‘I looked like I'd had a stroke’: Scots mum opens up about cosmetic injection nightmare

Marie Snapp booked in to have Botox and lip filler treatments after the birth of her son.

She is no stranger to cosmetic injectables, having had Botox a few times before.

But alarm bells started to sound during the appointment.

Marie, who has a background in beauty therapy, says the injector didn’t give her a safety or consent form when she arrived at the salon.

“This girl that I went to had amazing feedback,” she told Scotland Tonight. “Everybody was posting pictures and talking about how good it was and her work did look good. She looked very professional. She had her little nurse’s uniform on.

“I thought it was strange, but then again, I kept thinking maybe it’s because I spoke to her and she knows that I’m quite aware of Botox. I kept quiet. But I should have listened to my gut.”

Marie says a few hours later, one of her eyebrows moved higher and the other lower. She contacted the injector who told her to come back in so she could fix it.

She said: “I went in and then when she was injecting me again, I thought ‘oh my god’, it just felt like she was going overboard with it. Then a couple of days later I saw my face was just getting weaker and weaker, especially on one side. It was a mess.”

Marie found a group of other people online who had also suffered at the hands of the injector.

Soon after she discovered the woman had no medical qualifications, despite saying she was a nurse. The salon owner was never punished, but Marie believes as soon as word got out, she left Glasgow.

“She just blocked me,” she said. “There was no interaction. There was nothing. It was horrible and I looked horrible, and I was embarrassed as well because I just never thought I would get scammed.”

Marie now runs her own, award-winning, salon Panache Therapies. She doesn’t offer injectables.

“I’m not interested in anything that can come with major side effects,” she said. “I don’t like the thought of being in control of somebody’s toxins and other people’s bodies. I do get the treatment, but I definitely wouldn’t offer them. Like a couple of times my clients always say why don’t you do Botox? It’s just not my cup of tea.”

In the UK, there aren’t any laws restricting who can perform treatments like Botox and filler.

However, medical professionals like doctors, nurses and dentists who want to offer cosmetic injections have to pay to join an official register. But there’s no requirement for non-medics to do the same.

Marie said she’s seen a lot of inexperienced beauticians post on public Facebook groups asking for advice about what to do when Botox or filler goes wrong.

She said: “They will be like what should I do? And I’m thinking, if you don’t know, just tell them to phone a doctor, tell them to go to the chemist. But they’re asking a Facebook group full of other people that don’t know.

“Whereas if their training included all of this, and if it was governed in any way, there could be a phone number that you phone.

“When I lived in America, you had to be licensed in each state and there was a state exam you had to take. Everything was very well controlled. I feel like if there was something like that here for any procedure it would help.

“I’ve been for plenty of treatments where they’ve not said to me you know there’s risk of scarring, there’s risk of burning. They’re just going in completely clueless of what could happen, and I think that’s dangerous.”

Fiona Ross is also calling for there to be more training for people who want to offer cosmetic injectables. She owns The Aesthetics Club in Bearsden and is a qualified nurse.

She said: “Once Botox is injected into the skin, you can’t take it out. So if that’s injected incorrectly, there’s a huge risk that problems could arise and those problems can last for a number of weeks. They can last up to 12 weeks.

“If dermal fillers are injected into a blood vessel that’s going to block the blood supply to the tissue. It can also lead to complications such as visual disturbances and blindness. That can be irreversible.”

Fiona says it’s important for people who are injecting clients to have a medical background.

“We know the protocols to follow and know how to manage these problems quickly and effectively,” she said. “Someone who doesn’t have a medical background maybe wouldn’t spot a complication quite so early on and have the tools to treat it effectively.”

When asked by Scotland Tonight how she feels about cheap anti-wrinkle injectable treatments being offered across the country, Fiona said: ‘In the UK we’re seeing a huge amount of cheap products coming to market and they’re not science-backed.

“There’s not a huge amount of research behind them to show that they are safe and that and that they’re appropriate for treatment. And with that, because of their lower price point, they often fall into non-medic hands, which can lead to a whole host of other problems.

“You’re paying for the experience, you’re paying for the aftercare should you need it, and I think that’s something that people need to be aware of, and need to really consider when they’re making the decision about who their injector is.”

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