A very popular aesthetic practice, offered at broken prices on social networks, could be dangerous. Surgeons sound the alarm.
Cosmetic surgery practices, made from the living room of an apartment, that is what is concerned. In a report published in January 2025 on Tiktok, the Le Parisien media became interested in these totally illegal aesthetic medicine acts. Practitioners, who are not doctors and even present themselves as “cosmetologists”, approaches customers on social networks by offering all kinds of services in clandestine firms. All obviously at broken prices. For example, injections called “Lemon Bottle”, supposed to melt the fat of the belly, arms and chin. First problem, people carrying out these practices are supposedly formed by surgeons abroad, and have the right to practice in France. But that’s not all: the injected product is not approved in France, and can cause irreversible damage such as chronic infections, necrosis or paralysis. Needless to say, the health conditions are not met either.
In short, so far the scandal could look like many other illegal practices of injections and clandestine firms (we remember in particular the “Botox sisters”). But now, the vice is pushed even further since in the Parisian report, young women also offer liposuction. A real surgical intervention which should however be carried out only in the operating room. As a reminder, a small part of skin is cut in the belly, chin or thighs and fat is suckled with a cannula. If the operation is carried out with a liposuction device, which is normally found in approved surgical clinics (difficult to know how it landed there), it is nonetheless extremely dangerous. “”If these usurpators give a bad cannula, they can pierce the trachea!“, Explains Dr Adel Louafi, secretary general of the National Union of Plastic Surgery in the Parisian. Worse still, local anesthesia is made on the patient. A gesture that is not without threat according to the doctor:”You should know that local anesthesia itself, if it is injected into a vessel it can give a heart rate disorder and can be made a cardiac arrest.“A high risk that some are ready to take for a liposuction at € 1,000 or € 1,500, to pay in cash or on a rib abroad, as the Parisian specifies.
In France, these practices remain completely illegal and are punishable by law. “”You can kill someone on the table if you do anything with a liposuction of the neck. There are criminal complaints which are already filed and which will be in the course of investigation. Our goal is to stop these practices now, now that they start“Concludes the professional.
