressure. It looks like generosity, expertise and concern, which is why naming the devices individually is the only defence that works.
Treatments marketed far beyond their evidence
A pattern rather than a list. Here is how a treatment with a thin evidence base is sold as though it had a thick one, and how to test any claim yourself.
Non surgical alternatives to surgery: what that claim hides
A non surgical treatment can be a reasonable choice. It is rarely an equivalent, and the word alternative does a great deal of quiet work.
Social media and influencer promotion of cosmetic treatments
The rules that apply to a magazine advertisement apply to a post. Most of this content does not comply, and the person it misleads is the reader.
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.