Sitting in a living room with 12 other women as a bottle of fizz is popped and a special guest starts unpacking a suitcase full of products, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re at a Body Shop party of old (or an Ann Summers party – quite the university halls throwback).
But instead of creating a community over discounted tubs of cocoa butter infused moisturisers or battery operated devices, the evening’s offering to bond over is the budget administration of injectable cosmetics.
Welcome to your first Botox party.
Doing exactly what it says on the… vial, Botox parties are social gatherings where people (namely women) gather to socialise in an informal setting (such as someone’s home) to receive anti-wrinkle treatment from an aesthetician.
Popularised in the States, Botox parties have made their way across the pond to the UK. With searches for ‘botox party near me’ up a whopping 300% on Google, a simple scroll of the results shows just how many practitioners are happy to offer out their services in the comfort of your home, for all your friends to enjoy… at a discounted price.
Despite being a prescription-only medicine, the restrictions on who actually administers Botox to a patient, and where they do it, are more lax.
As someone who personally receives Botox treatment in a clinical setting three times a year, I’m all for making our own decisions when it comes to how we choose to age as women – but I can’t help but feel there’s ulterior motives at play in being encouraged to play host to these female-focused gatherings. And the deeper I dug into it, I was surprised by what I found.
Typing ‘Botox party’ into TikTok, you’re immediately hit by swathes of videos featuring bright pink balloons, glasses of prosecco, sprawling snack boards and, most importantly, big groups of smiling women having a wonderful time. Why wouldn’t you want to have a similarly aesthetically pleasing afternoon of, well, aesthetic procedures?
Clarissa Bloom, relationship expert at The Stag Company, first received Botox in her friend’s dining room at one of these organised private events and found that it was a way in which to get over her fear of needles.
“I had always been too nervous to get Botox as I hate needles, so without attending there is not a chance I would have got this in the end,” she told me. “It was nice to have others in the same position, eager but scared.”
The party Clarissa attended was at a friend’s house with 12 other women, including the host’s neighbours and old school mates. “I went first, as I just wanted it out of the way, which I’m relieved about as I can’t imagine sitting around freaking out,” she explained.
The camaraderie of attending one of these Botox parties helped Clarissa – after all, safety in numbers can help shake jittery nerves. I know that when I chose my practitioner for my own Botox administration (albeit in the setting of a clinic, not a party), I made my decision based on recommendations from people I know personally.
On the other hand, you only have to look at the marketing strategy of a ‘sisterhood party’ setting to understand how it also helps the aesthetician make more sales – regardless of how nervous prospective patients are.
In 1948, Tupperware became the brand of the moment as sales skyrocketed thanks to Tupperware home parties which ‘empowered women to sell to other women, using their social networks’ – or to get straight to the point, allowed sellers to give a sales pitch under the guise of a fun, non-committal soiree.
Of course, you don’t have to buy anything – but it’s not nice to feel like the only person not taking part, right?
Add the pressures of ageing into the mix along with the normalisation of cosmetic enhancements, sprinkle on the promise of a discount and you’ve got a winning combination to get people to spend in 2025.
“If 5 or more people are treated at your party, we will offer a discount and the person hosting the evening will receive treatment at a very special price,” one London clinic writes on their website.
Another in Berkshire advertises, “As the party host, you receive your injectables treatment for FREE, and your friends receive a discounted clinic price for their treatment, too – so everyone makes saving on their treatment whilst having some quality time with friends.”
And a Buckinghamshire boutique promises, “With great discount pricing on offer for groups of 6 and above, our Botox parties are not only fun but also a very cost effective and memorable way to make sure your event goes down in style.”
And of course, these companies aren’t talking about wee plastic tubs or vibrators – these are actual medical procedures.
But then again, when you consider the fact Botox ranges in price from £100 to £350 for just one area, who can blame people for chasing a discount and the UK injectables market is predicted to reach a value of £11.7 billion by 2026.
Although the services (with a discount incentive) mentioned above are offered by trained professionals, my own aesthetic nurse, Jackie Partridge, Clinical Director of Dermal Clinic in Edinburgh, warns that this isn’t always the case.
“Botox parties are not unfortunately illegal; however they are often carried out by non-healthcare practitioners, or medics who have been struck off their medical register for unsafe practice,” she warns.
“If it’s a party, there is likely to be coercion from others to undertake a medical procedure which is again against medical recommendation where a patient should have plenty of time after a face-to-face consultation with a prescribing medic to consider if they wish to proceed or not with treatment (cooling off period). The setting of these parties isn’t clinically appropriate and often any form of consultation is rushed.”
When I first started having Botox injected four years ago, I had initially requested to have it injected in my forehead and around my eyes – and asked to have filler in my jawline. After a 45 minute consultation, Jackie made it clear that she would not be injecting Botox anywhere but my forehead, regardless of whether I would pay for extra or not. In her words, “your face is my portfolio,” and I would never receive any cosmetic work from her for the sake of it, only in areas I was starting to show signs of aging. I’ve been with her ever since.
If you replace ‘Botox party with the girls’ to ‘a person with no license or training comes to your house to try out medical procedures on you and your friends’, it suddenly doesn’t sound quite as appealing.
Unfortunately for Andrea*, the pressures of a Botox party led to her receiving too much being injected into her forehead, which resulted in her eyelids dramatically drooping – a condition known as ptosis.
“I went to a Botox party at my friend’s flat in early 2024 and we all paid a flat fee of £100 cash for our Botox. When it was my turn, I just had to tell the woman injecting us where I wanted it and, unsure of what I actually wanted I just said my forehead as that’s what everyone else was getting done,” she told me.
“As time went on and the Botox kicked in over the following days, my eyelids just seemed to droop lower and lower – I was so embarrassed I had to work from home until it wore off, which took well over a month.”
Ptosis occurs if toxin spreads into nearby muscles, or if it was injected too deep or too close to these muscles, or if the administered dose was too high. And for Andrea, it was an entirely avoidable outcome.
“I just got caught up in everyone getting it done when really I should have seen the warning signs that none of this was being carried out professionally. In hindsight it actually really reminds me of those flat parties as a teenager where someone would have a tattoo gun – you knew it wasn’t being done professionally but all your mates were getting it done so you did too,” she added.
Alongside poor practice in terms of consultation, Jackie also advised to check the product being used itself: ”If a price seems to be good to be true, stop and think. Unfortunately, there are lots of counterfeit and parallel imported drugs on the market – some don’t even carry CE marks and have risks associated with them of not being sterile.”
In fact, Scotland currently has an ongoing consultation around the regulation of non-surgical cosmetic procedures – with the hopes of making it illegal to perform aesthetic services outside of an independent clinic, or other healthcare setting regulated by Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) or a premises which is licensed by the local authority.
The news is unsurprising, given that Scotland has been dubbed ‘the worst in Europe’ for unqualified beauticians injecting customers with cosmetics.
Currently there is no legislation in the UK to prevent anyone – licensed or not – from offering these services, with the British Association of Medical Aesthetic Nurses (BAMAN), so it is crucial, as Jackie urges, to check the credentials of anyone you book with.
If you replace ‘Botox party with the girls’ to ‘a person with no license or training comes to your house to try out medical procedures on you and your friends’, it suddenly doesn’t sound quite as appealing.
Or in the words of Dr Nestor Demosthenous, ‘a plumber could inject a woman with lip fillers in the back of a van’ under the current system of voluntary regulation.
This is not to say of course, that every aesthetician who holds Botox parties are unlicensed, unprofessional and dangerous. Clarissa shared that the practitioner who administered her Botox at a party was licensed, told the attendees that they were not to drink alcohol and spent time advising each attendee, alongside providing appropriate aftercare advice. She got a service she’d been previously too nervous to get and the aesthetic nurse gained a new client.
Party or no party, when it comes to injectables (or any type of cosmetic procedure) one thing is for certain – you need to do your research. They say you miss 100% of shots you don’t take and actually, depending on who’s administering it, that’s fine with us.