Almost everyone is getting some kind of non-surgical cosmetic procedure today – the market is valued at £3.6 billion, and business is booming. Providers of facial injectables abound with practitioners operating out of regulated medical settings to the unregulated beauty parlours and hair salons. Where you go for your dermal fillers Kent matters as many have suffered from botched procedures. A recent report produced by Save Face cited 939 patient complaints – 934 were for procedures carried out by unregistered practitioners.

One would think that for a thriving industry like the non-surgical aesthetics market where invasive procedures are carried out on a patient’s face, the industry would be heavily regulated. But this has been far from the case with many practitioners who offer these procedures being untrained, unaccredited and lacking in the relevant professional skills needed to perform safe and effective procedures.

For anyone interested in having a cosmetics procedure carried out, the NHS offers an important piece of advice: choose a practitioner based on their relevant professional skills, training and insurance.

The risks of not choosing the right practitioner

Let’s face it, the facial injectable procedure is very much like a medical one and should be considered so. Yet it is surprising that the industry is not as well-regulated as other medical procedures. Almost anyone can offer this invasive procedure that requires a fine needle to administer the product under the skin, almost anywhere. This is a recipe for disaster as all sorts of things can go awry.

The nature of injections makes it so that this type of procedure needs to be performed by someone who knows what they are doing or else the product can be injected into the wrong area. Complaints and unpleasant side-effects reported by patients who entrusted their procedures to untrained hands include allergic reactions, bleeding, uneven results, infection, bruising, frozen features, headaches, paralysis at the site of injection, muscle stiffness and pain.

Why do people choose practitioners who aren’t properly trained in the use of needles? The most common answer is the difference in cost. Unlicensed practitioners lure the unwary with attractive discounts and lower price tags. Invariably, these patients end up paying dearly in other ways like a disfigured face and spending enormous amounts of money to correct the blunders.

Why dentists make for great aesthetics practitioners

You can minimise any untoward consequences of botched procedures by ensuring that you find the right professional with the right set of skills, training, and experience. For facial injectables, this would be your dentist.

There is no one equal in terms of knowledge of facial anatomy to that of a dentist. To practise as a dental practitioner, one has to undergo many years of extensive medical training – a fact that other aesthetic practitioners do not do.

In addition to core anatomical knowledge, dentists also hold sought-after skills such as clinical dexterity and artistry to help provide desirable results that are pleasing and effective. Since many of these procedures require an injection, minimising pain is another important consideration to take note of. Dental practitioners are particularly well-experienced in injecting into soft, sensitive areas of the face.