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BACKYARD beauticians are illegally performing cosmetic procedures such as Botox injections, fillers and surgical nose jobs, which only doctors and specialists are qualified to do.
 Working out of makeshift clinics in their homes and advertising online, they charge cut-rate fees, with Botox jabs to smooth out wrinkles starting at $200. A trained general practitioner would charge about twice that, and a plastic surgeon, up to $2,000.
These beauticians are apparently doing well too, with some claiming that they see at least two clients a day.
The Straits Times found five beauticians touting such services on two websites frequented mainly by Chinese nationals. Their advertisements promise to get rid of a variety of skin problems for between $200 and $1,000.
When contacted, all five said the treatments would be administered in their homes. Two offered house calls.
Following a tip-off from this newspaper, officers from the Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of Manpower and the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) conducted raids at two locations late last night.
They spent more than one hour at the Landmark Tower condominium in Chinatown, and collected three plastic bags containing fat dissolver, placenta and antibiotics. They were found in a mini fridge in the bedroom.
At a Bukit Batok Housing Board flat, officers from the three agencies questioned a woman running the outfit and
took down her particulars.
Before last night’s raids, reporters who first posed as prospective customers visited one “clinic” each.
The first was in a well-maintained, rented three-room Chinatown apartment. The set-up was simple – two beds in a walled-up, air-conditioned balcony and a glass case containing what appeared to be medical products.
A 31-year-old who gave her name as Lily rattled off her menu of services: Botox injections from $200, nose bridge filler jabs for $500.
During the consultation, she donned a white coat and showed a folder with information on the procedures.
Asked if there had been botched jobs, she declared that her treatments had “no side effects whatsoever”.
“I have eight years’ experience,” she said in Mandarin, and added that the Botox she used was imported from the United States, “the same as what is used everywhere in the world”.
Asked if she was a registered doctor, she admitted she was not, but claimed she was licensed in China and had practised here for “a long time”.
Checks with the management of her building revealed her to be a work permit holder and a clerk.
When asked for an alternative to filler injections to enhance the bridge of the nose, Lily replied that she could do surgical rhinoplasty or nose jobs. This procedure, to be booked in advance, would be done “somewhere else”, she said.
Her “clinic” is known among regulars as Tian Shi Li Sha Long, or Beautiful Angels Salon. None of her clients – even those pleased with her work – would speak to The Straits Times.
But the building’s 56-year-old security guard, who declined to be named, confirmed that Lily’s clients appeared to be Chinese nationals in their 20s, all “pretty and fashionable”.
The other “clinic” The Straits Times visited, a spartan two-bedroom unit on the second level of a row of shophouses in Bukit Batok, was run by two sisters known only as Zhang Di and Hong Mei, who appeared to be in their 40s.
Zhang Di declined to give the exact address when contacted, insisting instead on meeting at a bus stop nearby.
The sisters said treatments were done in a bedroom. They claimed they could make a person’s face look slimmer or fuller by injecting “synthetic cells” into the jaw – $500 for two jabs.
Hong Mei showed “before” and “after” photos of her clients, and claimed to have 20 years’ experience.
The sisters said they did two procedures a day, using a stock of China-imported “synthetic cells” kept in a refrigerator in the kitchen.
When The Straits Times later told Lily that her “client” was actually a reporter,
she claimed to know nothing about the online ad and said she had probably been “framed”. She also denied offering aesthetic procedures, saying she was in Singapore to learn the ropes of the trade.
When asked, she could not name the school where she was being trained. The Bukit Batok sisters feigned ignorance when told they had been visited by a reporter, and denied offering cosmetic procedures.
Plastic surgeons The Straits Times contacted expressed concern over these backyard beauticians.
Associate Professor Ivor Lim, who chairs the Chapter of Plastic Surgeons within the College of Surgeons Singapore, warned that cosmetic procedures done by unlicensed individuals had a “high chance” of going wrong, either as a result of non-sterile environments or the use of potentially dangerous substances,
including a China-made Botox imitation called “Chitox”.
Agreeing, plastic surgeon Chua Jun Jin listed the risks – scarring, bleeding, and damage to the facial structure.
Dr Lam Pin Min, the chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Health and an ophthalmologist, said it was “disturbing” that unlicensed people were performing invasive procedures and called on MOH to step in.
Regulations binding the $200-million a year aesthetic industry here were tightened in 2008, on the back of concerns over botched cosmetic jobs overseas. But the tightened rules apply only to the medical fraternity. They lay down the training requirements for doctors – that is, non-plastic surgeons – who want to carry out aesthetic procedures.
MOH said yesterday, in response to queries, that because Botox is a prescription medicine, only registered medical practitioners can prescribe it.
Its spokesman urged the public to seek medical services only from registered medical doctors. The spokesman added that if these beauticians are found guilty of causing hurt through a rash or negligent act which risks someone’s life or safety, they may be fined, jailed or receive both a jail term and fine.
The HSA, the regulator of health products sold here, said Botox and other injectable preparations for use in humans are treated as medicinal products, and that individuals who intend to sell or supply them must have a licence to do so.
A separate licence must be obtained to import a medicinal product, failing which, an individual can be fined up to $5,000, jailed up to two years, or receive
both a jail term and fine.
Additional reporting by Mavis Toh
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