Love Island returned for its 11th season in June this year, with contestants sporting noticeably cosmetically-enhanced full lips, cheeks and smooth skin.
The show has created a “surge of people requesting specific looks”, aesthetician Dr Ed Robinson said, known as “the Love Island look”.
Dr Robinson said he has seen a twelve-fold increase in the number of enquiries at his Cheshire clinic since the start of Love Island, primarily from 18-24 year olds aiming to imitate the look of a reality star, or to undergo preventative treatments.
The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) recorded 9.2m botox procedures in 2022, 26.1 per cent higher than the 7.3m procedures done worldwide in 2021.
Policy Bee has estimated that 11 per cent of the UK population underwent an aesthetic treatment in 2023, and the value of non-surgical cosmetic treatments like botox and fillers in the UK was estimated at £2.75bn last year.
According to ex-Love Islander Malin Andersson, botox and ‘tweakments’ on Love Island are ubiquitous.
“It seemed so normal at the time, then even more so after Love Island when my fellow co-stars used the same doctor – so I just followed the crowd,” she said.
The number of beauty salons in the UK – including cosmetic procedure clinics and tanning salons – has increased by 31 per cent in the past five years, according to data from Experian.
Risky business
Preventative botox can be a controversial procedure.
There is some confusion over how effective, and dangerous, it is. It’s true that if you don’t yet have any fine lines, botox can help to prevent lines from forming, and it can soften pre-existing lines. But it can be risky, for a multitude of reasons.
Side effects include pain, swelling, droopy eyes and irritation. These are more likely if the treatment is not administered by a doctor or experienced professional. More serious effects include frozen tear ducts, facial asymmetry and the inability to move eyes or lips.
The government has estimated that 900,000 botox injections are carried out in the UK each year, with only around a third of these administered by doctors, according to research from University College London.
Treatments can be very expensive, with the average cosmetic appointment costing £300.
“Starting treatments at a young age meant that I used a significant portion of my savings [and] I have used credit cards to support my expenses,” Andersson said.
“With time I started to lose perception of my true self and what I looked like. I became delusional and kept thinking I needed more and more adjustments, and with hindsight I could have saved money as well as avoided some of the damaging side effects,” she added.
Dr Robinson said: “I have two concerns as a doctor – the first being that I would urge my clients to think about [cost] and secondly… that aesthetics is not about making you look like one person.
It is about small tweaks to enhance your natural appearance, not dramatically change the shape of your face… everyone needs their own bespoke and considered approach to get the best outcome for them.”
Towards tighter regulation
Last year, the Conservative government said they planned to introduce legislation to ban unlicensed providers of cosmetic treatments in England under concerns that most surgical treatment were carried out by pirate providers.
However, this was tabled with the snap election and subsequent transfer of power to the Labour party.
“Nothing has been ‘derailed’ but the timeline for a government announcement will not be expected until [later] this year,” Professor David Sines CB told the Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners in June.
“The JCCP is confident that both the Labour and Conservative administrations remain committed to the principles enshrined in the Health and Care Act, 2022 regarding the implementation of a new mandated license for the non-surgical sector in England,” he added.
It is already an offence to administer a botox treatment to someone under 18, even with the consent of a parent.