For six months after her experience with the Brazilian Butt Llift (BBL) liquid horror, Monique was able to squeeze silicone from her backside.
The procedure led to life-threatening sepsis and five weeks of excruciating pain.
Before she went in for surgery, her side turned black with holes in her skin – where, doctors discovered, she had been injected with silicone.
Silicone is not the filler commonly used for this procedure.
A liquid BBL is the process of injecting hyaluronic acid, the same material used for lip fillers, in large amounts for the buttock.
My first survey for ITV News he laid out the risks of the process and how easy it is to qualify to run liquid BBL.
I went privy to a one-day BBL course. It started with a multiple choice theory session and 30 minutes later I had a needle in my arm and was allowed to start injecting a human.
Since that initial report, more than 150 people have come forward to Save Face, a government-approved registry for beauty professionals, to complain about their BBL fluids.
In 2022, Safe Face had less than a handful of complaints about these procedures.
Their manager, Ashton Collins, told ITV News that in the last 18 months alone that number had jumped to more than 300.
It is clear to see the scale to which this issue is escalating.
Save Face: “In the last 18 months alone, we’ve had over 300 complaints”
Save Face is campaigning for the procedure to be banned after calling the standard training course a ‘danger list’.
In just over three months, Save Face has received more than 150 complaints about BBL liquids:
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More than half of these people had sepsis (53%)
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The vast majority (98%) were not sure what filler was injected
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Most of them (84%) were blocked or ignored by the people who did their BBL after the customer came back to complain
Monique said she almost died from her BBL liquid.
She was injected with silicone in a hotel room and has been left with permanent scars ever since.
She says she woke up the night after the procedure with a temperature, her ribs were red, and she was very sick. Doctors sent her to the hospital where they told her she had a serious infection.
“I stayed there for a week,” he told us.
“They drew around the redness just to make sure it didn’t spread anywhere. After a week it was still there, but it didn’t spread.”
ITV News reporter Ellie Pitt has heard from dozens of women who all say they have suffered an adverse reaction to the so-called liquid Brazilian Butt Lift treatments with physical and mental side effects
Monique said she could go back home. But when he did, the infection got worse.
He was rushed back to the hospital where he underwent emergency surgery to scrape away some of the skin and the infection. Only then did her condition begin to improve.
She described the pain as worse than childbirth: “I was in severe pain for about five weeks, excruciating pain. It was the worst pain of my life – I was on codeine.”
Monique was injected with silicone so the filler could not dissolve.
“I went to see a private surgeon,” he said.
“I paid to go and see someone and he said, ‘the only thing you can do is take it out by hand, but you’re basically going to be disfigured’. So I just let it go.”
So, with the number of complaints on the rise, what’s next for this industry and the liquid BBL process?
Save Face says they have met with the Department of Health since their report was published – but say there is still no clear solution.
Director Ashton Collins said: “We said in no uncertain terms that these treatments have to be done very, very quickly because someone is going to lose their life.”
In September 2023, the UK government decided to launch a consultation aimed at improving the safety and quality of non-surgical cosmetic procedures.
This may introduce tighter restrictions on how processes such as liquid BBLs can be performed, if at all.
It is not yet certain when the conclusion will be announced.
What to do if you or someone you know has had an adverse reaction to one of these procedures
Save Face’s advice is whether or not you feel unwell after one of these procedures “seek emergency NHS treatment”. The team says “it could literally be the difference between life and death.”
They added: “Don’t wait for your treating professional to give you advice because they often give you the wrong advice and the longer you wait, the more at risk you are.”
The team urged anyone who had experienced an experience similar to those in our report to get in touch.
Save Face said: “We are helping all people affected by these proceedings to navigate how to make complaints, seek legal action and redress.”
If you have experienced complications following a cosmetic surgery procedure, please contact Investigations@itv.com
