A new wave of beauty bars aims to make injectables as easy as a drive-thru

The American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reports last year, Botox was the No. 1 aesthetic procedure since 1999 - up 16.3 percent from the year before. Fillers were up 12 percent. That could be because they can be available at various beauty pop up shops sometimes in salons.

Botox relaxes muscles to not form wrinkles. Filler is space occupying material that enhances features like lips or cheeks.

The problem is a lot of complications can happen when medical procedures are done by untrained professionals in pop-up shops.

Kelsey Seybold's board certified dermatologist Dr. Kenne Ogunmakn said you might save a dollar now by getting a cosmetic procedure done at a popup shop, but in the long run it could cost you thousands to fix a botched Botox or filler job.

"Your eyelids drop, your eyelids drop, you can have that Captain Spock look where you look surprised, you can also have double vision," said Ogunmakn.

She said fillers cause bigger problem from skin dying to open sores to blindness if it gets in a blood vessel.

"The most dangerous thing while getting any filler injection by an untrained professional is that they really don't understand the anatomy, so they don't understand the blood vessels, the nerve," said Ogunmakn.

She said pop-up shops are often cheaper, but you don't know what product is being injected into your skin or if the procedure is sterile.

"If you're going to a popup shop where you have untrained professionals, they generally don't know how to manage these complications, so they can be permanent and significantly life altering," said Ogunmakn.

She said barring any permanent damage, all that can really be done is to wait it out for the three months that it takes to run its course.

Key-Whitman Eye Center cosmetic surgeon Dr. Priya Kalyam said clients need to do a safety profile who is performing the injections.

“Should be asking, ‘is there a physician on site should there be any complications? If so, have they treated that before? Is the product they’re getting injected is FDA approved or not?,” said Kalyam.

She said fillers are especially dangerous.

“It is almost like implanting a medical device into the body because it stays there for several months. So, it has to be done under clean techniques, so you don’t accidently get infections or biofilm forming on them,” said Kalyam.

She said unlike a bad haircut that can grow out, or a nail salon, the peak effect of cosmetic procedures could take one week to 10 days. She said she follows up with patients to make sure they received the desired appearance and there haven’t been any problems.


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